PENTECOST: Acts 2:1-11; I Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23

Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise to send down the Holy Spirit after his ascension. Once, Jesus opened the scriptures in the synagogue in his native town and read from Isaiah’s prophecy that had been fulfilled in him. “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners;” (Is. 61:1 NRSV). This is the same Spirit that descended upon the disciples at Pentecost, fifty days after Easter.

Today the Church commemorates Jesus’ bequest to all of us, its members. Also, on this feast day at our Cathedrals, the Bishops celebrate the sacrament of confirmation, a sacrament of re-commitment to our faith in Jesus Christ and to his mission. The Easter Season comes to an end this weekend with this feast. Today’s readings from the Acts of the Apostles tell of the dramatic entrance of the Holy Spirit into the lives of people who have been waiting and praying for the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise. The charismatic moment comes with the Holy Spirit bursting forth like the roaring wind and dispersing tongues as of fire upon those in the room who begin to speak in languages comprehensible to all present.

After the Spirit descended, people of different languages and cultures could all hear and understand….. but what is interesting is…   the people were not speaking the same language… they were still speaking in the language of those different cultures…..  but even so… they could understand….  This is a reminder that the Spirit brings not uniformity but diversity and variety…. But we are all ONE in that diversity because the common language we speak is the language of God… and that is LOVE.

Our gifts are different. Each person has different gifts.  We need all the gifts that each person has so that we can continue the work of Christ in our world.  How different our world looks when we begin to recognise that each person brings his or her own gifts and that we need those gifts to live in the fullness of Jesus Christ.

 

The coming of the Holy Spirit takes the disciples’ fears away.  These original followers of Christ seem to need peace because that is the first greeting that the Lord gives to them:  "Peace be with you!" With peace comes the capacity to forgive the sins of others.  This forgiveness is clearly a gift of the Lord, who loves us.  This gift is given to each of us individually and also to the Church through its ministry of service. Luke pictures each person receiving this gift in a unique way: tongues of fire alight on each disciple drawing each one into a special love relationship with God and making it possible for each one to share this love gift in his/her own way. We each have our own contribution to make, our own way of speaking the word, our own way of singing the song. What keeps the community together as the church is the fact that it is Jesus’ word that we are speaking; it is Jesus’ song of love that we are singing; it is His Spirit that fires our hearts.

 

It is the peace of knowing that we are sharing in the communion of divine love that comes from his heart. This peace did not come easily to Jesus. He shows us the wounds in his hands and side, the wounds that he suffered because he refused to stop playing with fire; he refused to stop loving us. The peace he offers us will not always come easily to us. We, too, suffer hurt. That is why he offers us His Spirit, to strengthen and encourage us and to make it possible for us to rise above our hurts and continue to discover in ourselves the freedom to love. That is why he asks us to forgive: to give and give and give again and not succumb to the temptation to return hurt for hurt.

He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He missions them to his own mission. And what is that mission? “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” The mission is forgiveness.

 

Jesus is now very much present and powerfully active through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the church and in his followers of every time and place. 

On this feast of Pentecost, let us ask the Holy Spirit to direct our lives by constantly remembering and appreciating His Holy Presence within us, especially through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Let’s also listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Bible and through the good counsel of others, and by fervently praying for the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Holy Spirit.