HOMILY FOR PENTECOST SUNDAY

Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: Acts 2:1-11 – They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 103(104):1, 24, 29-31, 34 – Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

Second Reading:1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13 – In the one Spirit we were all baptized.

Gospel: John 20:19-23 – As the Father sent me, so am I sending you: receive the Holy Spirit.

The name “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word meaning “fiftieth”. Pentecost, just like the Passover, is tied to a Jewish feast. It is also variously known as Shavuot and as the “Feast of Weeks”, and is celebrated 7 weeks after the second day of Passover; in other words, 50 days after the Passover. In Leviticus 23:15-16, God commanded the Jews to count seven full weeks (or 49 days) beginning on the second day of Passover, and then present offerings of new grain to the Lord as a lasting ordinance. It was from this Levitical command that the name “Feast of Weeks” was also given to refer to Shavuot or Pentecost. Whereas Passover celebrates the freeing of the Jews from slavery, Shavuot celebrates their becoming God’s holy people by the gift and acceptance of the Law. Shavuot is tied to the Ten Commandments because the Jews believe that it was precisely at this time that God gave the Torah to the people through Moses on Mount Sinai. As one of the three pilgrimage festivals, there was influx of pilgrims to Jerusalem from all over the world. In fact, all Jewish males were required by law to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem during these pilgrimage feasts. This was the day that the Holy Spirit chose to descend on the Apostles so that they would have the occasion to preach the Good News to all nations. The first reading tells us that, “there were devout men living in Jerusalem and from every nation under heaven, and at the sound they all assembled, each one bewildered to hear these men speaking his own language”. That very day, the gospel technically and symbolically reached the ends of the earth.

It is important to note the parallel symbolism with the Jewish feasts: the Jews celebrate their freedom from the slavery of Egypt during the Passover; we Christians celebrate our freedom from the slavery of sin and death during Easter. The Jews celebrate their becoming God’s holy people by the gift and acceptance of the Law during the Shavuot; we celebrate our becoming a Church through the gift of the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost. Pentecost, therefore, marks the beginning or the birth of the Church. As an agricultural festival, the Jewish Shavuot celebrates the joyous harvest of the year. But on Pentecost, the Church celebrates the harvest of new souls. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that on that day, about 3000 people accepted the message of the Gospel, were baptized, and added to the number of Christians (Acts 2:41).

Although there is a close connection between the Jewish Shavuot and the Christian Pentecost, the Church does not just do a copycat type of juxtaposition. As Jesus dramatically changed the original meaning of Jewish Passover into the Christian Passover by changing the Passover Haggadah and directing his apostles to “do this in memory of me”, so also the Holy Spirit’s descending on the apostles on the Pentecost day and giving them the gifts with which they began the spreading of the gospel, changed the focus of the celebration into the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the birth of a new people of God – the Church. To help us understand how the entire ecclesiology of the Church was crafted in the account of the Pentecost day, I have decided to extract a little passage from Joseph Ratzinger’s book “Journey towards Easter”. His analyses are so important that I have left most of the extract in his own very words and expressions; although for the sake of brevity and easier reading, I have also omitted some sentences and some paragraphs, and modified some). What follows therefore, is Ratzinger’s (Pope Benedict XVI) reflection.

PENTECOST – THE BEGINNING OF THE CHURCH IN THE SENDING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

A first sketch of a Catholic ecclesiology is found in the Acts of the Apostles. St. Luke, who is called, and criticized as “primitive Catholic” by the Protestants, develops his course of ecclesiology in the first two chapters of Acts, especially in the account of Pentecost day.

Pentecost is for Luke the birth of the Church through the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descends on the Community of disciples who “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with…Mary the mother of Jesus” and, the eleven Apostles. We can therefore say that the Church begins with the descent of the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit “enters” into a community which prays, is united, and at whose centre are Mary and the Apostles.

Meditating on this simple fact reported in the Acts of the Apostles, we find the four marks of the Church namely; it is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic:

1: The Church is Apostolic: It was built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20). The Church cannot live without the living, concrete bond with uninterrupted line of apostolic succession, sure guarantee of fidelity to the faith of the Apostles. St. Luke emphasizes this mark of the Church when he said: “They devoted themselves to (‘persevered in’) the apostles’ teaching (2:24). Note that it is not a matter of only listening to the Apostles’ teaching; it is a matter of the deep and vital perseverance by which the Church is inserted, rooted, in the doctrine of the Apostles; and thus the admonition becomes more radical for the personal life of believers also. The question one should ask oneself is: is my life truly based on this doctrine? Do the currents of my life flow in this central direction?

