HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST YEAR A. (5)

HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST YEAR A.

THEME: The Holy Spirit is the Engine of the Church’s Mission

BY: Fr. Celestine Munonwe

Reflection theme:

Acts. 2:1-11; 1 Cor. 12:3-7.12-13; Jn. 20:19-23

The feast of Pentecost is from the Jewish root, also called Feast of Weeks, it celebrates

Take me deeper in love with you Jesus take me deeper in love Hold me closer in love with you Jesus hold me closer in love with you

HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST YEAR A.

THEME: The Holy Spirit is the Engine of the Church’s Mission

BY: Fr. Celestine Munonwe

 

Acts. 2:1-11; 1 Cor. 12:3-7.12-13; Jn. 20:19-23

The feast of Pentecost is from the Jewish root, also called Feast of Weeks, it celebrates the harvest season, and was usually kept, fifty days after the feast of Passover. It is one of the most important feasts of the Jews, so much so that all adult males living about 20 miles from Jerusalem are obliged to attend the feast. So, it is usually a large gathering of people, just like the Passover, and the feast of Tabernacle. It was precisely within the vigil of this feast that the Lord chose to fulfill His promise of sending the Holy Spirit to the apostles. It is an important feast which we now celebrate fifty days after Easter.

Pentecost is usually recognised as the birthday of the Church, because it is actually on this day that the age and mission of the Church actually started, the age of the Holy Spirit; when Christ had accomplished His mission of revealing the Father, and reconciling us to God, He sends the Holy Spirit to begin a new era, the era of the kingdom of God on earth, an era that would be guided by the Holy Spirit, who would lead the disciples and those who would come to Christ through them, to all truths revealed to them by Christ. The disciples had learnt about Jesus, but all seemed to them to end after His death, and even at His resurrection they were still not very sure of their mission and how they would accomplish anything, hence they had gone fishing, to their former business. However, with Jesus’s constant presence among them, they were reassured of His love before His ascension to heaven and His instruction that they remain in Jerusalem, and await the power from on high.

The first reading of today gives us the account of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. They were at prayer as directed by the Lord when a sudden wind from heaven came down on the house where they were staying, and suddenly, they saw on the heads of each one of them, something like the tongues of fire. They started speaking in tongues and witnessed the disappearance of all fears from them. They preached openly, that people who knew them and had seen them speaking boldly thought they had taken up some wine that early morning. Something miraculous also happened : the people of various tongues and languages were able to understand them in their own respective languages and tongues.

In the second reading of today, the St. Paul makes it clear that it is only by the grace of the Holy Spirit that conversion comes to any soul, that one can acclaim Jesus as the Lord of one’s life. In other words, the grace of holiness of life is given to us through the mercy of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does not stop at this, He also endows us with varieties of gifts, services and workings for the common good. Just as the body is one, but has many members, so also are we of different races, different gifts, services, works, contribute in our various ways towards the building of the Body of Christ, the Church.

In the Gospel, though the doors were shut out of fear of the Jews after the resurrection, the Lord appears among the disciples and declared : “Peace be with you. ” He sends the apostles to mission as He Himself was sent by the Father. Jesus breathed on them, and gave them the Holy Spirit with the power to forgive and retain sins in His own name.

Application to Life
The Pentecost is regarded as the birthday of the Church because no one can claim to be alive without air or the breath of life. When God created Adam in the Book of Genesis, He breathed on him, and Adam became a living being, he became alive, he was born, and brought into existence. In like manner, in the feast of Pentecost, the Church gets her life engine, her breath of existence and the fulcrum of all her being and work of evangelisation and mission in the world. The Holy Spirit gave the apostles life, strength and energy for the work of mission and directed this work in their own time, and would keep guiding the Church till the end of the world at the final judgement. When we see ourselves in danger of relapsing in sin, in lukewarness, in coldness, in lifelessness, in moments of disappointment, discouragement, we should ask the Spirit to give us life, to strengthen us in our journey of faith, to rekindle in us the fire of His love, of His power and strength.

The miracle of speaking in tongues reminds us of the event of the tower of Babel, when God confused the languages of those who wanted to build a tower up to heaven and led to the scattering of humans throughout the earth. On the day of Pentecost however, the Lord brought all tongues to unity, to the understanding of all peoples according to their own languages. The Spirit is the principle of unity in the Church, He lives in all Christ’s faithfuls, and through the Church today embraces all tongues on earth, she is united under the Pope and her infallible doctrines.

Conversion of souls is the work of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul understand this very well when He notes that no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the power of the Holy Spirit. The affirmation that Jesus is Lord implies that we live our lives in accordance with His will. It is by the guidance of the Holy Spirit that we are able to avoid the corruption of the world around us and resist sin, it is by the same Spirit that we have become adoptive sons of God, because God has put the Spirit of His Son into our hearts and we are able to cry Abba! , Father. Because He lives in us, and leads us to holiness of life, He never ceases from teaching us how to pray; it is by His promptings that we are able to pray at all. The Spirit prays for us, for we do not know how to pray as we ought to. We are always distracted, we are weighed down by weakness, but the Spirit knows what we want to say and says same to God on our behalf, with sounds deeper than words. The Spirit also prays with us always when He awakens out hearts and minds to God.

RELATED: HOMILY FOR THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST YEAR A.

The Holy Spirit equally lavishes in us His seven fold gifts of grace:wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, purity and fear of God. The Spirit also endowed us with His fruits when we live in accordance with the love of Christ: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control. St. Paul in 1Cor.12, 13, and 14, talks about the various gifts of the Holy Spirit and which of these gifts should be sought most. Some have gifts of healing, of prophesy, of praying or speaking in tongues. But for St. Paul the gift of prophesy should be sought more than that of praying in tongues, because one who prays in tongues speak only to God alone while leaving those around him unsanctified. However, today some people take praying in tongues as the highest manifestation of holiness of life. There is also the question of love, which for St. Paul is the greatest of all gifts, since it remains forever till heaven when all others end on earth.

The first word of the risen Lord to His disciples was a message of peace, He gave them peace. Hence, peace is one of the most important gifts of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was aware that the disciples were afraid of the Jews after His death, and were blinded by fear and unable to accomplish their mission. The author of all fears is our enemy, the devil. He keeps us down, and prevents us through fear from accomplishing God’s will and plan in our lives, he keeps us to live in our old guilts, and makes us lose sight of God’s forgiveness and mercy. The disciples had every reason to feel guilty for betraying their master, but Jesus understood how frail they were and offered them His peace, not as the world gives though. Jesus sends the disciples to mission, to spread His Gospel to the ends of the earth. However, before they can be able to accomplish this mission, they need the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Hence, Jesus breathed on them the Holy Spirit, and gave them the authority to forgive sins, and retain sins in His name : “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. ” In this note therefore, the Lord instituted the sacrament of reconciliation, of penance.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, you sent the apostles your Spirit and continues to send Him in our souls through our baptism and as often as we receive you in the Eucharist, please grant us the grace of the Holy Spirit that we may become effective witnesses of your resurrection in the world by becoming heralds of your gospel of salvation, amen.

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