FEAST OF PENTECOST

FEAST OF PENTECOST.

When Alfred Nobel discovered an explosive element that was stronger than anything the world had known at the time, he asked a friend and Greek scholar for a word that conveyed the meaning of explosive power. The Greek word was dunamis, and Nobel named his invention "dynamite."
Dunamis is the same word that Jesus used when He told His disciples, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). In other words, "You shall receive explosive, dynamite power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you."
Think about how this power transformed the first-century believers. Prior to Pentecost, Simon Peter couldn't stand up for his faith when strangers asked him if he was a follower of Jesus. After the power of the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, Peter stood up and boldly preached the gospel, resulting in 3,000 people being saved.
The crowd that had gathered from all over the world in Jerusalem for the festival heard the Christians explaining the gospel in their own language. The first Christian Pentecost was a dramatic, spectacular display. But we would be wrong to conclude from this that the Holy Spirit's normal way of acting in our life is through dramatic fireworks. In fact, it's just the opposite. God's action in our life is most often gentle and hardly perceptible at first. The Holy Spirit works quietly. This power is for a purpose. It is not power to be crazy or power to do weird things. It is power to be a witness . . . power to have the courage to tell someone about Jesus Christ . Power to tell people about what Jesus has done for you.
The Holy Spirit guides us from within, the way magnetism guides a compass. But unless we frequently look to see where that compass is pointing, we will never reach the destination we long for. The Holy Spirit
works quietly, but effectively. Like the sap or life of a vine, which constantly but silently carries nutrients to every branch, invisibly producing luscious, visible fruit, the Holy Spirit is always gently inspiring us to follow Christ more closely, so that we can experience a truly abundant life. But unlike vines, this process doesn't happen automatically. It depends partly on our free choice. That's why Jesus says in the Gospel, "Whoever loves me will keep my word." We don't obey the Holy Spirit's inspirations like robots; we obey out of love, because we know that Christ will never lead us astray, and because we want to stay close to him. That is our part, to obey God's will.

But how do we know what God's will is? The Holy Spirit quietly reveals God's will to us in two ways. First, he inspires and guides the teaching of the Church. We have: the commandments of the Bible, the instructions in the Catechism, the examples of the saints, the regular updates from the pope's encyclicals - the Holy Spirit wants us to know how a Christian should live, and he gives us the Church to keep us posted. In this way, the Church, under the pope's leadership, is like the conductor of a symphony: we have to keep our eyes on him if we want to play our part well. But the Church can only give commandments and guidelines that apply to everyone. That tells God's will 85% of the time. But 15% of the time we are faced with opportunities and challenges unique to our own life-circumstances.
That's when the Holy Spirit guides us more personally, through inspirations, through his seven Gifts, through wise advice.

The influence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives increases when we are confirmed. In the Holy Spirit, the prophecy of "Emmanuel" (God-with-us) takes on unimaginable proportions: not merely God among us, as in the Incarnation, but God within us, a guest in our souls, a guide for our life's journey, a personal trainer for our spiritual fitness. An old beggar lay on his deathbed. His last words to his youngest son who had been his constant companion during his begging trips were: “Dear son, I have nothing to give you except a cotton bag and a dirty bronze bowl which I got in my younger days from the junk yard of a rich lady.” / After his father’s death, the boy continued begging, using the bowl his father had given him. One day a gold merchant dropped a coin in the boy’s bowl and he was surprised to hear a familiar clinking sound. “Let me check your bowl,” the merchant said. To his great surprise, he found that the beggar’s bowl was made of pure gold. “My dear young man," he said, “why do you waste your time begging? You are a rich man. That bowl of yours is worth at least thirty thousand dollars.” / We Christians are often like this beggar boy who failed to recognize and appreciate the value of his bowl. We fail to appreciate the infinite worth of the Holy Spirit living within each of us, sharing His gifts and fruits and charisms with us. On this major feast day we are invited to experience and appreciate the transforming, sanctifying and strengthening presence of the Holy Spirit within us.

When the Holy Spirit came down the people of different languages, they were able to understand each other –a kind of reuniting the divided human family with God and with each other. Love is the language that all women and men understand irrespective of ethnic background. Everybody understands when you smile. Love is the language of the children of God, the only language we shall speak in heaven. The Church has taught us many times and in many ways that the fundamental cause of disunity in the human family is lack of love, sin, the rebellion of the human heart against God.

The root of all the conflicts that threaten world peace are things like fear, misunderstanding, prejudice, jealously, envy, resentment, grudges. All those large scale conflicts can always be traced back to conflicts in individual hearts. If we learn to break down barriers in our own hearts, we will become more effective builders of unity in the world around us.

Holy Spirit came down on people who were together in prayer. Prayer binds us firmly to God, so that through us his strength can bring together the scattered pieces of fallen humanity. A mature prayer life makes us smart partners of the Holy Spirit. First, we have to make sure that prayer is our highest priority in life. What oxygen is for a flame, prayer is for our Christian identity. If you take away the oxygen, the flame will sputter and die. If we don't make an effort to pray each day, we will become joyless, mediocre Christians.
Fulton J. Sheen once said about the church that even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people. Frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith. We don't seem to be happy to be in God's house; we are always in a hurry to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love.

Today, when the Holy Spirit renews his presence in us and in the world during this Mass, let's renew our commitment to becoming mature men and women of prayer, so that we can boldly advance the Church's beautiful and urgent mission.
Let us repeat Cardinal Newman’s favorite little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit:”
“Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love. AMEN.”