On June 9th, 2019 I was blessed to be able to preach on Pentecost Sunday. When I said I would preach however I had no idea we had so many choices of readings, including totally different vigil readings to that of Mass during the day!
Here are the links for the readings:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/060919-vigil.cfm
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/060919-day.cfm
Easter season is coming to an end and here in Massachusetts we now enter our pine pollen season!! All kidding aside, however, over the Easter season, our liturgy, our Church, and the Holy Spirit have taken us on an amazing journey until today’s celebration of not just Pentecost, but also the birth of our Church! No worries, I will NOT torture you with a poor rendition of singing happy birthday to our Church but it is indeed a monumental celebration today!
During the Easter season, we had many “Holy Spirit” moments. The bishop was here for our confirmation where the confirmandi received the Holy Spirit. Our diocese also joined in a novena to the Holy Spirit to ask for a strengthening of the 7 gifts in each of us, the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, understanding, piety, and fear of the Lord. We held several baptisms, our second graders received their first communion, myself as well as 8 other men with me, received the sacrament of Holy Orders as permanent deacons in the Fall River Diocese, and our friend, Fr. Ryan Healy received the sacrament of Holy Orders as a priest for the Fall River diocese. Now today we wear red vestments to symbolize the presence of the Holy Spirit that is indeed alive and well in our little East Taunton Church just as it was over 2000 years ago.
For a moment, let’s try to go back in time and imagine what it was like so many years ago. Jesus had been put to death around 40 days ago. The followers of Christ were floundering around a bit, still a little lost. Jesus ascended 10 days ago and told them to remain in the city and wait for the Helper, the Paraclete. They listened, and now they have all gathered around together and were celebrating the Jewish Feast of Weeks also known as Pentecost where Jews would travel to Jerusalem to celebrate their delivery from slavery into freedom and the covenant Law that God delivered to Moses at Mt. Sinai.
Suddenly the promise that the Holy Spirit would arrive came to fulfillment. There was a sound like a strong wind. Tongues as of fire came to rest on each of them. They spoke in tongues and those gathered could understand their speeches even though they were foreigners to each other. This was very different from the story of the Tower of Babel where, in their arrogance, the people thought they could build a tower to God. To put an end to this silliness God came down and confused their language and stopped them from building such a tower. At Pentecost, we see just the opposite. The Holy Spirit gives them all the spirit of understanding, even of languages they are not familiar with. With this divine action, the Holy Spirit is about to give birth to a heavenly “city” on earth, the Church. The original Law that God wrote on the stone tablets for Moses to give to God’s people at Sinai will now be written on our hearts instead.
This also got me thinking - what would be the result if this event happened today in time. If right now in our Churches we heard the driving wind and tongues of fire came to rest on each of us what would happen? Odds are the Churches sprinkler system would kick in and extinguish the flames.
Then that line of thinking got me wondering - what are the things in our lives that do just that, extinguish the flame of the Holy Spirit that should always be burning within us.
Is there some sin, some passion that is contrary to the Holy Spirit that we allow to put out that flame? Is it too much time at work? To much time put into lawn care or sports or cleaning or anything that moves God to the side and becomes a fire extinguisher to the flame of the Holy Spirit.
Instead, we need to find the things that will fuel the fire of the Holy Spirit making it stronger than those other passions! These things should include prayer, forgiveness, reading scripture, rosaries, frequent reception of the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confession. Eucharistic adoration is great kindling to help fuel the fire of the Holy Spirit - we have this here in our Holy Family Parish, Monday through Friday 11 am to 10 pm in the Parish Center Chapel. There are many other things to help fuel the fire, this is not an exhaustive list, what ideas can you come up with?
So why would we want to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit burning in us? In our choices of readings today we see several reasons to keep the fire of the Holy Spirit going:
- Without the Spirit, we could not say Jesus is Lord.
- The Spirit is manifested in each of us for some benefit, pray about what that is and use the manifestation to build up the Church.
- If we have the Spirit alive in us we also have Christ alive in us as well, they go hand in hand!
- By allowing us to be led by the Spirit we become children of God. We receive a Spirit of adoption that allows us to cry “Abba, Father!”
- If we are children of God then we are also joint heirs with Christ.
- If we have the Spirit then the whole trinity makes it’s dwelling within us!
- The Spirit will also come to the aid of our weakness and will teach us how to pray properly.
That’s probably where we need the Spirit the most, to teach us how to pray properly to assist us in our weaknesses. If we can do this properly then the fire of the Spirit will not be extinguished when we leave the parking lot (or even before that) but will remain burning brightly all week long! We no longer light the Easter candle at Sunday Mass but we must remember to keep that flame burning in our hearts, burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit and take that flame out into the world with us.
This week let's all ponder this prayer from St. Augustine:
O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.
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