Pentecost Sunday - Fr. Leo

There is great energy on our first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles. Tongues of fire and the blowing wind make the Holy Spirit present with great excitement and drama.  The scene is certainly out of the ordinary for most of us.  However, if you have been present at a charismatic prayer meeting, you would experience much the same thing when it comes to speaking in tongues and hearing the voice of the Spirit in many languages.

What is wonderful about reflecting on our first reading, is the reminder that God operates beyond our normal ways of sensing and seeing.  It inspires us to pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Living in the Spirit of God, brings unity as God has breathed life into all humanity.  The sins of humanity and man’s inhumanity to man and creation is not the work of God.  Yet, it is the Spirit that holds out hope that one day we won’t live in an us-them world.  One day beheadings will cease and all cruelty in the name of God, including that of fundamentalist Christians, will be seen for what it is.

While the spiritual life has its dramatic moments as our first reading describes, its opposite is equally valuable.  When Jesus appears to the disciples in today’s gospel, the first thing he says is, “Peace be with you.” I also hear this as, “Peace be in you.”  Such an experience is also gift of the Holy Spirit.

On this Pentecost Sunday it is good for us to pray with the psalmist, “Lord, send out your spirit, and renew the face of the earth.’  Our spiritual life depends on the Holy Spirit.  Today, Jesus breaths into us his life that forgives and makes whole.  This is his gift to us and the gift we will naturally share with others when it becomes real with-in ourselves.