Solemnity of Pentecost

Dominica Pentecostes
19 May 2024

 The Church concludes the Holy Season of Easter today with this great solemnity of Pentecost.  Pentecost is the celebration of that day when, after having prayed for Christ’s promised gift, the Holy Spirit descended upon the early Church, with His gifts and power being poured out upon the Apostles and disciples.  Pentecost being the birth of the Church, the Church being vivified by the Holy Spirit, is such a beautiful feast that it was a natural choice when I was choosing the date to observe with you my 25th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood.

The Church sort of “hangs out” at John’s Gospel chapter 20 at both the beginning and the end of the Easter Season.  The earlier part of John 20 is the Gospel for Easter Sunday.  One week later, on the Second Sunday of Easter, we hear from later verses of John 20.  And today for the Mass of Pentecost Sunday, we hear almost the same Gospel as from the Second Sunday of Easter, John 20.  So, what might John chapter 20 do for us in communicating what the power of the gifts of the Holy Spirit does for the disciple?  From the Easter Sunday Gospel (John 20), we heard, “On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark”.  Upon noticing that the stone was rolled back from the tomb, and noting that the Lord’s body was missing, she ran.  We might reasonably conclude there was at least some fear in her reaction and her pace to get away from the empty tomb in the darkness of early morning and back to the apostles with the news.  In the later section of John 20, which we hear today, it is later on the day of the Resurrection, and we hear, “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.”  Again, John chapter 20 notes darkness, for it is evening, and it clearly mentions this time the fear that captivated the apostles and disciples.

I think the prominence of John 20 as Easter starts and again today at Pentecost, the conclusion of the Easter Season, makes us consider the prominence of darkness and fear in the lives of disciples.  Taking note of this darkness and fear on Pentecost, then, we have a cause for gratitude to God in that the gift of the Holy Spirit helps us confront how darkness and fear limit our vocation as disciples.  Perhaps we can admit that much of our lives can be marked by darkness and fear of various kinds and to various degrees.  Darkness is not only the literal dark of early morning or night, it can refer to a lack of illumination, a lack of inspiration that can overtake us in the life of faith.  Fear is not only that which might be a cause of serious risk to us, it can refer to a lack of hope, to being locked in our own “upper rooms” whereby we fail in trust of the power of the Lord, we are lacking in trust in his peace, lacking trust that he does commission us, and that he brings about life in us through the Holy Spirit, giving us the gifts we need to do what he asks.

But the Holy Spirit, promised and given to the Church, and to individual disciples is not a spirit of darkness and fear.  It is a spirit of glorification.  John chapter 7 is a passage where the Lord mentioned living water flowing from within believers.  John 7 clarifies that the Lord was speaking with that image of the Holy Spirit, and John 7 goes on to add, “There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified” (Jn. 7:39).  The Holy Spirit then is a spirit of glory, because It follows after the glorification of the Lord and brings the presence of the glorified Lord.  Time and time again in the life of discipleship we have to acknowledge that we are engaged in a battle as we seek to leave sin behind, to proclaim the joy of God’s Kingdom, and to advance by holiness toward that Kingdom in eternity.  Time and time again, we must learn and train ourselves to act contrary to the tendency to stay in darkness and fear.  For a disciple who seeks to live in accordance with the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit, received by us, we must reject the attitude of defeat that would keep us from fulfilling our mission as witnesses in this world.  We must reject the messages that come from darkness and fear that tell us to keep our gifts hidden under a bushel basket, locked in our upper room.  In contrast to darkness and fear, we are given light and peace by the risen Lord, gifts we are to share freely, for we are called to be the light of the world and the city set on a hill that cannot be hidden (cf. Mt. 5:14).  The spirit of the world will not welcome this from us, these gifts of light and peace and faith, as we see almost every time a prominent and serious Christian opens his mouth in public, but, like it or not, it is the gift we are charged by the Lord to give to the world.

I can think of so many times in my 25 years of priestly ministry where darkness and fear had their way.  At this point in life, I think I have enough evidence to suggest that disciples should probably expect to never be done learning the lesson of battling darkness and fear.  When I was first ordained, I had no idea how many things over these 25 years the Lord and his Holy Spirit would make possible, things I could not imagine due to darkness and fear.  When confronted with new challenges or new opportunities requiring much effort, I can think of many times when my first reaction was like the frightened apostles.  The message I might hear is that I can’t do it or I don’t have enough of what it takes to accomplish some work of the Lord.  I could never have known 25 years ago the many ways I would be pulled out of darkness or out of my own locked upper room, often kicking and screaming, to do what I did not think possible.  It’s a lesson I must still learn and put into practice.  The truth is, for us disciples, we can tend to focus on the work we think we are doing for the Lord, such that we lose sight that it is the Lord of the work who has primacy.  The error we make is to first think of our own strength, our own ideas, our own abilities.  But beyond our own strength, we have been given the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit is not in the game of limiting what God desires!

The Holy Spirit is given to us to confront the darkness and fear in our age of history.  I want to conclude by highlighting only three things the world needs from us disciples to confront the darkness and fear of our age.  We are given  after all the Spirit of glory.  First, to counter the spirit of darkness that is corrupting marriage and family life, the world needs disciples like you to show a consistent sacrificial love, the stability of commitment even and especially when things are tough, and the blessing of human life, made in God’s image and likeness, which echoes the goodness of God’s choice to take on our flesh in the Incarnation.  Second, to counter the spirit of darkness that is corrupting fatherhood and leadership, the world needs disciples in the priesthood who will teach the truth without cowardice and who will be sources of stability for the flock by standing resolute against the storms of secularity, and who will remind us of the primacy of God, by leading us in worship that places all of our focus on God and what He is owed.  Thirdly, to counter the spirit of darkness that is seen by so many divisions and polarity in society, the world needs the Church to be an authentic community fostering charity and unity in community life that mirrors the life of the Blessed Trinity. By doing these things and doing them together and according to our own proper vocations we honor the order of the world God has made and we present to the world the health of the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church.  An attractive healthiness that draws others into the community.  We have been given a spirit of glory.  May we seek to promote the health and the mission of the Church by letting the Holy Spirit lead us out of darkness and fear.