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Tag: Pentecost Sunday

  • Feast of Gratitude

    Feast of Gratitude

    May 23, 2021 – Pentecost Sunday

    + Manny Cabajar, C.Ss.R. D.D.

    Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052321-Day.cfm)

    Pentecost is a big Jewish feast of gratitude for the harvest. Jesus comes to sow God’s Spirit. We see this Spirit working wonders among the blind, the sick, the lame and hungry. Jesus is condemned but returns to those who desert Him. He coaxes His disciples to raise their eyes and look beyond their own little world. They experience His Ascension.

          Now, he appears again while they are closeted in a little upper room we don’t know except that it is in Jerusalem where people gather from every nation to express harvest gratitude. They speak different languages and have varied intentions. To their surprise illiterate Galileans speak to them in their own native tongue and preach in the language they understand.

          Amazing! We know how hard it is to learn, speak and write in another language! Yet, when those illiterates speak, people from different countries understand. That is the novel experience of the new harvest, Pentecost! It’s the hearers, not the speakers, that make the claim! 

    Photo courtesy of Sandino Hofer Madelo Photography and Videography

          We rarely experience such a harvest today! St. Paul hints that no one can say, “Jesus is Lord” unless influenced by the Holy Spirit. It is not easy to understand others if we don’t shed our mold of feelings and set habits, if we don’t dethrone ourselves and enthrone the other. To enthrone the other, we have to forgive self-centered habits in others but even more: we need to forgive them in ourselves. That is why the Lord says: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.”

          Jesus’ gift of peace is more than an absence of trouble. His gift includes forgiveness of sins and fullness of what is good. The gift of the Spirit enables His disciples and us to live a new way of life – a life of love, peace, joy and righteousness. The outpouring of the Spirit creates the Church to continue Jesus’ mission in proclaiming the Good News. If we want to live a faith-filled life, we ask Jesus to fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit.

         

    Sadly, we often retain the sins of others and ourselves. So, we do not harvest the fruits of God’s Spirit among us. It is striking we are not told where the Apostles experience the Holy Spirit. Isn’t it because that could be any time and any place where we closet ourselves? Do we get the hint? Are we ready to say: “Jesus is Lord”?  Are we ready to forget the pain, the insults, the injustice we bear? Are we ready to go beyond our horizons and see those from the vantage point of the Lord? Don’t our cities look like jewels when we fly over them at night?

          Father, we thirst for the life of the Spirit in us to obey Your will. Thank You for the gift of Pentecost and new life in the Holy Spirit. Fill us with Your Spirit and set our hearts ablaze with the fire of Your love that we may serve You in freedom and joy. Amen.

          Brothers and sisters, God may surprise us behind locked doors. The key is to be always open to the Holy Spirit!

  • Look at God, and you will be at rest

    Look at God, and you will be at rest

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    May 31, 2020 – Pentecost Sunday

    Click here for the readings (http://cms.usccb.org/bible/readings/053120-day.cfm)

    Corrie ten Boom, a Nazi concentration camp Christian survivor of the Holocaust once said, “If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. If you look at God, you’ll be at rest”.

    Though her words was spoken of World War II’s genocide of European Jews, somehow these words also describe our present reality in today’s pandemic world. When we come to think of it, distressing it is to find that our world we live in now is sick, infected and under serious death-threat.  Worse, as we try to cope with its daily challenges, and as our leaders are doing what they can to protect us from this threat, there are still quite a number of people who are in denial, resorts to blame game and even do stupid acts at the expense of and putting others’ health in jeopardy.

    Also, not only mental health problems and concerns are of rise nowadays, depressing it is to find ourselves  isolated, limited and quarantined. In the midst of our challenging reality, we do find ourselves stressed, restless, and helpless.  From our perspective, distressing and depressing our life these days is and can be. However, as Corrie suggests, if when we go beyond our perspective & try to see it with God’s perspective, we will find consolation and meaning in what is happening in our lives and what we are going through now. Thus, “if you look at God, you’ll be at rest.”

    As our risen Lord made himself known to them in our gospel, Jesus gave His disciples three gifts. First, the gift of Peace: “Peace be with you” – as healing consolation for their troubled and anxious heart during difficult times. Then, the gift of mission “I send you” – as direction and mandate to be His living witnesses in present the world.  And above all, the gift of the Holy Spirit: “Receive the Holy Spirit” – as power, courage and guide to respond to the challenges of faith and life ahead. Peace, Mission & Holy Spirit are our risen Lord’s gifts he left behind for His disciples then & for us now His church, as necessary components to live out and practice our faith in our very lives as His living witnesses to the world today. And behind these gifts is the call to “Look at God”, that is, the challenge to go beyond ourselves, rise above the occasion, and be inspired.

    Meaning, “Looking at God” invites us to go beyond our views of things and discern God’s plan and will for our “is and can-be” distressing and depressing life. “Looking at God” provides us also with identity, meaning & authority to fulfill our very mission and tasks in this life – thus, rising for the occasion to share our unique gift we can offer in this life. And “Looking at God” is to be IN God’s spirit – to be in one spirit, mind and will with God, whenever, whatever, however, wherever life has in store for us.  

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    Moreover, we look at God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our first reading reminds us that on the day of Pentecost, as they receive the Lord’s gift of Holy Spirit, the frightened disciples of crucified Christ is now transformed into brave heralds of God’s mighty works. As St. Paul insisted, only inspired and empowered people who look at God can say and can go out and proclaim: “Jesus is Lord”.  Jesus thus moves us to look at God and inspire us to be His living faithful and practicing followers.  Interestingly, somehow nowadays many so-called “non-practicing Catholics” have updated their status into “practicing Catholics again” – even without (or with limited) avenue for public worship, not only as a reaction to the challenges of our trying times but more so because they “look at God in Jesus” again and anew for consolation, direction & inspiration in their own very lives.Today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, which marks the birthday of the Holy Church, and the end of Easter Season for this year. Beyond the distressing and depressing challenges of our life ahead this time, may we be reminded that we are (& our church is) an inspired Church continually looking at God through our risen Lord Jesus. With  our risen Lord, may we go beyond our present predicament, rise for the occasion to be His living witnesses, and always be inspired to share our gifts and proclaim Jesus to our world today. Amen. 

    (By: Fr. Aphelie Mario Masangcay CSsR, a Filipino Redemptorist  Missionary stationed in Gwangju South Korea, though now still stranded in Cebu until further notice for available flights.)

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