Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, New York, NY
Pentecost Sunday 2019
June 9, 2019
Acts 2:1-11, Jn 14:23-31
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in today’s homily:
- 53 liturgical days ago, on Holy Thursday, the apostles were all gathered together in the Upper Room. Jesus washed their feet and instructed them about true service. He gave them his body and blood for the first time. He ordained them priests so that through them, he could give us that same body and blood. He prayed for them to His Father, that they might be one, that the Father would protect them from the Evil one, that they might be consecrated in the truth, and that all those who would hear the Gospel through their lips might be one, too (Cf. Jn 17). But after they left the room, they all abandoned the Lord — right after Mass, right after receiving the Lord Jesus within, right after their priestly ordination! Judas sold Jesus, valuing him less than 30 pieces of silver. All 11 of the other apostles ran away from the garden terrified. Peter, for whom the Lord had prayed personally that his faith would not fail (Lk 22:32), denied three times even knowing Jesus (Mk 14:71). All but St. John were still cowering in hiding the next day as Love personified was being tortured and killed upon a Cross. Jesus had prepared them for three years about what would happen to Him and what they were called to do, but none of that preparation, none of Jesus’ prayers, not even the sacrament of the Eucharist, sufficed to keep them faithful. Something was missing.
- Today we see the Apostles return to the same Upper Room. Jesus has ascended to heaven and Jesus had enjoined the apostles not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the “promise of the Father” about which they had heard him speak, for “in a few days,” he said, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” The apostles and the other followers of Jesus very wisely huddled around Mary and “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer.” They prayed together with Mary in order to learn from her how to get ready to receive the Holy Spirit, for it was she who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ virginal conception and who continually lived as a Spouse of the Holy Spirit, receiving and responding to his inspirations in an exemplary way. United with her they prayed and they waited. Jesus hadn’t told them how long they were to wait in prayerful expectation of that pneumatological baptism. So their first holy hour stretched into a day of recollection. They eventually went to bed and awakened and prayed a whole second day. They might have thought that, just as God the Father had had them wait until the third day for Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit would come after three days that seemed like an eternity. But he didn’t come. So they prayed a fourth day. A fifth day. Now this was taking on the form of a retreat. A sixth day. They were doubtless wondering if the Holy Spirit would come on the seventh day, the day of divine rest. But they were thwarted again. The eighth day. Were they going to have to do this forever? The ninth day. They kept praying and waiting. And it was finally on the tenth day, the feast of Pentecost, that the Holy Spirit burst through the windows of the upper room like the noise of a strong driving wind, came down upon each of them as tongues of fire.
- It’s important for us to ask why God had made them wait so long in prayerful vigil. Some might say that he wanted to wait until Pentecost, the day on which the Jews celebrated their harvest festival and the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai, to show that the Holy Spirit was the law of the New Covenant being placed within their hearts and was going to be the driving force of the harvest of men and women, boys and girls, for Christ’s kingdom until the end of time. Some might say because it gave them a chance to learn from Mary about Jesus’ early days, his conception, birth, flight to Egypt, finding in the Temple, and his hidden years working as a construction worker with St. Joseph in Nazareth. Both of those reasons make sense. But I think the most fitting explanation is that God wanted the early Church to grow in desire for this baptism of the Holy Spirit, to long for the Holy Spirit’s presence, to discover the reasons why they really, really, really needed his guidance and assistance, so that they would be totally receptive and responsive like Mary to the divine ignition he was going to turn on in them.
- This time they leave the Upper Room and begin to preach the Gospel fearlessly. An astonishing three thousand people were converted that first day. The same apostles who had scattered like frightened children in the Garden were now gathering God’s children together for Christ. The same Peter who denied even knowing Jesus in order to keep himself warm by the courtyard fire, was now on fire confessing that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of the Living God. The disciples who were too ashamed to appear at the foot of the Cross were now boldly and proudly proclaiming God’s love seen by Christ’s death on that Cross. What was different? Surely Mary’s example had helped them. Doubtless the resurrection of Jesus from the dead had filled them with joy and had given them profound confidence. But what could have made these men turn from chickens to shepherds, from cowards to courageous martyrs, from apostates to apostles, so soon? The answer is what and Whom we celebrate today: the Holy Spirit.
