Use the Holy Spirit as our guide

Deacon Kevin Gingras

May 19, 2024

Pentecost Sunday

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051924-Vigil.cfm

Gn 11:1-9     Ps 104:1-2, 24, 35, 27-28, 29, 30

Rom 8:22-27     Jn 7:37-39

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/pentecost-sunday-mass-during-day

Acts 2:1-11      Ps 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34

1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13    Jn 20:19-23

When we adopted our daughter Faith from China we started in America with China Adoptions with Love. They were one of our guides in this overall process getting us to the point where we finally went to China.  Once there, we went to three major cities.  

In Beijing, we were a group of ten American families and we were tourists for that leg of our journey. The entire time we were there we had a guide who would translate anything we needed, answer questions, and help us understand the culture and history of China in the places we visited such as Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden or Temple Gardens, and the Great Wall.

Wuhan was the next city.  Only Allison and I traveled there and that was where we met Faith, our daughter.  We had our own personal guide there who helped us with adoption-related things like going to the agency and being able to understand what the man there was explaining.  She was also helpful when I had to go to two Chinese banks to exchange our 5,000 US Dollars for Chinese Yuan.  I even had to open a bank account for a few hours to do one exchange so you could say I’m a worldwide banker now!

In Guangzhou, the families met back up and we all shared a guide. She was very helpful with our clinic visits when the kids needed shots and checkups.  Our guide was also helpful in getting our issues fixed when it was realized Faith’s birth certificate was wrong. Without our guides in China, we would have been lost and could easily have failed in our adoption process! 

The Apostles also needed an earthly guide that Jesus promised to send in John 14:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.

That first Pentecost is when the Spirit, comes to them, to guide them out of their fear and hiding and to go boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone.  Without this guide, the Church would have never been born. Pentecost is the birth of the Catholic Church and at the first Pentecost Peter gave quite the homily:

Peter testified with many other arguments, and was exhorting them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons were added that day.

I’d be happy if one of my homilies got two or three people to be baptized, imagine three thousand!  Anyway… the Holy Spirit has played, and still plays a huge role in the Church.

In Luke, we read how the word became flesh, and how Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit:

the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

Matthew tells us how the entire trinity was present at the Baptism of the Lord:

After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

The Holy Spirit, through the priest, comes down, in a special way, at this mass and all mass throughout the world at the epiclesis, where the priest joins his hands and, holding them extended over the offerings of bread and wine, he says:

Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit graciously make holy these gifts that we have brought you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ…

Now comes the big question for us - How do we use the Holy Spirit as our guide through our journey on this crazy Earth?  How does the Spirit guide us to our ultimate, - please God - destination of Heaven?

Using the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, we can indeed be guided towards our goal.  Wisdom gives the ability to see God at work in the world.  Understanding helps us realize how we need to live as Christ’s followers.  Counsel lets us see right from wrong.  Fortitude helps us take risks as Christ's disciples and live as Christians even when it’s not easy.  Knowledge helps us better understand what God means to us.  Piety gives us the respect we need for God, the Church, and the Eucharist.  Fear of the Lord reminds us to be aware of the glory and the majesty of God.

Pray to the Holy Spirit to be your guide on earth.  Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you remain holy and humble.  Pray to the Holy Spirit for the strengthening of all seven gifts in your life.  Pray to the Holy Spirit to help you on your journey to Heaven.

I always end with a quote and today I have to leave you with this quote from St. Ephram because in my opinion he kind of sounds like Yoda when he says:

Virtues are formed by prayer. Prayer preserves temperance. Prayer suppresses anger. Prayer prevents emotions of pride and envy. Prayer draws into the soul the Holy Spirit and raises man to Heaven. 

Dual Citizenship

 

Kevin Gingras

October 18th, 2020 - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101820.cfm

When we adopted our daughter Faith from Wuhan China, yes, Wuhan, good things can come from Wuhan!  Anyway, nothing really became official until we finished up our trip to Guangzhou and were sworn in as her parents.  At the agency in Wuhan, they even told us it’s a trial run at first, kind of like test driving a used car!  God already had told us that she was our daughter but things needed to be made official.

She became an official citizen of the United States the second our plane touched down in California.  Later, in New Bedford, we filled out an American version of paperwork to officially adopt her in the United States.  It wasn’t necessary but it would make life easier for her to have an American Birth certificate.  These were very important dates for her citizenship but they don’t compare to February 21, 2010.  That was the date of her baptism.  This was the most important part of her adoption process, citizenship into the family of God.  Something she would have never received in Communist China.

You see, we all have dual citizenship, by our birth we became a citizen of an earthly nation but by our baptism we became citizens of a heavenly Kingdom.

Earthly kingdoms will have an end.  Our heavenly citizenship will last forever, eternity.  My wife says being married to me for so long is like an eternity, she has no idea!  Eternity is so much longer than that!

Dual citizenship is what struck me in today’s Gospel: 

He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?" They replied, "Caesar's." At that he said to them, "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

Caesar's image is on the coin so pay the tax, give to Caesar what has his image on it, it belongs to him.  We also should give to God what belongs to God. God’s image is on us.  We belong to him, give to God what belongs to God! 

As it is written in Genesis 1:27:

God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Our reading from Isaiah carries this even further:

I have called you by your name, giving you a title, though you knew me not. I am the LORD and there is no other, there is no God besides me.

God created us and in doing so also placed His divine image within us.  Our dual citizenship into the family of God was made official at our baptism.

CCC 1213 states:

Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission

We need to reflect on how we are doing in giving to God what belongs to him.  God doesn’t just want your presence here in the pews or watching Mass online on Sundays.  God wants your presence at church of course, but also at work, at home, at the game, in other words, all the time.  

St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they are called out specifically by God and even strengthened yet still even though Christ had already left the earth as he writes:

before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen. For our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.

This week we all should pray to the Holy Spirit to ask for that conviction to help us repay to God what belongs to God.  It isn’t easy and that is why we need the Holy Spirit’s help to take God with us when we leave here today and bring him with us everywhere by our actions, what we say and do and also by what we DON’T say and DON’T do.  Know that God is there with us, we just have to always remember His presence.  Focus on our divine vocation while carrying out our earthly jobs and tasks to make our life on this planet so much more fulfilling.

Pope Saint John Paul the II says it well:

"Jesus has a specific task in life for each and every one of us. Each one of us is hand-picked, called by name by Jesus! There is no one among us who does not have a divine vocation!"