Pentecost Sunday A

1.        Pentecost has traditionally been celebrated as the Birthday of the Church. However Liturgists have advised us not to trivialize this feast with a birthday cake and candles. Nevertheless, it is difficult to suppress the joy, the excitement, the enthusiasm that this great feast brings. In the Political Arena, a President would give the State of the Nation Address, the Queen would give a Message to the Subjects of her nation. IN the Acts of the Apostles, we do have a picture of the State of the Church. You can find that picture in Chapters two, four and five. The picture is a rather glorified image.

The people gather together in prayer. They break bread together, which was the description of celebrating Mass. They held things in common so that no one was in need. People held them in awe and respect and many joined their numbers. Now it is true that everything was not copasetic. There would be racial tension between the Christians who were Jew and Gentiles. There would be greed and holding back of common funds as we read in the fifth chapter. There would be disagreement about circumcision and keeping the mosaic law. But at the moment of Pentecost everything was exciting, glorious, and caused people to wonder.

2.       We have two accounts of Pentecost in our readings today. There is a slight discrepancy in the timing or chronology of events. Our Gospel gives us a picture of everything happening in a single day.

Jesus rises from the Dead

Jesus gives his Apostles the gift of Peace

Jesus gives them the Power to forgive

Jesus gives them the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

The writer of the Acts however, spreads this out over a period of Fifty Days which is the meaning of Pentecost in Greek. Jesus rises from the dead, and then over that period there are several appearances. Then the Ascension and the command to stay in Jerusalem. This was not merely a geographical place, but symbolic of the Church. Finally, the Pentecost with all is excitement.

2a      The Descent of the Holy Spirit is the dramatic fulfilment of the promise of Jesus that he must GO before the Holy Spirit comes. And when the Holy Spirit comes down on the Apostles, they will do great things, in fact, even greater than the deeds performed by Jesus. And this is what happens in reality.

3.       If we look at the public life of Jesus. He could barely hold the 12 Apostles together. One of them would betray him, another deny him. After the Multiplication of Loaves and fish, he invited them to eat of his Flesh and drink of his Blood. Many found this too hard and they walked away as we read in Ch. Six of John’s Gospel. Now on Pentecost Sunday we find the new Church in all its glory. In fact it shows us two of the traits that we will acclaim in the I believe soon after this homily: The mark of Universality and the mark of Unity.

After the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, the Word of God was accepted by all the countries in the world as it was known at that time. In the East, there were Medes, Elamites and the Parthians, in the Centre, there were the Phrygians, the Pamphylians, the Cappadocians and the Asians, in the West there was Egypt and Libya, Crete and Rome. The Command of Jesus, “Go out to the whole world” was taking place here and now on Pentecost Sunday.

          Besides that there was the Mark of Unity. Jesus had prayed at the Last Supper may they all be one. Paul in our second reading today says that we who eat of the One bread and drink of the One Cup are one in Christ. Here were people from all the world, who spoke different languages and yet they could understand the Message of the Kingdom of God in their own native language. They did not loose their identity. Unity did not mean uniformity.

          Finally, there was a radical change in the very Apostles themselves. They who hid behind closed doors after Good Friday are now in seen in the Temple before the High Priests and the Elders.

4.       And with that we flash forward to 2005. What is the state of our Church today. If one listens to the “nay-sayers”, the church is in a Mess. We have the Sex Scandals, there seems to be a divided Church as far as Same Sex Marriages and Women’s ordination. What the Hierarchy says and what the people in the pew are living out seems to be poles apart.

          And yet that is only one small part of the Picture. Our world today is often described as being secular, and that is far from the truth. People of all ages are hungering for God, they desire spirituality, they seek a meaning for life and they are concerned about Life after death. It is reported that there is a great deal of pornography on the Internet, but there is twice as much if not more a search for Spirituality and Theology. But it is a search in a different place.

          The younger generation today is seeking God and spirituality but not in doctrines and dogmas. They believe but they do not want to belong to any set institution or religion. There is a search for God, but a drop in Church attendance and hence our excitement, our challenge is how to bring this God to those who will not cross the Church door step.

          Our Church and our Grandparents still measure spirituality in terms of Church attendance, in the number of communions, marriages, confessions and funerals performed. Some one asked me, “if you do not use that yardstick as a measure - how would you measure.” I replied, I do not measure any longer, I just wonder at the continuing marvels that the Holy Spirit works through us and sometimes in spite of us.

5.       A second wonder of our Church and the effects of the Holy Spirit will be the new way we have to look at the Basic Unit of our Society and of our Church - that is our families. The Church holds as it has done for centuries, that a Family starts with a Marriage between a Man and a Woman. It is for life, it is for Children, it involves fidelity. And rightly so. However the reality is that our Church has a large, a very large number of faithful and eagerly seeking people who are divorced, remarried, living common law, in gay relationships, who do not observe the laws of birth control. I would not venture to ask those who would fit in one of these categories to stand up and be counted. But when I was in Guyana, in the five parishes I had, there were only 13 couples who would fit in the description of our traditional family. And so the other exciting challenge of the day is how to live out the mystery and the sanctity of our families in all the descriptions we encounter them in our pews today.

6.       We live in exciting times and the Holy Spirit is very much alive today in our midst as was the case 2000 years ago. At that time Circumcision, the Law of Moses, the rules of the Sabbath pretty well caused a schism in the Church. Today we hardly even consider it relevant. 2000 years from now, the matters that cause so much heat and anger : Same Sex Marriage, Women’s ordination, Abortion will be as relevant to that church as the issues in the Time of the apostles are to us today.

7.       The one side effect of the Scandals today is that the Church has lost its Moral Authority to tell us what to do and what not do. People just do not listen and will make up their own mind. The Church none the less has the Moral Authority if it speaks with humility and leads the way like the Good Shepherd who walked ahead of the Flock. As St. Thomas Aquinas said almost 800 years ago, in our Pilgrimage towards heaven, we do not speak any more of doctrines, dogmas and commands. We speak rather of Virtues - which comes from the Latin word which means strength. This is the Strength we need as we Journey to God, as we seek spiritual and things eternal. This is the Strength that the Holy Spirit gives in abundance today and all we can say is Alleluia, Praise the Lord.