PENTECOST SUNDAY YEAR "B"

PENTECOST SUNDAY Year “B”

God the Father’s work is to create the world. The Son’s mission is to redeem it. And the Spirit’s? Couldn’t think of him being laid off and on the dole!  So let me tell you about the Catholic gentleman who was a perfectionist. He left the Catholic Church because he saw a lot of things wrong with it. (He wasn’t entirely off the wall, since Pope John XXIII called the Catholic Church a church of sinners on pilgrimage). So this perfectionist Catholic went from place to place, looking for the perfect church, entering and leaving them in quick succession as he found them imperfect. He had gotten into the imperfect tense when came the happy day when he did find the “perfect church!” Dreams fulfilled, prayers answered, the search was over. He told the boss his story and concluded: “And now I shall enter your perfect church.” And the boss answered, “Oh, no, you won’t, for as soon as you do, it will become imperfect.”

If any outsider declares that the Catholic Church is packed with fools and charlatans, we can assure him that there’s room for one more. How the Church has survived despite its fractious factions when the Roman and British empires have collapsed; how the Church has survived, what with all its troubles within and problems without can only be answered by the last paragraph of the Apostles’ Creed which we recite every Sunday: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church,” or, more correctly, “I believe in the Holy Spirit who animates the Church, who builds and sustains the Catholic Church, who preserves the communion of saints, who operates the forgiveness of sins, who brings about the resurrection of the dead and honours the pledge of life everlasting.” St. Paul states openly that the divine Spirit dwells in the human body. He is like blood that pervades every millimetre of the body. The Church is the Body of Christ, and the Spirit is its soul. And since the soul has not left the body, how can the body fall apart and corrupt? Today’s feast tells us that the Holy Spirit continues to be present in the church. And, let me add, that presence is a loving presence. Presence without love is as destructive as love without presence.

Apart from baptism, the sacrament of confirmation signals the abandonment and submission to the power of the Spirit; it signals the empowerment that results from the Spirit’s presence. The person who abandons herself to the sway and power of the Holy Spirit is led to live according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh. The people who are empowered by life in the Spirit are known by the fruits they bear. Their lives are fragrant with peace, patience, kindness, long-suffering, gentleness, truthfulness, single-hearted love of God and neighbour. The absence of the Spirit is evident by sentiments of hatred, jealousy, envy, greed, lust and despair. With the Holy Spirit in our heart we are sure where are preferences lie.

Take the case of St. Peter. The Spirit would push Peter to Rome to preach the Word and to die for it. That was the best thing that happened to him since it came from deeper and more mature spontaneity, the type of spontaneity that makes you rush to the rescue of children screaming in a burning building or a train crash or bomb blast, the mature spontaneity that makes you speak in defence of someone unjustly treated, to open your heart to a poor person.

That’s the Spirit (with a capital “S”). When we let the Spirit take over our lives, the best is yet to happen.

The famous Protestant charismatic preacher, Rev. Moody, once said, “You might as well try to hear without ears or breathe without lungs, as try to live a Christian life without the Spirit of God.”

Let me end with another little story.

A little girl was visiting her grandmother in a small country town in southern United States. Grandmother took the girl to a highly charged Pentecostal function. The people got all worked up and expressed their feelings by jumping about and shouting. It was another of those “Holy Roller” services. The little girl asked her grandmother if all that leaping meant that the Holy Spirit was really present. Her grandmother said, “Honey, it doesn’t matter how high they jump; it’s what they do when they come down that will tell you if it is the real thing.” My comment is that it would be good if we were a little more enthusiastic about our faith, but what matters is what we do in everyday life. Does the Holy Spirit have a practical effect on our daily life, and in what way? As someone put it, “We do not need more of the Spirit. Rather, the Spirit needs more of us.”

PRAYER: (Hildegaard of Bingen, 1098 – 1179)

Holy Spirit, the life that gives life,

You are the cause of all movement,

You are the breath of all creatures,

You are the salve that purifies all souls,

You are the ointment that heals all wounds,

You are the fire that warms our hearts,

You are the light that guides our feet.

Let the world praise you.