- On Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit worked a miracle in each of the apostles, and through them, in the whole Church. He changed them interiorly. He essentially raised them from the dead. St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans tells us, “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his spirit that dwells in you.” The Holy Spirit wants us to experience the fullness of Jesus’ Risen life to which we’re capable, even now, here in this world. That’s one of the reasons why Pentecost is fittingly the conclusion of the Easter season, because it is the dramatic exclamation point on Easter. Jesus suffered, died, rose and ascended in order that we in him, through the power of the Holy Spirit, might experience his risen life. But that life comes from what St. Paul calls living according to the Holy Spirit, setting our minds on the things of the Spirit, and putting to death in us the things of the flesh, world and the devil. The stakes, St. Paul says, are between life and death, “For if you live according to the flesh,” he cautions, “you will die, but if by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Therefore, the most important reality about the feast of Pentecost is that each of us make a resolution to allow the Holy Spirit to do in us what he did in the early Church, to help us experience within Jesus’ risen life, with all the consequences that come from it.
- The Church is still alive and the Acts of the Apostles will continue until the end of time. The Holy Spirit wants to inspire new chapters with each of us — all of us, none of us excluded — playing an important role. The wind is still blowing. The fire of the Holy Spirit still burns. Each of us, however, needs to let the Holy Spirit in to complete his work. Each of us has to allow the Holy Spirit to bring about a similar miracle in us. Too often we live our faith more like the Apostles on Holy Thursday than on Pentecost Sunday. We come to Mass, Jesus prays for us, he feeds us with his flesh and blood, but when we leave the Upper Room, many of us go through the motions and basically leave as we came, leaving us prone to cave in to various denials, perhaps for comfort like Peter, perhaps out of fear like all the rest. We know what our mission is — to give witness to the whole world that Jesus is the Savior, that Jesus is alive, that he is the truth worth living for and worth dying for, that he is the pearl of great price worth selling everything else to obtain, that he is the one thing necessary and we’re called to choose the better part — but many of us do not come anywhere close to giving our all to fulfilling that mission. Proclaiming the Gospel today is surely not easy; so many do not accept Christ and his counter-cultural teachings and the Church he founded. But when we look back to what the first disciples encountered — when first the Jewish leaders and eventually the Roman authorities were trying to do to them what they had previously done to Jesus — crucify them! — for proclaiming the Gospel, and when the culture was even more imbued by practices contrary to the Gospel than it is now — we find great reason for hope. For if the Holy Spirit could work such wonders with those coarse fishermen and tax collectors, then surely he can do similarly great things through us if we give him permission. We have so many more advantages than they did in terms of education, in terms of social communications, in terms of travel, in terms of grace, since many of us, unlike them, have been Christian from just after birth. If by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they were able to leave the Upper Room on Pentecost differently than they did on Holy Thursday, then, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we, too, can turn from cowards to heroes, from sinners to saints.
- But the problem for many of us is that many of us, out of fear or even out of sloth, do not allow the Holy Spirit to act. Pope Benedict talked about this fear and how the Holy Spirit wants to help us courageously to trust him ten years ago today on Pentecost. He said, “At Pentecost the Holy Spirit is manifest as fire. The Spirit’s flame descended upon the assembled disciples, it was kindled in them and gave them the new ardour of God. …The fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is that of the bush that burned but was not consumed (see Ex 3: 2). It is a flame that blazes but does not destroy, on the contrary, that, in burning, brings out the better and truer part of man, as in a fusion it elicits his interior form, his vocation to truth and to love.” He went on to say that while “the flame of the Holy Spirit blazes but does not burn,” nevertheless “it enacts a transformation, and thus must also consume something in man, the waste that corrupts him and hinders his relations with God and neighbour.” For this reason, the “divine fire … frightens us; we are afraid of being ‘scorched’ and prefer to stay just as we are. This is because our life is often based on the logic of having, of possessing and not the logic of self-gift. Many people believe in God and admire the person of Jesus Christ, but when they are asked to lose something of themselves, then they retreat; they are afraid of the demands of faith. There is the fear of giving up something pleasant to which we are attached; the fear that following Christ deprives us of freedom, of certain experiences, of a part of ourselves. On the one hand, we want to be with Jesus, follow him closely, and, on the other, we are afraid of the consequences entailed.” For this reason, “we are always in need of hearing the Lord Jesus tell us what he often repeated to his friends: ‘Be not afraid.’ Like Simon Peter and the others we must allow his presence and his grace to transform our heart, which is always subject to human weakness. We must know how to recognize that losing something indeed, losing ourselves for the true God, the God of love and of life is actually gaining ourselves, finding ourselves more fully. Whoever entrusts himself to Jesus already experiences in this life the peace and joy of heart that the world cannot give, and that it cannot even take away once God has given it to us. So it is worthwhile to let ourselves be touched by the fire of the Holy Spirit! The suffering that it causes us is necessary for our transformation.”
