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Homily 2002 Homily June 12, 2011 Feast of Pentecost (Cycle A) Deacon David Shea Acts 2:1-11 X Ps 104:1, 24, 29-31, 34 X 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13 X Jn 20:19-23 She is almost 87 years old. Affectionately, she is called Auntie Nor. She is a great believer and a woman of authentic faith. She has a special relationship with the Holy Spirit and believes that her body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It’s not just devotion and trust that she has in the Spirit; it’s complete utter confidence. Whenever she’s facing a challenge of her own or someone she knows turns to her for prayer, she says, “I’ll turn it over to the Holy Spirit.” And that is that. And she prays like you’ve never heard a person pray. She prays for all the intentions in her overflowing prayer basket and she prays with an intensity and a fervor that both amazes and humbles everyone who knows her. She prays with a feeling that causes you to wonder about the lack of feeling in your own prayer. She prays to her special friend, the Holy Spirit, she’s convinced she’s being heard and that she’ll get what she’s asking for. While the eyes of everyone around her haven’t been looking for the Spirit’s tongues of fire and while the hearts of others have lost all hope of being filled, Auntie Nor is completely fixed on the Holy Spirit in her life and in the life of the Church she loves so dearly. What a cast of characters they were. They were variously described as weak, timid, shallow, and lacking in conviction and courage, hardly the ideal choice for the foundation of a new church and a new religion. But he had chosen each of them and their lives had changed in ways that they could never have imagined. They had left their homes and families and witnessed him do incredible things. They had spent days and nights with Jesus watching, listening, and seeing the unbelievable happen over and over. But all of that had cruelly changed and he had left them for the first time and their hopes and aspirations had died with him. But he did what he had promised; he had returned, risen and they were restored in hope. And now he was leaving them again making another promise. Something amazing happened to those disciples that first day of the week. They were sitting around, behind locked doors, feeling alone and sorry for themselves, saying, “Ain’t it awful. How are we going to get along without him? How are we possibly going to do what he asked us to do?!” And they were all swept up in a “holy hurricane” that sent sparks flying around the room like a 4th of July fireworks display until tongues of flame came to rest over the heads of each of them. There was nothing understated about what happened. In an instant they were radically changed as the Holy Spirit filled them. It surged through their beings warming, energizing, and purging them and they were given “courage, insight, and eloquence.” And just as God had made His presence felt in history through wind and fire, the Holy Spirit came rushing in and through the disciples as a gale force wind and fire—“The mighty wind cleansed the disciples hearts and the fire burnt-up their unregenerate desires like they were straw.” And Jesus who had never given up on them despite their own failings, doubts and darkness, kept his promise once again. Of all the persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the most abstract—God the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. The Holy Spirit is more difficult to describe—who proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified. Yet on that day, that first Pentecost, the Spirit’s impact was undeniable. The disciples became different people in a new kind of community with gifts and capabilities they never had—barriers were broken, fear vanquished, and new beginnings started. The once weak, timid, and shallow were transformed into the bold and wise and all were proclaiming Jesus while all around them exclaimed, “Who are these people?” Today we are gathered in one place, as diverse a group as the disciples in that upper room, bringing with us our own challenges, fears and joys. Many of us are panting and even gasping to find our breath, struggling to cope with all that is happening—excited and worried as our children move on from grade school to high school to college, to new careers and lives; afraid about unresolved health issues that grow more complicated with each passing day; and a host of countless other anxieties and depressions about growing older while grieving the things we once did with ease and now can no longer do. And for one hour we acknowledge our needs, let down our guards, and with outstretched arms we wait for Holy Spirit to descend upon us because we know we can’t do it on our own. But most of us are skeptics and we sell the Holy Spirit short unsure and unconvinced that the Spirit still acts in that same dramatic and profound way as he did on that first Pentecost morning. We want to feel the Spirit blowing through our lives; we want to be infused with new faith and conviction with tongues of fire hanging over our heads; we want our own Pentecost experience. But we wonder and we doubt and convince ourselves that it may be easier to just remain behind locked doors. The Holy Spirit still breathes upon us. The Holy Spirit is here revamping and rearranging our lives, just as Jesus promised, inspiring us to do what we cannot do on our own—taking risks we thought we did not have the courage to take; speaking up when we could not find the right words to say; stepping forward to minister and help convinced our gifts were inadequate and our capabilities insufficient; reaching out to help when it would be so much easier just to take care of our own problems; trusting that if we turn it over to the Holy Spirit that we’ll get what we need and what we’re asking for. References: Buetow, Harold A. God Still Speaks: Listen. St. Paul: Alba House, 1995. Siciliano, Jude, OP. First Impressions. www.preacherexchange.org Taylor, Barbara Brown. Home By Another Way. Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1999. The Center for Liturgy. St. Augustine—Thoughts from the early Church. http://www.liturgy.slu.edu/ Wallace, James A. with Robert Waznak and Guerric DeBona. Lift Up Your Hearts. New York: Paulist Press, 2004. |
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(Reprinted with permission.) |