THE HOLY SPIRIT CONTINUES TO COME INTO THE CHURCH

PENTECOST, 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Of your law.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

The Lord be with you. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst. He said to them, Peace be with you. And when he said this he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them, Peace be with you again, as the Father has sent me, so I send you. And then he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven them. Those whose sins you retain are retained. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is taken from the evening of that first day of the week, the real first, the day of the resurrection. But today we celebrate the promise that Jesus sent that day. The Holy Spirit. But he breathed on them and he gave them the Holy Spirit. Today is a day the Holy Spirit comes to all of us. He had given his spirit to the apostles and his disciples more than once. But today is the fulfillment of the promise of the great Holy Spirit of God. A few weeks ago, and regrettably it's happened a few times since then, there was a serious fire here in New York. But that particular day, the members of the fire department were interviewed, and one of the gentlemen said, the reason the fire spread so quickly was that the doors were left open. And that stuck with me until tonight. I say tonight because it is the Vigil of Pentecost. And the gospel is about the doors being opened. He appeared to them, doors are barred. But Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit had not yet descended upon the church as a whole, yet. The first reading, the Acts of the Apostles, gives us that version of the coming of the Holy Spirit. It was 50 days, Pentecost, 50 days after Passover. Jews were celebrating as they normally would have. Some of them, the Apostles and Mary, were in the upper room, the same room that we are familiar with, that was probably the room for the Last Supper. And while they're gathered, they're praying. They're praying for strength, because besides prayer, they're in fear. They're afraid that their fate would be the fate of their master Jesus, who died on the cross. So the upper room was sort of their hideout. But the Holy Spirit found them, of course. And the Holy Spirit of God, who is hard to describe, and that's why Luke chooses to say the Holy Spirit of God came to them in flames and tongues of fire. A massive power came upon them, to the point where they were afraid, but they were fulfilled. The Holy Spirit came upon them and opened their eyes and their mouths that they could proclaim. And what happened, go back to the story about the firemen, the doors opened up, and because the doors were open, the flame of faith, not talking about the local fire, but we're talking about Pentecost and how it affected the apostles. The flame of faith so engrossed them that the doors of where they were hiding were shoved open, and they began proclaiming. There's like twelve that we know were his apostles, Mary's there, a few of friends, maybe some relatives. But they were filled with the gift of God, strong enough to open those doors and bring that gift outside. And as you heard, those who were listening, now this is Luke's version. Luke is the author of the Gospel of Luke. He's also the author of Acts of the Apostles, this book. And Luke tells us, because it was Pentecost and Jews from all over the world were celebrating in Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, there were people from all over the world who spoke different languages, but with the power of the flame of the Holy Spirit in these apostles, they all understood in their own language, in their own tongues. And that was shocking. The flame of faith that those apostles embraced is still ours. It's still a gift to us. All of us could be doing something else tonight. We could go out to dinner, we can meet friends, we can go to parties, we can walk the streets, it doesn't matter. But we've chosen to come to church to honor Jesus Christ, to be with our Lord Jesus Christ. And the faith to do that is the gift that we have from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit opens our eyes, opens our mouths, opens our hearts to bring the faith that Jesus blessed us with to all. Open those doors, and we go out. So wherever you go tonight, proclaim the faith of Jesus. And you can proclaim it by reading the gospel, by paraphrasing the readings, but we can proclaim it as Jesus did in his own lifetime for the common good. How did he do it? You know the stories of Jesus as well as I do. You know the healing Jesus, you know the loving Jesus, you know the compassionate Jesus. That's what we are challenged to do. Become Jesus, filled with his Holy Spirit. You might say, I didn't feel anything when I came to church, nothing exceptional. Well, we need to make contact with the Holy Spirit. We need to put ourselves in the presence of the Holy Spirit through prayer. We need to put ourselves in the whole presence of the Holy Spirit through decision making. Whatever we do, wherever we are, whatever relationship