Solemnity of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12: b-7, 12-13; Jn 20: 19-23

May 31, 2020

The Feast of Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season – the sending of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. While Easter celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus, Pentecost celebrates the empowerment of the Apostles and disciples enabling them to go out and preach without fear the fact that Jesus had risen. Their mission was to call together and built up God’s Church in every land and place.  

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us the Pentecost story. The account emphasizes the fact that people of many different nations and ethnic groups heard the disciples speak in their language. While this may seem a striking miracle to us, the point is that the Spirit of God was breaking down all the barriers of language, culture, and prejudice, and calling all peoples to community as sisters and brothers.  

St. Paul in his Letter to the Corinthians reflects on the actual workings of the Holy Spirit within the Christian community. He specifically sees the Spirit working in the many gifts of service present in the Church, and as the source of unity among the people.   

Pentecost is a revelation of the reconciling and healing power of God’s Spirit that changes people’s hearts, creates a deep unity within them, and calls each member of the Christian community to many different works of service. But we would miss out on something very important if we stopped there.   

We need to take note of the fact that the Spirit was sent not only to the Church; the Spirit was released on the whole world, and the works of the Spirit were revealed in our world.   

How do we discern the work of the Spirit in our world today? It is hard to have a sense of continuity with the events of Pentecost when we are faced with the constant reality of change in the modern world. Change is all around us. There is a new world being born whether we like it or not, and the rate of change is accelerated.    

It took five million years for the biological development from pre-human to human forms of life to take place.  

It took five thousand years for the social development from a tribal society to the political state as we know it today.  

It took only five hundred years for society to develop from an agricultural base to an industrial base, and  

It took only fifty years for a global technology to develop with telecommunications and computerization that makes the world of fifty years ago seem very far away from our own.  

Today we live in a world that is being transformed right before our eyes. In the face of this rapid change, all of us (people) might experience a sense of powerlessness, or even excitement at the tremendous advances that are being made, or, we might ask ourselves, “What does it all mean?”   

The question about meaning is a religious question – it is a question for people who are not satisfied with the limitation of scientific answers. Technology has no spirit, while the Church is a Spirit-filled community that proclaims to the world that life is something more valuable than a collection of scientific data; that life is a gift, and that life is a mystery that reveals the creative power of God.   

Today’s celebration of Pentecost expresses the universal Church’s longing for the presence of the Spirit, both in the Church and in the world.    

Without God’s life-giving Spirit, our spirits, and our communities will shrivel up and die. It is when we give witness to the gifts of the Spirit as a community, that we bring hope to the world.    

- Fr. Stephen Lattner, O.S.B.