Pentecost Sunday - 19 May
19th May 2024
“The charity of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given to us. He who has a share of daylight has that light from the sun; in the same way he who has charity has it from the Holy Spirit.” - St Thomas Aquinas
Happy Birthday to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church!
Pentecost ranks among the great feasts of Christianity. Known as “The Birthday of the Church”, it commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Our Lady, the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ.
A plenary (or full) indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who devoutly recite the hymn Veni, Creator (Come Creator Spirit) publicly on the Solemnity of Pentecost. To fulfil the conditions to gain the plenary indulgence, the faithful must: Receive Holy Communion on the same day; Pray for the holy intentions of the Pope; Go to Sacramental Confession on the same day or within 21 days; Have a detachment from sin.
A reflection on today's Gospel by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:
"The sacrament of Confirmation is particularly a participation in the second anointing of Our Lord, that of the coming of the Spirit in the Jordan, which ordained Him to the mission of preaching the apostolate. This reached its culmination on Pentecost, when He filled His Church--His Mystical Body- with His Spirit. Pentecost is to the New Testament what the gift of the law is to the Old Testament, only it is more perfect.
"The descent of the Holy Spirit on Christ in the Jordan had a double effect on Our Lord. It prepared Him for combat: ‘Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit, and by the Spirit He was led on into the wilderness, where He remained forty days, tempted by the devil.’ (Luke 4:1)
"It prepared Him for preaching the Kingdom of God: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; He has anointed me, and sent me out to preach the gospel to the poor, to restore the broken-hearted; to bid the prisoners go free, and the blind to have sight; to set the oppressed at liberty, to proclaim a year when men may find acceptance with the Lord.’ (Luke 4:18, 19)
"About three years later, at the Last Supper, Our Blessed Lord promised to send the Spirit to His Apostles, disciples, and followers, which He did fifty days after the Resurrection on Pentecost. It would seem better if Our Lord had remained on earth, so that all ages might have heard His voice and thrilled to the majesty of His person; but He said it was better that He leave, otherwise the Spirit would not come. If He remained on earth, He would have been only an example to be copied, but if He sent the Holy Spirit, He would be a life to be lived.
"Though Our Lord knew on Holy Thursday that His Apostles were distressed because He spoke of His approaching death, He consoled them with the advantages of His leaving this earth and yet remaining in it, in another way: ‘So full are your hearts with sorrow at My telling you this. And yet I can say truly that it is better for you I should go away; he who is to befriend you will not come to you unless I do go, but if only I make my way there, I will send him to you.’ (John 16:6, 7)
"His perpetual presence, even in His glorified state, would have limited His moral and spiritual influence. He might have become to man the type of Christ that Hollywood presents - a celebrity. Instead of being in our hearts, He would only have been in our senses.
"Would men ever have thought of spiritual fellowship with Christ, when physical fellowship might be had; when good and bad would have had equal perception of Him; when He would be external to the soul of man, not internal? Where would faith be, if we saw? And would not the world have tried to re crucify Him, though that would have been impossible after His Resurrection?
"These questions are in vain; Divine Wisdom said it was better that He depart from the globe for, once in glory, He would send His Spirit, ‘the Truth-giving Spirit to guide you in all Truth.’ Great men influence the earth only from their funeral urns; but He, Who gave the earth the only serious wound it ever received--the empty tomb--would rule it at the right hand of the Father through His Spirit.
"This Spirit He sent upon the Church on Pentecost, like a soul entering a foetus; chemicals which are disparate and disconnected became a living thing. So the Apostles, with their individual whims and ignorances, were, under the pentecostal fires, fused into the visible, living, Mystical Body of Christ. Confirmation is a kind of Pentecost to a baptised soul. Christ dwelling in the flesh would normally be in one place only at one time, but His Spirit, unbound by fleshy bonds, could cover the earth, working on a million hearts at once. Nor would such hearts be without comfort at His physical absence, for the Spirit He called ‘another Comforter.’
"It is the Son, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals the Heavenly Father. We would never know the mercy and love of the Father, if He had not sent His Son to walk this earth and pay our debt for sin. But who reveals the Son? It is the Holy Spirit.
We know what goes on in other minds because we, too, have minds or souls; we know what goes on in the mind of Christ because we are given His Spirit. The natural or unbaptised man cannot perceive the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned. As the scientist knows nature, so the Christian, thanks to the Spirit, knows Christ: ‘He will not utter a message of His own; he will utter the message that has been given to Him; and He will make plain to you what is still to come. And He will bring honour to Me, because it is from Me that He will derive what He makes plain to you. I say that He will derive from Me what He makes plain to you, because all that belongs to the Father belongs to Me.’ (John 16:13-15)
"It is through the Spirit received in Confirmation that Christ walks the earth again in each obedient Christian; it is through the Spirit that we are sanctified, comforted, and taught to pray.
"These and other words of Our Lord about sending the Spirit of Truth who will enlarge our knowledge of Him, prove that the whole truth is not available to us in written records. Pentecost was not the descent of a book, but of living tongues of fire. Confirmation gives the lie to those who say that ‘the sermon on the mount is enough for them.’ Our Lord's teaching, as recorded in the Gospels, was implemented, complemented, and revealed in its deeper meaning through the spirit of truth He gave to His Church. We indeed know Christ by reading the Gospels, but we see the deeper meaning of the words, and we know Christ more completely when we have His Spirit. It is only through the Spirit that we know He is the divine Son of God and Redeemer of humanity: ‘Those who live the life of nature cannot be acceptable to God; but you live the life of the spirit, not the life of nature; that is, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. A man cannot belong to Christ unless he has the Spirit of Christ.’ (Rom. 8:8, 9)"
(These Are The Sacraments)
Veni, Creator Prayer
O Holy Spirit, by Whose breath life rises vibrant out of death; Come to create, renew, inspire; Come kindle in our hearts Your fire.
You are the seeker’s sure resource, of burning love the living source, Protector in the midst of strife, the Giver and the Lord of life.
In You God’s energy is shown, to us Your varied gifts made known. Teach us to speak, teach us to hear; Yours is the tongue and Yours the ear.
Flood our dull senses with Your light; In mutual love our hearts unite. Your power the whole creation fills; Confirm our weak, uncertain wills.
From inner strife grant us release; Turn nations to the ways of peace. To fuller life Your people bring that as one body we may sing:
Praise to the Father, Christ, His Word, and to the Spirit: God the Lord, to Whom all honour, glory be both now and for eternity. Amen. 💐🙏💖
Art: Pentecost by Jean II Restout, 1732AD