Life in the Spirit
Sunday, May 11, 2008

Readings for Pentecost

Reading 1: Acts 2: 1–11

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 104:1, 24, 29–30, 31, 34

Reading 2: 1 Cor. 12:3–7, 12–13

Gospel: Jn. 20:19–23

Link to Readings

By Father Thomas Acklin, O.S.B.

On this Pentecost Sunday, let us reflect on the Church, which has been founded by Jesus Christ and which lives and breathes through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In the aftermath of the pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States, we find a powerful witness to exactly the way in which the Holy Spirit works in the life of the Church.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of how the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and the Blessed Mother in the Upper Room. Isn’t it striking that the fire of the Holy Spirit parted into individual tongues that came upon each person? No two persons receive the One Holy Spirit in exactly the same way, but according to the particular needs and particular mission of that individual!

The way this works is explained by St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians when he points out that there are many gifts but the same Spirit, and how all these gifts work together to build up the Church. Actually, there are also many spirits. But only in the Holy Spirit can one cry out, “Abba, Father,” or proclaim Jesus to be Lord! Any other spirit, which does not claim Jesus Christ as its authority and God the Father as its source, is not the Holy Spirit that founds, leads, and guides the Church.

Breaking through the Babble

The Spirit is One, therefore, and leads all to be One. The Church lives in the One Spirit. All the different personalities and gifts, interests and abilities of persons of all ages come together only in the One Spirit of Jesus Christ. This is a message that goes out to the ends of the earth. Already on Pentecost Sunday, the many foreigners each understood what he heard each apostle speaking, as if each apostle was speaking in that foreigner’s own tongue.

This is another important thing to notice. We often think of the gift of tongues as meaning that someone filled with the Spirit prays in a foreign tongue, which is often not understood by any of the listeners unless someone is given the gift of prophecy to interpret it. This gift was given on Pentecost Sunday! But even more marvelously, each heard each other in his own tongue, a complete reversal of the babble which was created when the people where thrown into confusion while building the Tower of Babble! Here everyone understood everyone else. One thinks of so many meetings or discussions in Church life where, even when everyone is actually speaking the same language, no one seems to understand the other one!

Reconciled

In the gospel account of Jesus appearing on the first day of the week to His disciples, He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This could not yet be the fullness of the Spirit they would receive on Pentecost, because He had not yet ascended to His Father so that the Spirit would come in His fullness.

Nevertheless, these words of Jesus are amplified by the next words Jesus spoke on that Easter evening. As if to show what receiving the Holy Spirit means, Jesus goes on to say, “Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven.” It is reconciliation that brings together all the diversity into one in the life of the Church and within any community or parish in the Church. Reconciliation is needed again and again—to reconcile not only divisions within the Church, but also those divisions that cause separation and can place one outside the Church and outside the Body of Christ.

Here too, Pope Benedict brought to the United States a renewal of the Spirit precisely in the way in which he stressed reconciliation and dialogue, at the same time that he showed how Jesus Christ is the Way by which all come to the Father and to the fulfillment of all our human hopes and dreams. His humble demeanor, his gentle words and firm teaching, his tender smile and prayerful countenance all stirred within Catholics as well as others a desire that there indeed be one flock and one shepherd! The same Lord who promised, “I AM with you always” has kept His promise that the Holy Spirit would come! That same Spirit continues to move, breathe, give gifts, and unite all of us who are open to Him.

Fr. Thomas Acklin, O.S.B., S.T.D., Ph.D., resides at St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He presently serves as a professor of theology and psychology at St. Vincent College and St. Vincent Seminary, and is a faculty member of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute and Foundation. Fr. Acklin has written a number of articles and recently published two books:The Unchanging Heart of the Priesthood and The Passion of the Lamb.

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