Then Jesus breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20: 19-23
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in different languages as the Spirit prompted them. Acts 2: 1-11
At some stage during 1959, one of the English texts we studied during Leaving Certificate English was a book of Essays by Dorothy L. Sayers, a prominent English Essayist and Crime Writer. In one of her essays entitled Why Work?, she criticised English society and the Catholic Church of the 1940s, of which she was a card-carrying member, for confining the concept of “vocation” to strictly religious work. She asserted that a job in the secular world is also a sacred calling and that the only truly Christian work is “good work, well done”. She based her argument on the Biblical teaching that, as we are all made in the image of God, we are all meant to use our gifts creatively for the good of our world and its people.
She forthrightly stated in Why Work? that: “Work is not primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do.” She also observed that a carpenter, when he went to Church on Sunday morning, was likely to hear: “Don’t get drunk on Saturday night and make sure to put a generous donation on the collection plate!” instead of hearing: “Be the best carpenter you can be”. It would be even better if he were to hear Paul’s words from today’s reading from his First Letter to the Corinthians: “There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them.” (1 Corinthians 12: 4-6)
Our faith tells us that the Holy Spirit has dwelt deep within each of us since the moment we were conceived in love and nurtured by our parents whose love mirrored God’s love for us. We were further embraced by God’s love when, in Baptism, we were sealed as members of the Christian Community and then anointed in Confirmation with the commission to use our God-given gifts to contribute to building the kingdom of God in our world.
During this Sunday’s celebration of Pentecost, we will probably hear that Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. More accurately it is the anniversary of the commissioning of each one of as to proclaim the love of God to our world by the way in which we live the Gospel of Jesus, empowered and encouraged by the Holy Spirit alive and active in each of us.
Our vocation as members of the Christian Community is to live the Gospel creatively, extending the compassion, mercy, care and kindness of Jesus to everyone we encounter by being the best nurse, accountant, plumber, baker, janitor, street-sweeper, taxi-driver, parent or sales-assistant we can possibly be.
In last week’s reflection on the Ascension of Jesus, I made reference to Matthew’s parable of the Last Judgement (Matthew 25: 31-46) with Jesus’ promise that he would always be among us in the hungry, thirsty, despised, overlooked, foreigners and prisoners, and that our discipleship would be assessed by the manner in which we ministered to him in our reaching out to them.
But let’s not forget that we encounter Jesus and the Holy Spirit in those with whom we live and beside whom we work, day in and day out. In that context I am reminded of a homily I heard from my good friend Fr William Bausch some three decades ago. He later published it in one of his books (The Word in and out of Season, 2001, Twenty-Third Publications, CT, USA). In it he singled out parents, pointing out that, if anyone will be assured of a place in heaven, it will be parents whose practice of the corporal works of mercy is integral to their daily routine of raising their children in their homes in which all are made welcome and in their neighbourhoods where they keep a close watch on their and everyone else’s children. Just look at what they do without complaint: Provide a baby’s bottle of warm milk in the middle of the night (drink for the thirsty); change soiled nappies repeatedly (clothes for the naked); medicate chicken pox, bandage cut limbs, measure out cough mixture to children with flu (visiting the sick); “Daddy, will you help me with my homework?” (teaching the ignorant); listening to prayers at bedtime (praying for the sick, the dying, the elderly and the dead); “Daddy, Percy the cat was run over by a bus! (burying the dead); “Are you still in the bathroom, Michael?” (visiting those in prison); Providing endless nourishing meals and snacks (feeding the starving); “Mum, what trousers will I wear to the school dance tonight?” (advising the doubtful).
God has blessed us with all we need to be “church” where we live and work and shop and study every day. Moreover, God has sent us the Holy Spirit to guide and accompany us in the doing. Our vocation is to make present God’s mercy, compassion. healing and kindness wherever we live and work. To the extent that we do that, we grow in “holiness”.
Jesus, assisted by his disciples, by the women and men about whom we have been reading in the Acts of the Apostles, day after day throughout the Easter season, brought to birth the Christian community we now commonly call Church. That community consists mainly of ordinary people like us doing their best to live decent, moral lives that reflect something of the Gospel, always keeping ourselves open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That’s what we celebrate and thank God for today.
In conclusion, let’s turn our attention to the twelve and their companions who were fired by the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. And let’s begin with an anecdote with which most mothers would resonate: One Sunday morning a mother burst into her son’s bedroom and with agitation in her voice addressed the sleeping bundle under the blankets: “Out of bed quickly, now! It’s Sunday morning and time to get ready for Mass.” The mumbled reply she got was: “I don’t want to go.” “Now that’s silly! So, get up, get dressed and come with the rest of us to Church.” The bundle answered: “Look, I don’t want to go, and I’ll give you two reasons why.” The son sat up in bed and said: “First, I don’t like them, and second, they don’t like me.” Exasperated, the good mother replied: “And I’ll give you two reasons why you must. First, you’r fifty-one years old, and second, you’re the Parish Priest, their Pastor!” Now, doesn’t that describe the disciples in today’s gospel-reading? They were hiding away in fear, locked up behind closed doors, keeping a safe distance from a hostile, threatening world into which Jesus was planning to send them. Then, without notice, Jesus invaded their isolation, coming through walls and locked doors. His arrival dispelled their fear and filled them with happiness. Then effectively he said to them: “You’re no longer kids, you’re grown men. So, get out to the crowd waiting for you outside and start telling them what I have been trying to teach you for the last three years. You have a mission to proclaim the love, compassion and forgiveness of God. And I’m giving you the Holy Spirit to guide and assist you.” A message there for us?