PENTECOST SUNDAY

Fray Onz Antonio, OAR•May 29, 2020

Readings: Acts 2:1-11/1 Cor. 12:3-7/ John 20:19-23

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Today we come to the highest point of our Easter Celebration –The Solemnity of the Pentecost. The Pentecost reminds us of the power of the Holy Spirit renewing our life as an individual and as a community. This feast also reminds us of the mission that the Lord has given us – to tell the world of his love. The Holy Spirit was given to us to give us the courage to be God’s witnesses. But have we seriously performed this task entrusted to us?

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Let me share with you a story:

In an early Sunday morning, the mother tried to wake her son up to prepare for the Sunday Mass. Several attempts she made but the son would not get up and get himself ready for the mass. Almost at the point of desperation, the mother decisively and forcefully tells her son in a rather shrill voice, “You have to prepare now because you have to go to the Church. It’s a Sunday!” The son answered his mother: “No! I am not going to the Church this Sunday. And I have to reasons why I should not go. First, they don’t like me. Second, I don’t like them.” But the mother said in reply, “You have to go to the Church for three reasons: First, it’s a Sunday; second, you are already 45 years old, and third, you are the parish priest. “

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The attitude of the priest in the story was the attitude of the apostles whom Jesus had commissioned to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. But as soon as Jesus leaves them, what happened, what did they do? They retired to their upper rooms and hid themselves. They were afraid of the Jews. They knew that people did not like them. They knew that their message was different from the popular message of the time. In fear, the followers of Jesus hid behind locked doors. The trauma of the past days silenced them. They had lost their way. Perhaps they expected for more bloodshed. In guilt they felt they had failed him.

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We are often like that, too. We go to Church quietly, receive communion quietly, and go home quietly.

But what about the mission that Jesus left you and me—to become witnesses? Iniiwasan natin ang maging kabahagi ng pagpapalaganap ng Salita ng Diyos. We are afraid people will not listen to us. We are afraid they will call us a freak if we try to preach the Good News to others.

What can I do? What difference can I make? I don’t like them and they don’t like me. And so like the priest in the story, we give up our God-given duty and go on with our own comfortable silence and allow the spirit to sleep.

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Our journey is at times rough. At times we just feel too helpless. In desolation we drop like stones rigid and alone. We can distance ourselves from the very sources of life. But the more we distance ourselves, the more God’s spirit does not find us.

But whatever the situation is, the Spirit remains. He is always there to bring life. The power of the spirit works in us not because we are good. Precisely, we become good because of the power of the Spirit working in us.

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Today’s readings spell out the significance of the sending of the Spirit for the early church — and for us today!

The Gospel of John tells us that after Jesus’ death the disciples were so afraid of the Jews that they hid themselves in a locked room. But despite the locked doors Jesus appeared to them; He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit transformed them. They began preaching fearlessly.

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The Acts of the Apostles describes a further miracle accompanying this preaching. Jews “from every nation under heaven” had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost, but through the power of the Spirit all understood the disciples “speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” The Spirit transformed the preachers and the hearers!

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And Corinthians reminds us that these gifts of the Spirit were not limited to the original disciples and their hearers but were given to everyone, Jews and Greeks and slaves and all of us free persons. Further these gifts of the Spirit become the source of God’s power animating every part of the community, transforming the community into the body of Christ, for as Paul exclaims “we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” Through the Spirit’s presence we are, in Paul’s words, a “new creation” and “temples of the Spirit.”

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If we value the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us only when it provides us with a sense of our own well-being and comfort, then we will always stand on shaky ground. Today, the Holy Spirit is challenging our comfortable defenses, favorite preferences, and habits. Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of a new life, a new enthusiasm, and a new vision to bring the Good News to others.

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Fray Onz Antonio, OAR

Priest/Religious of the Order of Augustinian Recollects in the Province of St. Ezekiel Moreno.