Pentecost Sunday

Link to Mass Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/061211b.shtml

“And we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

How inscrutable are the mysteries of Christ sometimes. The Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary are the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Assumption of Mary, and the Crowning of Mary in Heaven. What all these Mysteries have in common, at least in part, is how hard they are to imagine and understand. With the Resurrection, we cannot see into the cave behind the stone; does Jesus rise with a wrenching gasp, or is there some more gradual transformation? Does He lie dead one moment, and the next is upright and living? It is inscrutable what happens.

Pentecost is similar. In both the first reading and the Gospel, the disciples were in a room alone. On Pentecost they received the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire, and suddenly they could speak in different languages, and proclaimed the Gospel without fear. Some days I’m not sure which is the bigger miracle, to suddenly speak a language unknown to them before, or suddenly be able to speak the Gospel without fear.

But the Spirit is powerful. This is the Spirit that drove the apostles to every corner of their world, that converted thousands on the strength of their witness, that drew converts from every walk of life, nation, tongue, and race. This is the strength of the Spirit, that it unifies what for so long the devil scattered in disarray.

So much of the New Testament is a redemption of the Old. Jesus is the new Adam, who removes sin where the other brings sin into the world. Mary is the new Eve, who says “Yes” to God where Eve disobeyed. Clothing in Genesis becomes a mark of shame for Adam and Eve who have just fallen, but in Revelations the righteous are given pure white garments. Pentecost is the redemption of language, unifying God’s people where once it scattered them.

Remember the story of Babel. Humans in their pride tried to build a temple that would reach to Heaven; in their arrogance God broke their common tongue, making the people unable to understand each other because they now spoke different languages. But at Pentecost, God gave the apostles different languages to unite the people with the Gospel. God redeems our broken unity with the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul tells us, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

God has brought us together through the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit of Truth, by which we cling with confidence to the teachings of the Church. This the Spirit of Fire, which burns our tongues like Isaiah until we witness to Christ. This is the Spirit of Consolation, which consoles us in the darkness.

This is the Spirit of Peace. Today is Pentecost, a day marked for celebration because today God shared the Holy Spirit with us, and we had the courage to share it with each other. Let us not be shy about sharing the Spirit, about witnessing to each other and speaking Christ to nonbelievers. We have been given to drink of one Spirit, the Spirit of courage and fire!

So often our faith is something private, something we keep to ourselves. This is false, and a great evil. The Spirit is meant to be shared, and of all things is meant to bring us closer together. Let us remember the unity of the Spirit, that we have all been given a share, and are all one body because of it.