Reflections on the Solemnity of Pentecost, 2009-B
Again this week, after spending time meditating on the readings, and developing my thoughts for a homily, I just did not get a chance to write out my homily. I did record it, so maybe I will be able to embed a link to the MP3 file so that all of you can listen to it, but I will try to reconstruct what I preached on below.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Today we celebrate the great solemnity of Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church. I hope all of us paid close attention to the beautiful sequence, sung by Jean our music director, for it really explains why we see the Holy Spirit as a gift given to us by Christ Jesus.
What do we mean by calling this the birth of the Church? What is the Church? Surely the Church is not a mere building. Even though we gather in this beautiful, 3-year old church, the building itself, while referred to as a church, is not THE CHURCH whose birth we celebrate today. The Holy Spirit did descend upon the disciples as they waited in prayer in an upper room, so a building, but that space was not the Church. In fact, once they received the Holy Spirit, they rushed outside to proclaim the Good News.
The Church is not the teaching and administrative structures of the Church. Jesus certainly established an hierarchical governing structure for the Church, that structure is not the essence of the Church.
What is the Church? The Church is a life. Namely it is the life of Jesus. Jesus did not abandon us by His Ascension into Heaven. No, He promised to be with us until the end of time. And He is with us because He has poured out His Spirit to unit the members of the Church and to give them a new lift, His life.
I know that we have so doctors and nurses hear, so you can ask them, but there is a difference between a living body and a dead body. The parts are the same — generally both have two lungs, a heart, etc — yet something, something intangible, is missing from the dead body. LIFE is missing. Our Christian Faith tells us that it is the soul that unites the parts of the body and gives them life. In the same way, the Church is not merely a collection of people who share a common belief. Rather the Holy Spirit unites us into a new reality, a new life. The Holy Spirit unites us into the Mystical Body of Christ, extending Jesus’ incarnation throughout time and space. This is why we say in the Creed that the Holy Spirit is the “Giver of Life.” This new living reality, this new life, is the Church.
This week I visited a member of our parish who is in hospice. He is a devout man, but he said that he really did not want to call for a priest, because he did not feel that he was ready for “Last Rites” because I felt he still had time to live. But he wanted to put his wife at ease. I told him that one of the reasons the Church now calls it the Sacrament of the Sick, is because we do not need to wait until the end to receive it. Rather it unites us in a sacramental way to the suffering of Christ; a suffering that the entire Church takes up for the salvation of the world. The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick is a visible remider of the new life we have in the Church. As a priest, anointing him, I was being Jesus’ loving, compassionate, healing presence to that man. When the deacon goes each week to bring him the Eucharist and to journey with him during this last journey in this world, the deacon will be Jesus, again showing compassion, which means to suffer with, that man.
But participating in this new life of Christ which is the Church is not only for the ordained. When Rose goes to visit those in Seacrest nursing home, she is being Christ’s presence to those elderly people. The same goes for Jan and Earl who visit the residents in Arcadia. Dan and Anna, and all those who volunteer at the Food Pantry are bringing the life of Jesus to the poor and hungry. Yet it goes beyond just these more obviously “church” activities. The parent who teaching their children their prayers and brings them to Mass, is Jesus crying out, “let the children come to me, do not hinder them.” The child who tells their classmates or friends to stop picking on another child is being Jesus’ voice call out for justice for the downtrodden. When at work we say we are not going to “fudge” the books or cheat in some other way we are being Jesus who is the Truth. Living out our Christian Faith is participating in this new life which is the Church. We do not do it on our own, we share in this new life only when we are united to the Church, following the teachings and commandments of Christ Jesus revealed to us by the Spirit of Truth.
This is what we celebrate today. We celebrate a new life, the life we call the Church. The continuing life of Jesus Christ in the world. Truly the Holy Spirit is the Gift of Life, the life of Christ Jesus.
