Pentecost Sunday
Cathedral of the Risen Christ
Bishop James Conley
May 15, 2016
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today, with the celebration of the great Solemnity of Pentecost, we conclude the Easter season. Today’s feast, along with Christmas and Easter, is one of the most solemn celebrations of the liturgical year. Pentecost has a rich history, with its roots stretching back even into the Old Testament.
Pentecost commemorates an historical event in the life of the Church, the account of which we just heard proclaimed in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. This event took place 50 days after the Resurrection, hence the name Pentecost. The apostles of Jesus, along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, were all gathered in prayer in the “upper room” and the Holy Spirit came down upon them in the form of tongues of fire and filled them with the divine presence of God. The red vestments we are wearing today remind us of the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Pentecost also fulfills a promise that Jesus made over and over on many occasions to his disciples before he ascended to the right hand of the father. Today in the gospel from St. John, we hear that promise. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always… The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
One of the most important aspects of this promise of Jesus in sending the Holy Spirit is this aspect of remembrance. The Holy Spirit “will teach you everything and remind of all that I told you.”
It seems to me that when we lose our way in life, when give into temptation, when get our priorities mixed up and make bad choices and fall into sin, it is because we forget! We forget who we are. We forget that God is right here with us. We forget that we are children of the Father who are called to holiness. We forget that we are not made for this world, but are destined for eternal life in heaven. We forget all of these things when we choose to the way selfishness, pride, vanity, lust, gluttony, hatred, self-gratification, and all the many ways we can disobey God.
The Holy Spirit was sent to help remind us of who we are and where we are headed and how we are to get there.
It was no coincidence that the Holy Spirit came while the Jews were preparing for their own feast of Pentecost, a feast they called the Feast of Weeks or shavout. This was the culmination of a seven week period (50 days) after Passover. This was the reason why so many Jews were in Jerusalem at this time of the year; Jews from “every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem” according to the Book of Acts.
Shavout, or the Jewish Pentecost was a celebration of the harvest’s completion, and a remembrance of the Lord giving the law—the Torah—to Moses and the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai. The Jewish people knew, like we know, that it is easy to forget the good things the Lord has done for us. It is easy forget that the Lord is right here with us. I is forget that we are called to higher things.
In some ways, shavout—Pentecost—was a celebration of what it meant to Israel to be a child of God. The Jewish people celebrated shavoutto remember that Almighty God revealed himself to them in the law which he gave to Moses, and to remember, and offer thanksgiving, for the land, and nation, and harvest he gave them.
Of course, God reveled himself to the people of Israel in the law, and the prophets, and the covenants he made with Abraham and his descendants. But keeping the law of Moses, in a special way, was a defining part of what it meant to be a part of the nation of Israel, a faithful son or daughter of God. Israel knew it was a people formed by the law of the Lord.
It is not a coincidence that the Holy Spirit came to the Church during this celebration. Instead, the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost—shavout—as a sign, that the Church founded by the Jesus Christ, and made alive in the power of the Holy Spirit, was the fulfillments of the laws, prophecies, and covenants God had made with Israel.
The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost as a sign that following Jesus is the fullness of what it means to be a faithful son or daughter of God the Father, and a sign that Church, borne at Pentecost and made alive by the Holy Spirit, is in the fullest sense, the people formed by the law of the Lord. The great theologian Romano Guardini says that the Church is “a people in the Holy Spirit…a nation of all who believe in the Lord.”
Pentecost is the fulfillment of God’s formation, revelation, and covenants with the people of Israel: it is the birth of the new Israel, the Church, a people bound in unity by the Holy Spirit for the salvation of the world.
The Holy Spirit comes to guide the Church, to protect it, to make it possible to spread the Gospel across the world to every people and nation, and to ensure that we remain faithful to the truth. Jesus says that “the Holy Spirit will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I told you.”
In Pentecost, the Holy Spirit forms a people, a nation, the Church. And the Holy Spirit equips us to live our sacred mission. And on Pentecost, Mary, the Spouse of the Spirit, gives us a powerful witness of what living a life of faith, hope, and love really mean.
Mary encountered the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation, when she became the Mother of God. She had, already, the gift of the Holy Spirit. She prayed with the Apostle in the upper room, and she prayed that they might know the Holy Spirit, as she had. When the Holy Spirit entered into the lives of the Apostles, and the Church was borne as Israel’s fulfillment, Pope Paul VI says that Mary become the “Mother of the whole Church.”
Mary, the Spouse of the Spirit, is our Mother. And we, living in this world, are a part of the mystical Body of Christ—united to her son through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to live as Christ lived, through the Holy Spirit, to be witnesses and missionaries, and disciples of the Gospel.
It is beautiful—a grace and a privilege—to live as sons and daughters of the Church, faithful followers of Jesus, alive, and made whole, and given hope, and power, and strength, through the Holy Spirit. Let us remember this always. Let us the Holy Spirit to help us never to forget this reality. And let us give thanksgiving and praise to God for the gift of the Church, and the gift of the Holy Spirit who makes us one, and makes us a people of faith, hope, and love.
