Readings:Â Acts 2:1-11;Â 1Cor 12:3-7; Jn 20: 19-23
Theme: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 20:22)
Today we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, the climax of the Eastertide season. While it may not be quite accurate to speak of this day as the birthday of the Church, it is certainly the birthday of the Church’s mission – the Church as a Spirit-filled community sent out, in the name of the Risen Christ, to proclaim the gospel to all creation. The readings today remind us of three important truths about the Church and its mission: first, that the Church is essentially missionary; second, that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of Mission; and third, that the goal of mission is to create a unity that embraces diversity. A few words on each of these points.
The Church is, in the words of The Second Vatican Council, ‘missionary by its very nature’. This means that mission is not some extraordinary activity that some members of the Church undertake in addition to normal Church business. Mission is something the Church is, before it is something the Church does. In proclaiming and witnessing to Christ, the Church is expressing its nature as God’s pilgrim people. All its members, all those baptised in the Spirit, are called to be missionaries, and not just priests and religious. If the Church ever stopped reaching out to others to witness and proclaim the Gospel of Love, it would cease to be the Church of Christ. In his first Encyclical Letter, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis reminds us that the true Church ‘is a Church that is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security’. In the words of the great Protestant theologian, Emile Brunner, ‘the Church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning’. And the fire that burns in the heart of the Church and keeps her alive in mission is the fire of the Holy Spirit, as today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles illustrates.
From the dawn of creation, God’s Spirit has been present and active in the universe. This is beautifully expressed in the biblical account of creation, which describes the Spirit of God hovering over the waters and bringing order and life out of chaos (Gen 1:1-3). The Spirit, as Pope John Paul II has remined us in his Apostolic Exhortation, The Mission of the Redeemer, is present everywhere in the world leading and guiding people along the path that leads to God. It is this same Spirit who is the principle agent of the Church’s mission. We, the members of the Church, are simply instruments in her hands. When we forget this truth, we risk becoming agents of an enterprise that has little or nothing to do with the promotion of the Gospel. We do not own or control the Spirit who is already present before us, gracing all creatures with his love, in ways unknown to us. The first challenge of missionaries is to attend, to listen, to discern and to collaborate with what what God’s Spirit is already doing in the world among peoples of all nations and cultures. Mission and dialogue go hand in hand.
Catholics have often been accused of paying mere token respect to the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church. So we should ask ourselves: Do we put more trust in our resources and expertise than in the action of God’s Spirit in our lives and in the lives of those among whom we work? Do we leave enough room in our various ministries for the Spirit, the ‘God of surprises’, the God who chooses the weak to confound the strong, the God whose light invariably enters through the cracks in our lives rather than through our successes and achievements?  Pope Francis reminds us that ‘there is no greater freedom than that of allowing oneself to be guided by the Holy Spirit, renouncing the attempt to plan and control everything to the last detail, and instead letting her enlighten, guide and direct us, leading us wherever she wills’ (The Joy of the Gospel, 280).Â
The goal of all mission in God’s name is to create a unity that respects and embraces diversity. Pentecost reverses the confusion of Babel (cf. Gen. 11: 1-9). On the day of Pentecost, as the first reading tells us, people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds were gathered together for the Jewish Harvest feast (Shavuot). As they spoke different languages they were unable to communicate with one another. However, they were all able to understand the message of the Spirit-filled apostles. ‘Surely, they said, all these men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own language?’ (Acts 2:7-8). The miracle of Pentecost was a miracle of mutual understanding, a restoration of the unity humanity lost at Babel. Today we might ask what gift of the Spirit, what language do we need so that everybody can understand no matter what their ethnic or linguistic background? Yes, there is such a gift, such a language. It is the language of Love – a language sorely needed in our world today, as NEMO, the winner of this year’s Eurovision Song contest, reminded us. Love is the language of the Spirit, the one language capable of creating a unity that respects diversity.
Michael McCabe SMA
Click on the play button below to listen to an alternative homily from Fr Tom Casey SMA.
|
|
Â