Pentecost May 23, 2010

Acts 2: 1-11 1 Cor 12: 3b-7, 12-13 John 20: 19-23

Birthdays are a mixed blessing. For the young, they are events that are celebrated because they are signs of growth, signs of increasing possibilities. To the very young they can indicate that they are old enough to attend “real school, or to receive the Eucharist for the first time. Age 16 means learning to drive and gaining both new freedom and new responsibility. At 18, a person is no longer a minor which opens new doors and brings on new duties. Age 21 marks that last step in legal requirements, meaning the doors for all possibilities are now open. As one grows older, however, my view is that birthdays are little more than a social custom meant to remind us that we are aging. They confirm the fact that we are no loner able to do what we did when we were younger. We are less and less able to recover quickly, whether from illness, injury, or simply getting up in the morning.

Thoughts about birthdays came to mind because this is a traditional understanding of Pentecost. We celebrate Pentecost as a way of making when all that we, as Church, started the work of announcing to the world the love of God for the world. As St. Luke tells of the experience of the Apostles in the story in the Acts, the first reading we heard, the wind, the fire, the being understood in different languages almost seems to have all the noise and excitement of a birthday party.

My attention this year, however, was drawn to the message of the Evangelist John in telling us of the gift of the Spirit. John gives a different perspective of how Jesus fulfill his promise of the God’s Spirit as being given to the Apostles, his followers, and to us. In the gospel passage I just read, Jesus tells his apostles to receive the Holy Spirit as a gift given to them so that, when they forgive sins, they are forgiven. The presence, the action of the Spirit, the continuing presence of God will be found in the ability and willingness of the followers of Jesus to extend forgiveness to those who seek it, to those who need it.

This is a powerful message. It is a powerful reminder. The real sign of the continuing presence of God is forgiveness to those who are open to it. We need to know this. We need to be reassured of this.

The love of God, the life of God, continues to be offered to us, to be available to us, despite what we do in distancing ourselves from God and from one another in what we call sin. Despite what we do in failing to live out and express all of what each of us can be as created reflections of the goodness, the reality of God, the forgiveness of God is still available to us through the action of the Spirit and the sacramental life of the Church. On this “birthday” of the Church, on our birthday as believers, we need to be reminded of this.

Last week, Pope Benedict, who has been an object of questions and criticism in the international media, asked a question in a letter he wrote to a large, ecumenical gathering of Christians in Germany. Is the Church, are we as Church, still a place of hope despite the news in recent months and years which has cast a shadow of doubt on the Church as a place of hope. His answer, very simply, was “Yes” - we are, and we are to be, as Church, a place of hope in our world. This is and is to be so despite the reminders that among ourselves as Church there are weeds of evil scattered among this field of good wheat that we were described in the image of a story told by Jesus. We are a sign of hope because of the presence and power of forgiveness through the action of the Spirit with us.

In my own personal reflections, the most powerful sign of the presence of the Spirit is experienced in the Sacrament of Penance, in confession. When failure and weakness is acknowledged, encouragement and hope can be offered. In the acknowledgment of failure and sin, in the forgiveness of failure and sin, the absolution of failure and sin offered in the Sacrament of Penance, the presence of God and the action of the Spirit is known. This is especially evident when it is done in the context of facing failure and being assured of forgiveness in the sacramental reality of confronting one’s self in the presence of another. In the life of the Church this reflects a magnificent awareness of the needs of human nature in experiencing forgiveness.

This is the gift, this is the “birthday gift” God gives to us on this “birthday” of the Church. In receiving this gift of forgiveness, we might ask ourselves the questions which Pope Benedict posed in his letter” What do I do with the hope that is given to me? What weeds grow in me? Will I remove them? Am I grateful for this gift of forgiveness and am I will to forgive and heal rather than to condemn?

The Spirit of God has been given to us and is, indeed, with us as Church. And, as Church, as weeds and what that we are, as saints and sinners that we are, in the gift of the Spirit, in the gift of God’s forgiveness we can experience, in the gift of forgiveness we are to extend to those who seek it, we are a sign of hope to the world, the hope that reflects the truth and the love of our good and gracious God.