Pentecost

FOCUS:    Let us ask the Lord to give us hearts that are docile to the work of the Spirit in us.

The Holy Spirit transformed the disciples into courageous witnesses of the Resurrection of our Lord. It is this same Spirit that we have received at baptism and whose fullness is given to us at confirmation so that, like those first disciples, we might build up the Church. But submitting to the power of the Holy Spirit can be challenging and we can be tempted to resist. Let us ask the Lord to give us hearts that are docile to the work of the Spirit in us.

What's in Your Heart

• Paul was addressing a community experiencing conflicts and differing loyalties. Every community of faith—including ours—has such divisions. How do you bring people together under one Lord and Spirit? How do you help them realize their different gifts and help them feel equally valued? How do you call people to accept responsibility to use their gifts for the benefit of all?

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• The disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, a divine presence that continues in the church to this day. How do you let the Spirit into your work? How do you help others to understand the gospel, despite the diversity of the people hearing it? Is your ministry one of renewal and forgiveness?

Homily Stories

A surgical team quizzed me recently about my history of “difficult intubation,” a result of childhood arthritis. Also of concern: my recent sleep apnea, for which I wear a CPAP to force air into me at night. Awaking from anesthesia, I heard nurses bark orders to administer more oxygen because apnea had caused my levels to plummet.

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All this fuss about breathing made me think of the short-but-profound YouTube video I used to show Confirmation students, “Breathe” by former evangelical pastor Rob Bell. A couple of his fascinating biblical correlations:

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• In Hebrew, the same word is used for both “breath” and “spirit”—ruach. (Same with the biblical Greek pneuma, meaning both.)

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• The ancient Hebrew name for God—transcribed as Yahweh, but properly spelled and pronounced as YHWH—sounds like breathing. Try it: hold a hand in front of your mouth while sounding out the Hebraic consonants—Yod, Heh, Waw, Heh—and you can feel puffs of air.

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The Bible begins with two different creation stories. In the first, the Spirit of God hovers over chaotic waters. In the second, God breathes life into Adam. Thus the Spirit was here long before Pentecost, already working in the world, as the third eternal presence of the Trinity. Yet we read about Jesus breathing onto his disciples to bequeath the Holy Spirit—and more dramatically, there’s the great windy breath of Spirit that arrives at Pentecost to fire up hearts of hesitant Apostles.

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When I think of the times we humans need help with our breathing—general anesthesia, CPAPs, getting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a crisis—I think of how the early church needed an extra dose of divine breath, too, to carry on Jesus’ mission in life, and how we still need that Spirit today when we are ailing and failing at being the church Jesus entrusted to us. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

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Mary Lynn Hendrickson