Fr. Roger J. Landry
Church of the Holy Family, New York, NY
Pentecost Sunday, Year B
Mass of Reception into the Catholic Church for Christian Edward Stiker
May 23, 2021
Acts 2:1-11; Ps 104, 1Cor12:3-7,12-13; Jn 20:19-23
The following text guided the homily:
Today, on this Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the Church, we have the joy to celebrate your reception into the Catholic Church, Christian. On that day we see the moral miracle the Holy Spirit worked in the lives of the first apostles. He wants to do a similar thing in you through the Sacrament of Confirmation. Like Mary, the apostles and the first members of the Church prayed at Jesus’ command in anticipation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them, so you have been praying and studying in advent of this day. We believe that it has been the Holy Spirit guiding you all along getting you to this day. And today he wants to fill you by a special sacrament to help you to live the fullness of the Christian life. And so let us go to the Upper Room to prepare for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In the Upper Room, 53 days before the Holy Spirit descended, Jesus was there with the apostles during the Last Supper. During that evening he spoke to them about how great a gift the Holy Spirit is. “I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” Jesus is basically declaring that if we had to choose between Him and the Holy Spirit — which thankfully we don’t — we should choose the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit, he said, will teach us all things, lead us into all truth, convict us about sin, holiness and condemnation, remind us of everything Jesus taught us, speak in us under trial and so much more. On that night, Jesus spoke to us about the important of remaining in him, with the Parable of the Vine and the Branches, so that we might bear fruit that will last, and we know that the Holy Spirit is the source of communion between the Father and the Son, between God and us, and among us. Jesus told us that he loves us, just as the Father loves him, and St. Augustine and those after him reminded us that the Holy Spirit is the eternal personal love between the Father and the Son, and if Jesus loves us as the Father loves him, then he loves us in the person of the Holy Spirit, and it is with the Spirit’s help that we love him back. And we know that the pinnacle of Holy Thursday was Jesus’ self-giving in the Holy Eucharist, changing bread and wine into his Body and Blood. He told the apostles, “Do this in memory of me,” changing them into priests capable of doing just that so that later, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus in them might perpetuate this saving sacrifice. As you prepare later today to receive in the Holy Eucharist what St. Thomas Aquinas, your Confirmation patron, once wondrously described as “O Res Mirabilis! Manducat Dominum pauper et servus humilis!” — “O mind-blowing reality: a poor and humble servant eats the Lord!” — recognize that this is made possible by the Holy Spirit we celebrate.
But that’s not the only preparatory gift that happened in the Upper Room. Three days later, 50 days before Pentecost, the apostles were hiding there when Jesus walked through the closed doors, wished them peace, and, as we see in the Gospel we just heard, said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” To receive the Holy Spirit is something we must always focus on, and to receive him not just once, but in every way, and in every occasion, he seeks to give himself to us. But on that night, Jesus was asking them to receive the Holy Spirit in a particular way. He went on to say, “Just as the Father sent me, so I send you,” and we know the Father sent Jesus as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. Jesus was sending them apostles out to continue that saving action. He breathed on them the Holy Spirit and then said, “Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven them; those whose sins you retain are retained.” The Catholic Church has seen in these words the essential structure of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which you were able to receive today before Mass. As the formula of absolution underlines, “God the Father of Mercies, through the death of resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.” What an incredible gift by which our soul is cleansed and restored to the purity it had the day we were baptized! Jesus founded this Sacrament on Easter Sunday evening because of the connection between reconciliation and resurrection. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father, representing God the Father exclaims after his wayward son returns, “My son was dead and has been brought to life again!” That is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation can bring about spiritually. Another extraordinary manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s work.
Now we turn to what happened on Pentecost proper in the Upper Room. After ten days of praying beginning on the day of Jesus’ ascension, the Holy Spirit entered and filled the Upper Room like a strong driving wind. Tongues of fire appeared, parted and descended upon each of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different languages as the Spirit enabled them. The Holy Spirit could have chosen to appear under any manifestation he wished. Jesus had said in his conversation with Nicodemus that the Spirit blows where he wills, and the Holy Spirit came, first, as a strong driving wind. The word in Hebrew for spirit, ruah, is also the word for wind, and he wills to blow across the face of the earth. The second manifestation was as tongues of fire: tongues for speak, fire for ardor, to show that he wished to help Christians give witness to the faith with ardent love. And that’s exactly what they did, as we see in the rest of the Pentecost account, in the rest of the Acts of the Apostles, and across Church history. The Holy Spirit is planning to come down on you, today, Christian. Whether we hear howls of wind or see a fiery tongue, he will confirm or strengthen you for the task of witnessing to God’s presence in the world, testifying to the saving work of Jesus, manifesting what life according to the Holy Spirit is and the gifts and fruit that the Holy Spirit imparts. Like Mary and the apostles on that day, likely May 29, 30 AD, Be like dry wood ready to be ignited. We prayed in the Psalm, “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth,” and we pray for that renewal and the way he wishes to use each of us, including you, to help bring it about.
I want to focus on something to which the whole work of the Holy Spirit leads, which is the bigger picture of this day. At the beginning of Mass, we greet each other with the words of St. Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God [the Father] and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you” (2 Cor 13:14). Many of the prayers of the Mass we finish praying to God the Father, through his Son, “in the unity of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is the communion, the unity, within the persons of the Trinity and within the Church. He seeks to bring about unity. At the beginning of the Pentecost scene, St. Luke tells us, “They were all in one place together.” After the Holy Spirit came down, even though people were from all different places and spoke various languages, the Holy Spirit helped everyone to hear the message God was communicating. Out of the cacophony of languages flowing from Babel, the Holy Spirit, while preserving diversity, was bringing about the type of unity St. Paul would describe in his Letter to the Ephesians: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading from First Corinthians, that even though the Holy Spirit gives different kinds of spiritual gifts, forms of service and different workings, even though a body has many parts but the body is an organic whole, so also in Christ’s mystical body, for “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body … and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” What an awesome reality that is! The Holy Spirit seeks to make us one. He is the answer to Jesus’ prayer to the Father during the Last Supper, that we might all be one, as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father, so that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and loves us like he loves the Son. That’s the work of the Spirit, to bring about that communion. And we rejoice at this work of the Spirit today as you become a big-C Catholic.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Pentecost Sunday
Mass during the Day
Reading I
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.
At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused
because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,
as well as travelers from Rome,
both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues
of the mighty acts of God.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (cf. 30) Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD, my God, you are great indeed!
How manifold are your works, O LORD!
the earth is full of your creatures.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD be glad in his works!
Pleasing to him be my theme;
I will be glad in the LORD.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
If you take away their breath, they perish
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Reading II
Brothers and sisters:
No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit
is given for some benefit.
As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
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.
Sequence
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labor, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end. Amen.
Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”