Pentecost by Greco
Pentecost
It’s been fifty days since Easter Sunday, and we Catholics are still celebrating Eastertide. In fact, this is the very last day of Eastertide, the Feast of “Pentecost,” which in Greek means the “Fiftieth Day.” The fiftieth day after Easter.
Birthday of the Church
Some call it the birthday of the Church. I could bring out a large birthday cake today with 1924 candles on it, one for every year since that First Christian Pentecost. Pentecost is the birth of the Church because without the Holy Spirit, the Church could not possibly have survived this long. In 1944 the Soviet leader Josef Stalin mocked Pope Pius XII by sneering: “How many armored divisions does the Pope of Rome have?” It was a good question, but the Soviet Union is long gone, while the Catholic Church thrives. That is because the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, while the Soviet Union was guided only by human beings. Today we call upon the Holy Spirit to guide not only our Church, but our families, our businesses, our every human relationship and endeavor. We make an act of submission and entrustment to His guidance on this day of Pentecost, for He alone is the Way.
“Jesus is Lord”
“No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit,” writes St. Paul in the Second Reading. What he means is that no one can submit themselves to Jesus as Lord without the help of the Holy Spirit. We can say “Jesus is Lord,” we can say “I’m Catholic,” but we can’t possibly surrender our wills to him as Lord without the grace of the Holy Spirit. Today we make an act of submission and entrustment to His guidance, we beg and we pray the Holy Spirit to flood our spirit and our mind, for He alone is the Way to authentic happiness.
Reconciliation
In the Gospel reading, Jesus came through locked doors and gave peace to the apostles: “peace be with you.” Then he breathed on them, imparting the Holy Spirit. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” He said. And immediately he says, “whose sins you forgive are forgiven, and whose sins you retain are retained.” In other words, Jesus gave the first priests of the Church the Holy Spirit in order to forgive sins, to reconcile God to man, and man to God. A priest effects this reconciliation, through the Holy Spirit, in various ways: hearing confessions, offering the sacrifice of the Mass, teaching people to pray, and leading others in forgiveness and love, beginning with his own humility and charity toward all. But without a constant dependence on the Holy Spirit, a priest is nothing. Just dead wood. A hypocrite.
Hypocrites
Brothers and sisters, without the Holy Spirit, we are all hypocrites. If we try to build our societies without God, we cause only division and waste and war. Without the light of God’s spirit, we quickly give into our lusts and are reduced to irrational animality. Pope Benedict said something like this in his address to the British Parliament last fall: “To resist the eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
Pray, Pray, Pray
When the Pope declares that the “very future of the world is at stake,” we should take it very seriously. In New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo, who claims to be Catholic, is personally pushing the country’s most powerful political elites to redefine the union of same-sex couples as “marriage.” Of course, he has the full backing of the media and the university elites as well. We know this is clean contrary to the Bible, Church teaching, and Natural Law. And yet many elites of our country think they know better than the Holy Spirit. What can you and I do? Not much on the political front. But we can do something much more effective: we can pray and trust. We can beg the Holy Spirit, day and night, to fill the hearts and minds of the next generation, of the present generation, of lawmakers and filmmakers, of priests and people. Let us pray to the Holy Spirit through the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Mother. She first received his overshadowing presence in Nazareth 2011 years ago. Let her draw us closer to her divine Spouse, who alone can bring peace and security to our nation.
It’s been fifty days since Easter Sunday, and we Catholics are still celebrating Eastertide. In fact, this is the very last day of Eastertide, the Feast of “Pentecost,” which in Greek means the “Fiftieth Day.” The fiftieth day after Easter.
Birthday of the Church
Some call it the birthday of the Church. I could bring out a large birthday cake today with 1924 candles on it, one for every year since that First Christian Pentecost. Pentecost is the birth of the Church because without the Holy Spirit, the Church could not possibly have survived this long. In 1944 the Soviet leader Josef Stalin mocked Pope Pius XII by sneering: “How many armored divisions does the Pope of Rome have?” It was a good question, but the Soviet Union is long gone, while the Catholic Church thrives. That is because the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, while the Soviet Union was guided only by human beings. Today we call upon the Holy Spirit to guide not only our Church, but our families, our businesses, our every human relationship and endeavor. We make an act of submission and entrustment to His guidance on this day of Pentecost, for He alone is the Way.
“Jesus is Lord”
“No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit,” writes St. Paul in the Second Reading. What he means is that no one can submit themselves to Jesus as Lord without the help of the Holy Spirit. We can say “Jesus is Lord,” we can say “I’m Catholic,” but we can’t possibly surrender our wills to him as Lord without the grace of the Holy Spirit. Today we make an act of submission and entrustment to His guidance, we beg and we pray the Holy Spirit to flood our spirit and our mind, for He alone is the Way to authentic happiness.
Reconciliation
In the Gospel reading, Jesus came through locked doors and gave peace to the apostles: “peace be with you.” Then he breathed on them, imparting the Holy Spirit. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” He said. And immediately he says, “whose sins you forgive are forgiven, and whose sins you retain are retained.” In other words, Jesus gave the first priests of the Church the Holy Spirit in order to forgive sins, to reconcile God to man, and man to God. A priest effects this reconciliation, through the Holy Spirit, in various ways: hearing confessions, offering the sacrifice of the Mass, teaching people to pray, and leading others in forgiveness and love, beginning with his own humility and charity toward all. But without a constant dependence on the Holy Spirit, a priest is nothing. Just dead wood. A hypocrite.
Hypocrites
Brothers and sisters, without the Holy Spirit, we are all hypocrites. If we try to build our societies without God, we cause only division and waste and war. Without the light of God’s spirit, we quickly give into our lusts and are reduced to irrational animality. Pope Benedict said something like this in his address to the British Parliament last fall: “To resist the eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
Pray, Pray, Pray
When the Pope declares that the “very future of the world is at stake,” we should take it very seriously. In New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo, who claims to be Catholic, is personally pushing the country’s most powerful political elites to redefine the union of same-sex couples as “marriage.” Of course, he has the full backing of the media and the university elites as well. We know this is clean contrary to the Bible, Church teaching, and Natural Law. And yet many elites of our country think they know better than the Holy Spirit. What can you and I do? Not much on the political front. But we can do something much more effective: we can pray and trust. We can beg the Holy Spirit, day and night, to fill the hearts and minds of the next generation, of the present generation, of lawmakers and filmmakers, of priests and people. Let us pray to the Holy Spirit through the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Mother. She first received his overshadowing presence in Nazareth 2011 years ago. Let her draw us closer to her divine Spouse, who alone can bring peace and security to our nation.
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