Pentecost Sunday

Dominica Pentecostes
30-31 May 2020

[Words in brackets refer to variations of this homily depending on whether the Mass and Scripture readings were the Pentecost Vigil with RCIA entrance into the Church, or the Mass and Scripture readings for Pentecost Sunday.]

Pentecost is one of the greatest solemnities of our faith, observing the descent of the promised Holy Spirit filling the Church and disciples, both in ancient times and now, with God’s gifts for mission.  We should understand that some of our feasts have origins in the Jewish faith.  Others are unique to Christianity.  For example, Christians observe Easter which has a connection to Passover.  The Jewish feast of Passover does not observe the same thing as Easter, but they roughly line up on the calendar and in other languages the word for ‘Easter’ bears stronger resemblance to the word for ‘Passover’ than does the English word.  Words like ‘Pascha’ and ‘Pasqua.’  As another example, our feast of the Ascension, the Lord’s return in glory to Heaven, is purely Christian and has no Jewish antecedent.  As a feast, Pentecost has Jewish origins.  In fact, it is one of the three most solemn feasts of the Jewish faith.  As a term, “Pentecost” refers to the “fiftieth day,” since the Jewish feast of Pentecost falls fifty days after the Passover.  The Passover celebrated God’s saving work to bring His people out of slavery.  Upon leaving Egypt the People of Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai about fifty days later (cf. Ex. 19).  Jewish Pentecost originally celebrated the harvesting of grain and the offering to God of the first fruits of the earth.  Later, Jewish Pentecost came to be an important remembrance of God’s giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.  Thus, as an aspect of Jewish faith, Pentecost observed God’s establishing of a covenant in stone with the giving of the Ten Commandments.  It was in part this Jewish feast day that had the apostles, Mary, and other disciples gathered in Jerusalem when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son took place, thus marking the beginnings of the transition of Pentecost into a Christian feast.  The Church now concludes the Holy Season of Easter with this great solemnity of Pentecost, coming fifty days since Easter Sunday.

From reading the Scriptures you know that prior manifestations of the Holy Spirit had the Spirit descend in the form of a dove (at Jesus’ baptism).  What is significant about His descending in the form of fire as Acts of the Apostles tells us about Pentecost Day [Sunday: in today’s first reading]?  Why the form of fire?  There is a simple but profound answer.  Recall the origin of the Jewish feast of Pentecost observing the People of Israel arriving at Mt. Sinai where God gave the Law.  Exodus 19 [Vigil: tonight’s second reading] tells us what happened on Mt. Sinai as God came down to His people and spoke to them through Moses.  Exodus 19 says, “Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the Lord came down upon it in fire.  The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently” (Ex. 19).  Thus, fire serves as a sign of the divinity of the Holy Spirit who comes down upon His chosen and redeemed people, not to write His law in stone, but in their hearts [Vigil: as the reading from Ezekiel tonight prophesied].  The Holy Spirit descending in fire serves as a further connection to the fulfillment of God’s past actions in the New Covenant established by the Son, Jesus Christ.  Just as the Passover and the Exodus of old are fulfilled in the exodus of Jesus’ death and resurrection, so the Jewish Pentecost of old is fulfilled in God the Holy Spirit descending upon the Church in the form of fire.

For us as Christians Pentecost does not observe God’s covenant with us in stone.  Rather, we might say that we celebrate at Pentecost that God’s covenant with us has come closer and deeper than commandments on stone tablets.  Since Jesus tells his disciples that it is better that he leaves them so that he can send the Holy Spirit, we might even go so far to say that God’s covenant with us has come still closer and even deeper than when God the Son took on our flesh and showed us divine love in human form.  We can make this claim because at Pentecost we observe that if we believe in the Lord Jesus and accept his word and commands, then the Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell within us, to animate us with the very life, power, and love of God.  The question, then, for each of us to consider is whether I give God a tender and receptive flesh, heart, and soul in which to take up residence as in a temple?  Or do I give God only a stony heart in my relationship with Him?

The responsibility that we each must take for our daily prayer life and our moral living, and the strength from God which comes from the life of the sacraments [Vigil: which you are about to receive] are meant to make us greater temples of the Holy Spirit, more pleasing to God, and more closely conformed to the image and likeness in which we were made, but which sin has disfigured and which sin still disfigures.  [Next follows two alternate endings of the homily.  The first was given at the Extended Form of the Pentecost Vigil at which the RCIA class entered the Church after COVID-19 closures delayed their normal entrance at the Easter Vigil.  The second was given at the regular Pentecost Sunday Mass.]

[RCIA: I am so delighted for each of you this evening.  After many weeks of delay, we arrive at such a solemn opportunity to recognize the journey of faith you have been on.  We give thanks to God for all the origins of that faith that has led you, the unbaptized, to enter life in Christ, and we give thanks to God for the origins of that faith that you, the already-baptized, received in other communities.  You have prayed, and studied, and worked to arrive at this moment.  It is fair to say by faith you have already become Catholic.  Tonight, we finally make that official and formal by your entrance into sacramental life and full initiation into the Church.  Thank you for your perseverance and your patience.  I am confident these past many weeks that God has been giving each of us grace, and doing something to prepare us for a mission none of us could predict.  Much like the apostles and disciples who did not know what to expect on that first Christian Pentecost, so we must strive and thirst, as the Gospel said, to drink the rivers of living water that the Holy Spirit provides within us, so that we live a deeper life with God and are prepared for the mission He will ask of each of us: a mission to go out and to make disciples.  Your thirst is met by the living water of daily prayer.  But never forget that the Father had a very specific living water in mind for His people, a living water prophesied and prefigured throughout centuries, finally inaugurated in the covenant of Jesus the Son, placed within us by the Holy Spirit, and meant to be experienced and increased by the life of the sacraments that will now mark your Catholic faith.  Give God a tender receptive flesh, heart, mind, and soul to live intimately with Him now and so to have the hope of the eternal communion of Heaven.]

[Sunday: I am confident these past many weeks that God has been giving each of us grace, and doing something to prepare us for a mission none of us could predict.  Much like the apostles and disciples who did not know what to expect on that first Christian Pentecost, so we must strive and thirst, as other Gospels say, to drink the rivers of living water that the Holy Spirit provides within us, so that we live a deeper life with God and are prepared for the mission He will ask of each of us: a mission to go out and to make disciples.  Your thirst is met by the living water of daily prayer.  But never forget that the Father had a very specific living water in mind for His people, a living water prophesied and prefigured throughout centuries, finally inaugurated in the covenant of Jesus the Son, placed within us by the Holy Spirit, and meant to be experienced and increased by the life of the sacraments of our Catholic faith.  Give God a tender receptive flesh, heart, mind, and soul to live intimately with Him now and so to have the hope of the eternal communion of Heaven.]