- How does the Holy Spirit want to transform us? He does the Divine Fire want to scorch and purify us? He does he want to raise us from the dead and help us to live in communion with Jesus?
- The first way is through our prayer. The Holy Spirit helps us to learn how to pray, coming, as St. Paul says, “to the aid of our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us” (Rom 8:26). He wants to help us learn how to pray so that our life might become an existence made prayer and enable us to live our whole life in union with God. St. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words, that he helps us to cry out “Abba, Father!” and pray as beloved sons and daughters who know that the Father who cares for us more than the lilies or sparrows will never give us a stone when we ask for bread. To pray, “Come, Holy Spirit!,” means that we’re ready to cooperate in our prayer and allow him to change the way we pray, so that he can, in a sense, blow his strong driving wind within us the way a trumpeter makes music.
- The second way he wants to lead and help us is in our response to our growing in our knowledge of the faith. Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that he will send us the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth and to remind us of everything he taught us. Jesus himself hadn’t taught us everything because, he said, we couldn’t handle it all. To say, “Veni Creator Spiritus,” means that we are going to do the work to learn our faith better, to get to know intimately the Sacred Scripture he inspired, to become familiar with and live according to the teaching of the magisterium of the Church he guides.
- The third way is in how we live our Christian life. The Holy Spirit is sent to guide us. St. Paul tells us in his letters to the Galatians and Romans that there are two basic ways to live, to live according to the Spirit or to live according to the flesh (Gal 5; Rom 8). To live by the Spirit means that we’re constantly seeking what God the Holy Spirit seeks. To live by the flesh means to place our heart, our treasure, in the things of this world, in money and material possession, in carnal pleasures, in fame, power, influence, in superficialities. It means to give in, as he tells the Galatians, to immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, hatred, rivalry, jealousy and envy, anger, selfishness, dissensions, drunkenness, debauchery and to life not consistent with the kingdom of God. To live by the Spirit means to have the desires of the Spirit and it will be seen in the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-mastery. To say “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” means that we want him to help us to put to death in us whatever lives by the flesh so that we may totally live by his inspiration, his in-breathing, as Mary and the apostles did, and as the saints have ever since.
- The fourth way the Holy Spirit wants to burn away worldliness and raise us up by helping us to become aware of his gifts and to use them to transform the Church and together renew the world. In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit has given each of us a “manifestation of the Spirit” for the benefit of the whole. He has given each of us “spiritual gifts” so that we may carry out the “different forms of service” and “different workings” necessary to make Christ’s Body the Church strong. He wants to help us to recognize what our gifts are and, just as importantly, to use them to build up our family, to build up parish, to build up the Church as a whole and help it fulfill its mission in the world. The mission of the Church is not just for ordained or consecrated “specialists.” We’re all called to be contributors rather than consumers, givers rather than takers, co-responsible participants rather than seated spectators. Our roles will vary — just as an eye is not the same thing as a foot — but all our roles are important. We’re not alive in Jesus if we’re passing the buck of responsibility for sharing in his mission of the salvation of the world. If we think the mission of the Church is someone else’s concern, the Holy Spirit wants to burn away that deception, raise us to life and unite us to Jesus’ mission.
- The fifth way is with regard to the missionary dimension of the Christian life, to our boldly and confidently sharing of the faith with others. The Holy Spirit wants to fill us with a fire to light the world ablaze with the Gospel. He came down as tongues of fire upon the early Church to symbolize that he wanted us, strengthened by him, to use our tongues to proclaim the Gospel with ardent love. We see how the Holy Spirit helped simple men speak powerfully and effectively in front of vast crowds. He can do the same with us. By Baptism and Confirmation, we’ve all received the same Holy Spirit that the apostles received on Pentecost. We just need to cooperate as much as they did and spread the faith more charismatically, as joint witnesses with the Holy Spirit, that Christ is alive and wants to raise not only the dead but the living! To say, “Come, Holy Spirit!,” is to get ready to burst through the doors of this Church and go out to announce Christ’s kingdom just like the apostles left the Upper Room.
