Pentecost Sunday
Basilica of the Assumption
May 19, 2024
Fire, Wind, Water
Pentecost Sunday brings us back to the Upper Room where we are gathered with the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our eyes of faith see them united in prayer—deep, inexpressible prayer – as they await the coming of the Holy Spirit promised by the Risen Lord. And indeed, the Holy Spirit does descend upon them, “like tongues of fire” and as a driving wind shook the house they were in.
In that moment, the disciples were baptized by the Holy Spirit and fire. The Spirit ignited in their hearts the fire of his love, a fire that enlightened them so that they understood all that Jesus taught them and all that he accomplished by dying and rising. It was a fire of love that united them to Jesus even more closely than when they shared his earthly companionship. It was a fire that implanted in their hearts an irrepressible missionary impulse to go out and speak boldly of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, putting their very lives on the line.
Put another way, the Spirit who came as fire came also as water – not an ordinary stream of water as from a river – but the stream of Divine Love that flows from the Throne of God, that River of Divine Grace and Love that irrigates the Heavenly Jerusalem and flows downward to irrigate the Church on earth, as “the love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5).
This is how the Church, born from the side of Christ, came to life: the fire, the wind, the water that is the Holy Spirit . . . the Spirit who is the eternal bond of love between the Father and the Son; the Spirit who “connects” us to Christ, making us the adopted sons and daughters of our heavenly Father; the Spirit who unifies the Church, animating her mission in every time and place.
Has the Fire Gone Out?
But let us ask ourselves: Has the fire gone out? Is the Church today a smoldering wick, its fire blown out, or nearly so, by howling winds of secular culture and by turbulence within the Church’s own ranks?
What do I mean by that? I mean the tendency on the part of many Catholic Christians to assume that decline in the Church’s mission is inevitable, to think that the only way forward is to manage decline, to plan for a graceful demise while looking wistfully at a past never to return.
It’s as if we want to embalm what was rather than foster new growth!
What else do I mean when I ask if the fire has gone out? I mean a lack of confidence in the teaching of the Church, a hesitancy to proclaim the truth of Christ and the Gospel in the face of withering criticism or pervasive indifference. I mean also the substitution of a secular Gospel or a merely social Gospel for the one which Christ delivered to us by his Death and Resurrection and by the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles.
So what really did we read about in the Acts of the Apostles this morning? A movement destined to last a long time but ultimately to die out? An enthusiasm fueled by mutual delusion and group-think? Or was it something more? Something entirely different? Something that changes lives but also history and culture?
The Fire Burns
Like Moses who encountered the burning bush that did not consume itself, so too we came here this morning to encounter the Holy Spirit: the Spirit of Truth and Love who is God’s glory, the Spirit whose fire is never extinguished but burns eternally, the Spirit who never stops blowing where he wills, the Spirit whose streams of love never dry up, no matter what the season.
For what took place at Pentecost continues to this day in the Church’s sacraments which have been celebrated for more than 2,000 years, in good times and bad, in times of growth and in times of decline, in times of peace and in times of struggle. In the Sacraments the freshness, power, and beauty of Pentecost reaches us! The Holy Spirit is alive and active in our midst, enabling us to hear and listen to the voice of Christ in the Scripture, transforming bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood through the ministry of priests, gathering the Church together as one, sanctifying us as individual believers, impelling us to go forward to bear witness to the Gospel.
And the Spirit remains with us as individual believers. The living waters of Baptism still flow within our hearts, his gifts, strengthened in us through Confirmation can still be activated, and when we sin and need forgiveness, the Spirit is poured forth into our hearts in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And it is the Spirit who produces in us the good fruit of the Gospel: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control. When the fruits of the Spirit manifest themselves in us then it is that we become “credible witnesses” to the truth and beauty of the Gospel.
Confidence and Boldness
So let us rejoice and be glad. For there burns within the Church a fire of love that does not go out. There blows in the Church a breeze that never fails to cool the heat, a spring of living water that does not dry up. We have only to open our hearts to the power of the Spirit present among us. We have only to ask the Spirit to renew us, to fill our hearts with Divine Love, to conform us to the image of Christ, to fill us with love for others and zeal for the Gospel . . . and so we pray:
“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth!”