1. -- Lanie LeBlanc OP -
2. -- Dennis Keller OP -
3. -- Fr. John Boll OP -
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5. --(Your reflection can be here!)

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Pentecost Sunday (Vigil Mass)

June 7, 2025

Genesis 11:1-9; Responsorial Psalm 104; Romans 8:22-27; Gospel Acclamation “Come Holy Spirit”; John 7:37-39

The first Scripture this Vigil of Pentecost Mass has three possible readings. Each one has a flavor that exposes the meaning and importance of Pentecost. If we look at this as a whole different story about God’s plan, we might get very confused. The Plan of God begins with the call of Abraham and continues even now in our time and in our place. Jesus, as we learned in the Triduum, took on the status quo in the world and conquered it. The Hebrew Faith tradition presented God as constantly active with his chosen people. They were chosen not for any special value they had but because they were the progeny of Abraham and Sara, Issac, and Jacob. That is where God started God’s plan. When the nation was oppressed and in harsh slavery in Egypt, God defeated the forces of the tyrant Pharoah.

Through Moses they knew God as “Yahweh.” That name is translated by theologians in more than the traditional metaphysical translation of “I Am who Am.”  Metaphysics was not known in the Hebrew Community. It is more than a definition of God who we fail to know in God’s self. As we will learn in the Solemnity of the Trinity next week, we know God by what does for us. The revised translation denotes an action by translating that name as “I am who am with you.” We may recall that Jesus answers those who came to take him with the words, “I am.” In the Garden of Gethsemane that answer frightened the Temple guards as they under stood it to mean “I am Yahweh.”

The first choice of the readings is from Genesis. It refers to the pride of humanity, believing they could reach the heavens. They would be gods in control of their own destiny. They lost the ability to communicate. That happens when we get a fat head. We think we are god and everyone should worship us. The Gospel reading for Sunday tells the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit. The many diverse languages in Jerusalem for the festival were not changed back into one common one. Everyone of differing languages understood in their own language what the disciples were taught. It was not a healing of humanity’s ears. Instead, the disciples spoke whatever language they understood. It was not a reversal of Babel but an accommodation of God overcoming the arrogance of the tower builders.

The second choice for the first reading is from the Book of Exodus. Moses speaks with God. In that dialogue, God tells the people through Moses that he has chosen them. He liberated them so they would be God’s own, a nation of priests.

When Moses announced the Covenant God initiated, they answered together – “everything the Lord has said we will do.” That is the people’s part of the covenant. “I will be your God, and you will be my people. The way of living I am giving you will bring your long life and happiness.”

The third possible choice is from the prophet Ezekiel. He lived and prophesized in a difficult time for the nation. The nation faced a huge challenge to rebuild Judea and Jerusalem. The task was overwhelming, and despair was setting in. Ezekiel sees a huge valley full of dry bones. God tells Ezekiel to prophesize over these bones saying, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!” Ezekiel prophesizes over those bones. There came a noise, a rattling of the bones coming together. Ezekiel saw sinews and flesh coming to those dry bones and then covered with skin. But there was no life in these bodies. Ezekiel is to call forth the winds, – from the four corners of the world. The northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom both had citizens sent into exile to the four corners of the world. The spirits of all those in the diaspora – the name given to those scattered – came into those bodies and formed a vast army. All who lost hope, who saw no future, who were marking time only came to life with energy and hope for an unseen future.

The fourth possible reading is from the prophet Joel. Through this prophet God says will pour out his Spirit on ALL flesh. This includes children, sons and daughters prophesying, disillusioned old men dreaming dreams, and inexperienced young men seeing visions. The Spirit is poured out indiscriminately on everyone.

The anthem for the responsorial psalm is “Lord, send out your spirit and renew the face of the earth.” Make new what has been spoiled.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, pictures our situation even now as a period requiring hard work. We come to this work with weakness, not even knowing how to pray effectively. The person who searches his heart can discover the intention of the Spirit. Searching one’s heart means examining what we love. If we love what is base, what is without value in the Kingdom of God, we will not discern the intention of the Spirit.

The gospel is the cap stone of the Scriptures this Sunday. Jesus, yet before he was glorified on the cross and by his resurrection promises the Spirit will come to the disciples like a flowing stream of living waters to whoever believes in Jesus. The Spirit does not enter unless there is belief in Jesus and in his message in teaching, healing, and his sacrificial death, and his resurrection. Those are an absolute sign and reality of the Christ’s victory over political and religious evil.

Pentecost Sunday (Mass During the Day)

June 8, 2025

Acts 2:1-11; Responsorial Psalm 104; 1^st Corinthians 12:3-7 & 12-13; Sequence “Veni Sancte Spiritus; Gospel Acclamation “Come Holy Spirit”; John 20:19-23

This is the beginning of Ordered Time at the end of the Easter Season. What a wild and challenging seven weeks – 50 days later. Were we to place ourselves with the disciples gathered, would we be fearful, confused, hearts filled with terror from those who rejected Jesus? Imagine yourselves as a member of this community of disciples. The word “community” is used here intentionally. This is not a “me and Jesus” event. Were in this gathering, we would be there not as an individual but as a community of followers of Jesus. Mary of Magdala first had a coming-to-faith experience. She heard from a messenger of God Jesus had risen. How could this be? She tells the disciples. Who can believe this woman? She returns and encounters Jesus but does not recognize him till he calls her by name. She comes to fullness of faith and runs to the Community with the news. Peter and John rushed to the tomb. John immediately comes to faith when he sees the burial face cloth folded separate from the burial shroud. It takes Peter longer to come to faith.