2: The Spirit entered into a community united with the Apostles, and this community was assiduous in prayer. Thus we find the second mark of the Church. The Church is Holy, and her holiness does not result from her own powers; her holiness results from her conversion to the Lord. The Church looks to the Lord and thus comes to be transformed in his image. St. Luke says at the end of chapter 2 that, “they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to the prayers”. By celebrating the Eucharist we keep our eyes fixed on the blood of Christ. Thus we shall also see that the celebration of the Eucharist is not a purely liturgical thing but that it has to be the fixed centre of our life. Starting from this centre we become “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). It is thus that the Church becomes holy, and, in holiness, one.

3: The community at the Pentecost was united in prayer, was “in one accord” (1:14). After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Luke uses a still stronger expression: “the company…were of one heart and one soul” (4:32). With these words, Luke indicates the deeper reason for the union in the primitive community: oneness of heart. The Church at prayer is united with Christ and with one another. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is father of all. The Church is one.

4: Pentecost day supplies also the fourth mark of the Church – Catholicity. The Holy Spirit shows his presence in the gift of tongues, thus renewing and reversing the occurrence at Babel: the pride of the people who wanted to become like God and build the Tower, the bridge to heaven, with their own powers, without God. It is this pride which creates the divisions in the worlds, the walls of separation. In their pride, men and women recognize only their own intelligence, their own will, their own feelings, and in consequence, are no longer able to understand the language of others, or, to hear the voice of God. The Holy Spirit, divine love, understands tongues and makes them understood; he gives unity in diversity. Thus already on her first day the Church speaks in all languages; she is catholic from the start. Of course, the bridge between heaven and earth exists: the Cross is that bridge; the love of the Lord built that bridge. The construction of that bridge surpasses all the possibilities of technology; the Babel attempts had to founder, and must still. Only the incarnate love of God could build it. Where heaven is open and the angels go up and down (cf. Jn. 1:51), men and women begin again and understand one another.

The church is catholic from the first moment of her existence, embracing all tongues. In St Luke’s idea of the Church and consequently in an ecclesiology faithful to Scripture, the sign of tongues expresses something very important: the Church universal precedes the particular Churches, the whole comes before the parts. The Church universal is not a secondary fusion of local Churches; the Church universal, catholic, gives birth to the particular Churches, which can remain Churches only in communion with catholicity. On the other hand: catholicity requires the multiplicity of tongues, the reconciliation and reunion of the wealth of humankind in the love of the Crucified. Catholicity is not therefore only an external thing, but also an internal characteristic of personal faith: it is believing with the Church of all times, all continents, all cultures, all languages. Catholicity demands an open heart. The Apostles were able to bring about the Catholic Church because in their hearts the Church was already catholic. Their faith was catholic, open to every tongue. The Church becomes barren where and when she lacks catholicity of heart, catholicity of personal faith.

For Luke, the day of Pentecost anticipates the whole history of the Church. This history is in its entirety a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The realization of the Holy Spirit, driving the Church to the uttermost ends of the earth and throughout all ages, is the central theme of every chapter of Acts, wherein is described the transition of the Gospel from the Hebrews to the pagans, from Jerusalem to Rome. In the structure of this book, Rome stands for the pagan world – all the peoples who are outside the ancient people of God. It concludes with the arrival of the Gospel in Rome. With the arrival in Rome the journey begun in Jerusalem has reached its goal; the Church catholic, which continues and substitutes the ancient people of God centred in Jerusalem, has been realized. In this sense, Rome is already in the ecclesiology of St. Luke given an important theological significance, and becomes part of the Lucan concept of the catholicity of the Church.

Thus it can be said that Rome is the name of catholicity. The binomial “Roman Catholic” expresses no contradiction, as though the name of a particular Church, a city, were a restricting or even withdrawing of catholicity. Rome means fidelity to the origins, to the Church of all ages, and to a church which speaks in all tongues. But for Rome to have such a spiritual content means for us, who are called to be this Rome today, the guarantee of genuine catholicity and an obligation which demands much of us.