- The chronicle of the history of the Church is one both of cooperation and rejection of the Holy Spirit. All of the Church’s great fruit across the centuries has come about principally by our efforts but our cooperation with God the Holy Spirit’s work in us. He is the one who makes saints. He is the one who works miracles. He is the one who helps us effectively to share the faith and bring family and friends and former strangers to God and to his family. He is the one who has inspired us to found so many parishes, schools, hospitals, and charitable centers. Today he wants us to recognize that in all of that wonderful history, he was only getting started. He wants to do great things in us. At this time in which the Church is suffering in so many ways from self-inflicted wounds and from the continuous persecution in some places from those who are moved by a spirit opposed to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit wants us to focus on him and his work more than on the problems. He wants us to allow him to use us living stones as he reforms and rebuilds the Church. He wants us to recognize that every crisis that the Church faces is a crisis of saints and that he wants you and me to become part of his response to that crisis. But for that to happen, we must not reject him. We can’t wrap ourselves in the spiritual asbestos of cynicism, complaint, and sloth. St. Paul begged the early Christians not to “quench” or “grieve” the Spirit of God by their failure to cooperate with him. He wanted them — and us —to give the Spirit full reign, by allowing him to work in us the same moral miracles he worked in the apostles and members of the early Church. One of the reasons why so many individuals are lost, why so many parishes are struggling, consolidating and closing, why the Church as a whole in many places has undergone various recent crises is because we have, in fact, been stifling the Holy Spirit’s work, either trying to do it on our own, or not doing anything at all, or unwittingly taking orders from below. This feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, is a true God-send, on which the Holy Spirit wants to give us all a true spiritual rebirth, so that we might pray, live, build up and preach together with Jesus.
- The Holy Spirit whom we and the whole Church so much need comes to us anew at every Mass. When the priest is incensed during the Offertory, he says a beautiful prayer that is particularly relevant for us today. He prays, “Accendat in nobis Dominus ignem sui amoris et flammam aeternae caritatis.” “Ignite in us, O Lord” — notice that he’s praying not just for himself but for everyone present — “the fire of your love and the flame of eternal charity.” In response to that prayer, during the Mass, God the Father and the Son send us the Holy Spirit as that loving fire and eternally charitable flame. Just as he overshadowed Mary at the Annunciation, so he will overshadow this altar and me at the consecration to transform bread and wine into the eternal Son of God incarnate, and so he will overshadow all of us to make us one body, one Spirit in Christ. The Eucharist, as Pope Benedict XVI said in 2008, “is a ‘perpetual Pentecost’ since every time we celebrate Mass we receive the Holy Spirit who unites us more deeply with Christ and transforms us into Him.” When we in the epiclesis call down the Holy Spirit — “Veni, Sanctificator!” — he comes and carries out that work of sanctification, transforming us the Mystical Body of Jesus whom we prepare to receive. Today, on this Pentecost of Pentecosts, we beg God the Father and God the Son to send the Holy Spirit to fill us with the fire of his love, a fire that is meant to spread to all parts of our life, so that our existence may become like an inextinguishable burning bush that lights with the light and warmth of divine love the lives of our family members, friends, coworkers and fellow students, indeed the whole world. Today is the answer to our prayers and the long vigil prayers of the Church in the Upper Room throughout the centuries, in which we’ve begged, “Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30). The Holy Spirit, the Fire of God’s Mercy, the Sanctifier, the Advocate, has come today, here at Mass, to begin that ecclesial and world renewal one-by-one with a fire that overflows into all parts of our life and joins with the fire he is lighting with others, becoming a bonfire of divine love and eternal charity in Christ’s Mystical Body. And so, at the end of this “Advent of the Advocate,” we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in us the fire of your love!” “Come, Holy Spirit, renew me, renew us, renew the Church and through us renew the face of the earth!” Amen!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Acts of the Apostles
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 own 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.”
The continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. John
Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. “I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name — he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I will come back to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me.