What is the faith we speak about? What is this experience that is so intense as to overcome logic? Why did Jesus choose to die at the hands of civil and religious leadership? Wouldn’t it have been more impactful had he continued to heal, to preach, and to expose and send away evil spirits? What had a cruel, unjust, violent, demeaning, spirit crushing death have been willed by a loving God? The answer to these observations is why the Father sent the Word to become a human. The all-powerful, all-knowing Creator God used the death of the incarnated Word to change the arc of human existence?

We think in the way of the world – as did the disciples. We judge success by accomplishment, accumulation, and/or adulation of crowds. To bitter frustration, those successes are easily lost, stolen, and never enough. We wear out in our attempts to be kings and queens of the mountain. The willing death of Jesus at the hands of depraved, corrupt political and religious leadership does not seem to make sense.

What a miserable condition! Constant warfare, constant alternate realities declared the greatest matter to be pursued. What a mess! The Father sent the Word, the Son, to reveal to communities what is important. The Father loves the role of Creator and the creation that results. Father demonstrates his abiding, supportive, powerful love for every bit of creation that is an expression of his love. That love is present in the Community that is God, that community we name Father, Son, and Spirit. Each person is committed to selfless giving to each ‘other’ in such a powerful and all-encompassing manner that three are One. The Word demonstrated his love by giving freely his human life as proof of the communal love that is the Trinity.

The risen Jesus comes into the room and blesses the community there with his peace. This peace is not absence of war. It is defanging and de-clawing the winds of war that creeps into hearts of frightened or corrupt communities. The Community gathered in this place will be witnesses to the world of the mystery that is Jesus Christ throughout the ages. We are current witnesses to the immense, intense, intimate love the Creator has for every person who was, who is and who will be.

In an account of the Ascension of Jesus, a messenger of God questions the disciples gawking at the clouds where Jesus disappeared. “Why do you stand here looking at the sky.” That messenger was telling them to get moving, bear witness to Jesus throughout the world and in all years and centuries of the Love of the Father for us.

In that room where Jesus appeared were disciples who feared those who wanted to kill the idea and message of Jesus. Was this appearance really the Jesus they knew? Was this a hallucination? Jesus shows them his hands, his side still bearing the healed wounds of his selfless gift of love to his disciples as proof that he is the Jesus they knew. He asked for food to prove he was alive and could consume food.

Jesus breathes on them, giving them the Spirit. In this gospel, John reaches back into the first verse of Genesis where the Spirit of God hovers over the lifeless earth, giving it the beginning of life. The Spirit is given so these disciples in this community can be to the world what Jesus had been/is. The Spirit of the Lord remains in the Community through out this age, this last epoch of God’s creative presence. This Community was formed to support, to share, to encourage each other, to give the Spirit to each other. The Spirit enlightens, encourages, inspires us individually and collectively in a Community of believers.

This living in the way of Jesus is not with errors and sin. Just as Peter denied Jesus, so also, we find ourselves sinning. The disciples are instructed to forgive sins. Those who reject the Love of God as did Judas will not have their sins forgiven, they are retained.

A lesson on this wonderful feast is about God’s selfless love. It is a model for us. We are one body in the Lord; a Community bound together with the same bond that binds the Persons as one Trinity. That bond is selfless love of the other. The Spirit comes to us in Community. While we may want a personal visitation that sets us above the crowd, it is in the Community we receive the Spirit. We celebrate Pentecost in remembrance of the visitation of the Spirit on the disciples gathered together. With that Spirit they went out and spoke in the language of the people before them. All spoke in the Spirit. When we gather in the Name of Jesus, the Spirit comes to us through the words of Scripture, in the Homily, and in our worship with others. At communion we are made one in the Body and Blood of Christ – we are made one. Communion provides nourishment for that Body of Christ. We are made into a Community endowed with the Spirit. That is the power of the Spirit. The goal of Pentecost is that we form in our parish a Community of love. A love modeled for us in Word incarnated in human flesh will commission us as witnesses to the world. We witness by our lives to the Word’s revelation of the Father’s love for us. We get our energy and our wisdom in our worshipping Community. Working in parish ministries gets us to know others and draw strength for our caring for each other. We are baptized into Community: we are nourished at worship in the Community: we celebrate the important times in our lives in our Community: we are confirmed in the Spirit in our Community: our Community witnesses our marriages: from our Community come religious and clerics to serve our Community: we are sent through death’s portal into eternity with the prayers and well wishes of our Community. “Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”

Dennis Keller Dennis@PreacherExchange.com
 

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Volume 2 is for you. Your thoughts, reflections, and insights on the next Sundays readings can influence the preaching you hear. Send them to preacherexchange@att.net. Deadline is Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
-- Fr. John