Homily for the Week of May 31, 2009

Pentecost, 2009
Acts 1:1-11
Responsorial: Psalm 104: 1, 29-30, 31, 34
1 Cor 12: 2-7
Jn 20:19-23

The church has three major holy days, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. But you may not realized that Pentecost is the most important. Pentecost is the birthday of the Catholic Church. Pentecost is the oldest of our holy days having been celebrated as a Christian holiday 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. Catholics began celebrating Easter in the 4th century and celebration Christmas in the fifth century. Pentecost is a Greek word meaning fiftieth. For over 2000 years Pentecost has been celebrated by Catholics on this very Sunday, the Sunday after the 7th Sunday after Easter.

Pentecost took the place of an ancient Jewish festival called the Festival of Weeks. It was celebrated 50 days after Passover. It celebrated God giving the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, to Moses on Mount Sinai. It was also one of three pilgrimage feasts which required adult males to go to Jerusalem.

So Jerusalem was crowded on the day of Pentecost. Our first reading gives us list of at least people speaking 14 different languages assembled together in the synagogue, all of them speaking a different language. However, something unusual happens on this first Pentecost. There was a sound like a wind, and above the heads of the people there appeared tongues like fire. Jewish people had heard of this often. Ancient Jews linked God and the wind. The unseen wind’s feather like touch and its storm like power spoke to the Jews of God’s own unseen gentleness as well as power. Ancient Jews also linked God and fire. God appeared in the burning bush to Moses. And God came down in fire on Mount Sinai where Moses got the ten commandments. God appeared to these people as breath and as fire. They all understood the words of God in their own language.

We all know how important the ability to breath is to life. Right now, until I mentioned it, probably none of you noticed you were breathing. We don't give enough thought to what it means to be able to breathe. We just do it. But if our ability to breathe is compromised, we will most likely panic.

Asthma and emphysema sufferers, and those with other respiratory or heart problems, live with this panic. They know what is happening to them, and fortunately their crises can be relieved with oxygen, at least for a while. We know when our oxygen supply is cut of because of immediate physical consequences, but can we always read the symptoms of what it means to be cut off from the Church or from God?

Pentecost gives us these two things: breath and fire. But it also gives us the Holy Spirit which we believe is the third person of the Blessed Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Luke tells us that Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, ''Receive the Holy Spirit.'' “Spirit'' breathing out. Respiration means to breath in and out. For years the Church referred to the Holy Spirit as the Holy Ghost. In English, spirit and ghost can mean the same thing, but the spirit that we call the Holy Spirit is not that kind of spirit. This is why, in the 1960s, the Church had us begin saying Holy Spirit instead of Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit takes its name from breathing out. We might say that the Holy Spirit is the very breath of God.

This past week I stopped by the hospital and found at one the entrances some masks which were to be used to prevent the spreading of the swine flu. Doctors will tell you that colds are spread by touching someone who has a cold, but the flu is spread by breathing out on someone. Breathing on someone else as part of a blessing was common for the Mediterranean Middle East. Because the breath came from inside of a person, to breathe on someone was thought to pass on something of what is inside of one person to another. For those of Jesus' day, they believed that part of the essence of the person was being passed on. To create life, God breathed into the nostrils of the man. This breath of God gives us life. The Divine is within us.

On Pentecost the followers of Jesus received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was in the sound of the wind. Many of us here today have received the same Holy Spirit when we were confirmed. Unlike Baptism, we do not think much of our Confirmation. Yet it is the sacrament which was given by the early church along with Baptism. Confirmation confirms our faith in Jesus and our religion. We become adult believers. We are no longer children following others, but now persons following our conscience and our religion.

After Jesus ascended to heaven, we did not remain alone. Jesus provided for us the Holy Spirit which can guide us each day to a good life. But we need to pray to the Holy Spirit for the help that we might need. The Holy Spirit is the voice of God within us. It is his breathe and fire. As a young person I was raised on a farm. Spring time for farmers is a time for preparing the fields for planting. Among the preparation is removing stones that seem to come up out of the ground every winter. I remember the story of a farmer who had a large rock located in the center of his corn field. It was troublesome plowing around it each year. Worse yet, he sometimes forgot it and damaged his plow on it. He wanted to dig it out. But he kept putting it off. Finally, he acted. To his surprise, it was totally on the surface and easily removed. He thought to himself, Why did it take me so long to dig it up?

Each one of us has at least one rock in our life that causes us pain, anxiety, tensions. What keeps you from digging it up? During the next minutes of this Mass, and during this week, let each of us try to discover how the Holy Spirit can help us locate it, and give it up. If necessary let the Holy Spirit help you through those around you: wife or husband, a mother or father, family members, friend , teacher, counsellor. If the Spirit has worked in your life this way, express your appreciation to one of these people for improving your faith.