we're in. And what is the gift of the Holy Spirit by giving us understanding and wisdom and counsel and patience? We know the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We studied them before we received the sacrament of confirmation, and the gifts have never left us. And they were like a flame, inflaming the hearts and lives of those apostles that they could break out through those locked doors and without fear, knowing God was with them, exercising the gift of fortitude and strength, and going out and proclaiming Jesus to their detriment. Now, believe me, it was no picnic when they went out and started proclaiming Jesus, the Messiah, rose from the dead to all these various Jews who come from all over the world at that point, but those in Jerusalem knew we saw him die on the cross three days ago. Excuse me, on the three days after he died. We saw him resurrected. And the apostles are talking about that. And you can just imagine the confusion with those people who heard about Jesus, the Messiah, the one who died on the cross, rose, and he sent his spirit on these people who broke out of the upper room to proclaim him? Yes. Yes. How do we believe that? How do we know that? Their faith was their evidence, their faith, the power of their faith. And we know, probably historically, the only one of the twelve, don't forget, Judas had already done away with his life, and they replaced him with Matthias. But of the twelve who gave their lives for Jesus, we believed only John, the author of the Gospel of John, and the one who at the Last Supper rested his head on the chest of Jesus, did not die a martyr. He died on the island of Patmos, exiled. And from there he wrote the great book of the Apocalypse and probably the Gospels. But the others went out with such force and faith and strength that they confronted the world the way it was. You know, we still have that challenge to confront the world the way it is. The world needs you. The world needs the power of the Holy Spirit as it comes through us with our charity, with our forgiveness, with our fortitude. The power of the Holy Spirit giving us wisdom to make right judgments in everything we do, whether it's our personal banking or how we vote, to support what's going on in the world as it is, is tough. Because the world is in a messy situation from one end of the world to the other. There's probably not one continent that doesn't have conflict right now. So it seems ironic that you and I and the world, who, the world of Christians, have been sent out into the world to bring the power of the Holy Spirit there. As we pray for Africa, as we pray for Ukraine and Russia, as we pray for our own streets. And the newest thing we have to pray for, I mean, it's it's a phenomenon that I'm shocked with. This, I don't even know what they call it, mob violence, kids gathering in a local place at the Jersey Shore or here in the city, gathering as mobs just for the sake of gathering and rioting. That's a direct opposition to the Holy Spirit. And believe me, I believe that those who will participate in that kind of chaos are inspired by Satan. When God created, open Genesis, the world was in chaos, the author says. And Jesus gave it, excuse me, the Father gave it order. It's the Genesis method of talking about creation. But the Holy Spirit was sent upon the world to bring peace and reconciliation to our faith in Jesus Christ. And when we see the war, the hate, the anger, the chaos in the world, we have to realize that we've got a lot of work to do. Your prayers and my prayers are important. Oh, it's far away, it doesn't pertain to me. I'm sorry, it does. The common good is our responsibility. When the apostles left the upper room and went to preach, they preached for the common good. And the common good reflects God's love. And our working toward the common good should reflect our ministry of love. And we come across riotous behaviors, street violence, cars doing whirlies or whatever they call it in the middle of the street, endangering people, and guns like like their candy, destroying our community, and not only here, throughout the country. And I could probably say throughout the world, but I don't have details on that. See, the Holy Spirit is such a needed presence in our lives. And we can't go like this. We can't blame, we can't point to somebody else. We have to go like this. Point to ourselves. Because the Holy Spirit comes upon the church, and today is the church's birthday as a reminder that the church received the Holy Spirit. But we as members of the church need to carry out the ministry of the common good from the Holy Spirit. Wisdom, understanding, strength, connection with God. The world needs it. And we've received our mission. Today, as we come to the end of the Easter season, we realize that we go back to the beginning, to the birth of the church. And the ministry was the same then as it is now. For you and for me to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord of the universe. Happy birthday. Happy birthday of the Church to all of us. Because all of us are members of the body of Christ, the Church.