Readings: Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13; John 20:19-23
Theme: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 20:22)
By Michael McCabe, SMA.
Today, Pentecost Sunday, we come to the climax of our Easter celebrations. Today is the birthday of the Church as a Spirit-filled community sent out, in the name of the Risen Christ, to continue his mission on earth. Our 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 brief words on each of these points.
First, the Church is, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, “missionary by its very nature” (AG, no. 9). Witnessing to the Gospel is the reason for its existence. This means all its members, all who are baptised in the Spirit, are ‘missionary disciples of Christ’ (Pope Francis). A Church that turns in on itself and stops being missionary is no longer the Church of Christ but simply a sodality, a group of like-minded people content to enjoy each other’s company. In his great Encylcical Letter, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis reminded us that 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’ (EG, n. 49). The noted Protestant theologian, Emile Bunner, expressed this truth memorably when he stated that ‘the Church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning” (The Word and the World, p. 108). And the fire that burns in the heart of the Church and keeps her alive in mission is the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Second, the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of this mission. We, the members of the Church, are simply her servants. We forget this truth at our peril, at the risk of becoming agents of an enterprise that has little for nothing to do with the message of the Gospel or God’s reign in the world. Catholics have been accused of paying mere token respect to the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Even if we consider this accusation unfair, we should ask ourselves: Do we put more trust in our resources and our 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? We need to remember that we are at the service of a task which always transcends our human capabilities.
Third, the goal of Mission is to create a unity that respects and embraces diversity. Pentecost reverses the confusion of Babel (cf. Gen. 11: 1-9). As we see in our first reading today, people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Persians, Asians, Romans, Egyptians, Libyans, Cretans and Arabs) came together for this major Jewish feast but were unable to communicate with one another. However, through the gift of the Sprit, they were all able to understand the message of the apostles. ‘Surely, they said, all these people 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 that humanity lost at Babel.
The story of the first Pentecost prompts us to ask ourselves what gift of the Spirit, what language do we need today so that everybody can understand us. We know that there is such a gift, such a language. It is the language of love, a language that all people understand. irrespective of their ethnic or linguistic background? Love is the language of the Spirit, the only language capable of creating a unity that respects diversity, the language that, in the words of Pope Leo, ‘breaks down barriers between peoples and tears down the walls of indifference and hatred’.
I conclude with a few lines from a sonnet on Pentecost by the Anglican priest poet, Macolm Guite:
‘The right words come today in their right order
And every word spells freedom and release.
Today the gospel crosses every border.
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother-tongue is Love, in every nation’.
Listen to an alternative audio Homily by Tom Casey, SMA: