Feast of Pentecost (C)

Acts 2:1-11;1 Cor 12:3-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23

The three Persons of the Trinity were planning a holiday. The Spirit, manifesting the creative part of the divine nature, was coming up with the ideas. “Let’s go to New York,” he suggested. “No, no, no,” said the Father, “They’re all so liberated, they’ll spend the whole time calling me “Mother” and it will just do my head in.”

So the Spirit sat back and thought. “I know. What about Jerusalem?” he said. “It’s beautiful and then there’s the history and everything.”

“No way!” the Son declared. “After what happened the last time, I’m never going there again!”

At this point, the Spirit got annoyed and went off in a huff. Sometime later he returned and found that the Father and Son had had an idea they both thought was excellent.

“Why don’t we go to Rome?” said the Son.

“Perfect!” cried the Holy Spirit. “I’ve never been there before!”

(The story is from an unknown author)

Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost to commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the first Christian community. Before he ascended to heaven, Jesus asked his followers not to leave Jerusalem and to wait for the promise of the Father (Acts 1:4-5). He wanted them to bond together and prepare themselves to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so, they gathered in prayer in the cenacle, waiting eagerly for the promised event (Acts 1:14).

The moment came ten days after Jesus ascended to heaven, around fifty days after his resurrection. The Book of Acts narrates that the Holy Spirit descended like tongues of fire and rested on the head of each of the apostles. Soon after, the apostles “began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech” (Acts 2:4). Theologians would like to consider this event as the birth of the Church, when the small bond of Jesus’ followers began to preach the good news to all people regardless of race and tongue. The Holy Spirit was the dynamic power who moved and empowered the disciples to start fulfilling the mission entrusted to them by Jesus.

There is an important lesson to learn from the Pentecost-experience of the apostles. Before every missionary endeavor, we must gather together in prayer and invoke the assistance of the Holy Spirit, for only the Spirit can make our plans and actions bear fruit and serve the common good.

The readings of the liturgy inspire us to appreciate the movements of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community. First of all, the Holy Spirit breaks division and discrimination. The first reading narrates that right after receiving the Holy Spirit, the disciples were boldly preaching in public and they spoke different languages to people, to the amazement of the huge crowd. The people heard the disciples preaching to them in their own tongues, and all of a sudden, there was no distinction between the listeners.

The fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the first Christian community was oneness in Christ. What the Spirit did to the early Church was to break boundaries and barriers between persons. The disciples were starting to become a sign of contradiction in the world for now they were living with the norms of the Holy Spirit, who wanted to create a new humanity – a humanity of brothers and sisters, a humanity of equals, a humanity of Christian believers.

In our reflection, we should ask ourselves: Are we faithful to what the Holy Spirit forms? In our communities, is the will of the Holy Spirit being observed, or is there still discrimination?

The Holy Spirit wants us to continue doing the mission of Christ in the Church. We have to treat each person as a brother or sister so that wherever we are, at home or abroad, we will continue to see and feel living among brothers and sisters. We have to respect, serve, and care for everyone, regardless of color, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, etc. This is what the Holy Spirit wants us to do – break all barriers so that a new world order will be established.

Moreover, the Spirit gives many different charisms for the good of the Christian community. The second reading says: “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” (1 Cor 12:4-6). The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, provides different talents to people so that the various needs of the Church can be addressed. The charisms of prophesying, teaching, healing, leading, praying, singing, etc are gifts of the Holy Spirit to the community so as to make it fully alive.

We are witnesses of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our own Christian communities. In the parish, for example, we have people with different talents and capacities contributing in the work of evangelization. Some are singing beautifully in the choir; others are serving efficiently as lectors or prayer leaders; and some others are zealous missionaries, pastoral workers and catechists, etc. Such is the will of the Holy Spirit because the parish cannot survive with only one charism.

But what ties these different charisms? It is the common good. The Holy Spirit awakens in people the sense of the common good. The Spirit leads us to serve one another and to love one another. We have different talents, but we are inspired to contribute our talents for the good of all. The Spirit wills that there should be an exchange of gifts because without the sharing of gifts the missionary work of the Church will suffer.

In our reflection, we should ask ourselves: are we living by the Holy Spirit? Are we generous enough to share one’s talents for the common good?

Unfortunately, some communities are impoverished because the people are not generous to share. There is an abundance of gifts but people only serve their own interests or the interests of their family. Obviously, communities like these are not truly Christian because they are living against the will of the Holy Spirit.

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

“What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered – he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral. The farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

(The story is from an unknown author)