Pentecost Sunday
May 28, 2023
Basilica of the Assumption
The Eye of the Holy Spirit
As you enter this historic basilica, “America’s First Cathedral”, your eyes feast on the beauty and harmony of the place. Your gaze may be drawn to the two smaller domes on which we see the images of the Lord’s Ascension and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or it might be drawn to the altar or the pulpit or the cathedra.
But the most prominent architectural feature of this co-cathedral is its large dome with its ingenious skylights, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe to capture as much natural light as possible. Seeing this church flooded with light, we may say, “In your light, Lord, see light!” (cf. Ps 36:9). Above all, this handsome neo-classical building expresses a beautiful vision of faith and a deep theological understanding. For if you look up into dome, you will see an “oculus”, an architectural eye, in which a beautiful image of the Holy Spirit is embedded: the Spirit whose “eye” is focused upon us! It is the Spirit who sheds the light of God’s glory upon us and all humanity, the Spirit who pours forth his gifts of grace so that we might gleam with the glory God’s Son had before the world’s foundation. On this Pentecost Sunday, let us turn our gaze towards the Holy Spirit and beg him to purify and renew the Church, the Body of Christ, to reinvigorate her mission, to purify and renew each of us inwardly, and indeed “to renew the face of the earth.”
Gathered in One Place
In the first reading, we encountered the Apostles gathered together ‘in one place’. That place was, of course, the Upper Room – where, “on the night before he died”, Christ instituted the Eucharist and the Priesthood. It was in the Upper Room that the Risen Lord breathed his Spirit upon the Apostles, empowering them to forgive sins in his Name and in his Person, thus instituting the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It was in the Upper Room that the Apostles and the Virgin Mary kept vigil, as they awaited the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
As the Spirit came upon the Apostles, they were transformed from confused and fearful followers of Christ into his bold and courageous witnesses. They feared neither rejection, nor suffering nor death. Indeed, they rejoiced to suffer for the Name of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit their words were heard and understood by people representing diverse cultures and speaking diverse languages. Thus they began the mission Jesus entrusted to them: to go into the whole world to preach, to baptize, and to save!
Now, we too are gathered together ‘in one place’ – not the historic Upper Room in Jerusalem but in this venerable church that played such a foundational role in spreading the Catholic faith in America. No less than the Apostles and the Virgin Mary, let us pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us and the whole Church. For the Church’s mission has not changed since that first Pentecost Sunday. Its mission continues to be the proclamation of the Name of Christ, the proclamation of his saving death and resurrection, and the invitation to share Christ’s life and love through Baptism and Eucharist, the font of new life and ‘the source and summit’ of the Church’s life. But like Jesus’ first followers, we may hesitate, especially in time of controversy, to share with others the joy, the beauty, the truth, the goodness of our Faith. We may hesitate to invite them to open their hearts to Christ and to share his love through Word and Sacrament and participation in the Church’s mission.
When you and I are tempted to think of Pentecost as an event confined in the past, or when we hesitate to speak the truth in love for fear of rejection, even ridicule, then, let us remember the words we heard from Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians: “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” To say “Jesus is Lord” is not an idle statement but a deeply personal declaration that Jesus is at the core of my life, the be-all-and-end-all of my existence, the One who loves me like no other, the One on whom I have staked everything. Not only does the Spirit enable us to make that declaration with all that is within us, the Spirit also pours out on us an abundance of spiritual gifts, gifts that enable us to be bold and courageous in proclaiming the Name of Christ, in bearing witness to Christ and in building up the Body of Christ. This we must do whether the Church is viewed favorably or unfavorably, whether the Church is at peace or under persecution, whether it is easy or difficult. Belonging as we do to a Church that speaks every language known to humanity, let us ask for the grace to be bold and convincing witnesses to Christ our Redeemer!
Renewing the Face of the Earth
In our response to the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we sang these words: “Lord, send out your spirit and renew the face of the earth!” Here we recognize how the Lord, through his Spirit, created the world in all its wonder, and how, through the Spirit living us, the world can be renewed. The influence of the Holy Spirit does not stop at the doors of the church, but in us and through us, the Spirit spreads rays of creative and redeeming light across the whole world, our common home, which we must cherish and protect. So too the Spirit sheds rays of truth and love upon the culture of which we are a part, a culture which is often angry and divisive, a culture that glorifies death even as it increasingly marginalizes religious faith and those who profess the faith.
Aware of the challenges we face, we asked the Spirit to shine within our hearts. In our Pentecost Sequence, we implored him [to] “heal our wounds, our strength renew / [to] wash the stains of guilt away / [to] bend the stubborn heart and will / [to] melt the frozen, warm the chill.” In this ancient prayer, we begged to become agents of reconciliation in our world. Far from contributing to the anger and divisiveness and deception of our culture, let us dedicate ourselves to the Lord’s work of healing wounds of sin and division … … Yet to do that well and wisely, we ourselves must be reconciled to the Lord and one another, and this surely includes forgiving those by whom we have been wronged. When we worthily take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us for the forgiveness of our sins, and we are reconciled with God and with the Church and even with our enemies. Thus renewed inwardly, thus reconciled to God and to one another, we are equipped to become the Spirit’s agents in renewing the face of the earth!
Come, Holy Spirit!
So let us indeed turn our gaze upward as the Spirit descends upon us with fresh power, coming down to transform bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood, coming down to transform our hearts, and to re-enliven the Church, coming down to bestow on us and upon our world his gifts of grace and glory! Come, Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth!