May 15, 2016

May 15, 2016 Pentecost Acts 2: 1-11; 1 Corinthians 12: 3-7, 12-13 or Romans 8: 8-17; John 20: 19-23 or John 14: 15-16, 23-26 I’ve been reflecting on the workings of the Holy Spirit in my life in the recent past. I hope I’m not rambling but I want to share. • People have asked me what was special about the Holy Land trip this past January/February? I immediately say that there were a number of miracles. • Some ask further, what were the miracles? A number celebrated significant years of marriage…although each year is a celebration because we can see how the Spirit helps each moment of each year. • There were a few miracles of healing; there were returns and deepening of peoples’ faith. • There was God touching so many in a special way especially in thanksgiving and affirming. We don’t realize how many times God wants to thank us. • I’m reflecting on the sudden death of Fr. Eugene Kole, the chaplain at Langley AFB. We were all shocked and numbed. People shared those few days of mourning… how much he did to help and touch them. Everyone had stories and each story showed Fr. Eugene sharing the Spirit of love and care with people. We are grieving but we realize in a deep way that we have been loved and are loved. • I’m thinking of the wonderful Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter services. The Spirit was so evident and powerfully present. So many felt this and were aware that there was a power and love that was hovering over the Langley community. We were being touched and loved. • There was the death of my nephew at a young age from cancer. Story upon story was shared of how Kevin touched them with love. That’s the Spirit of love and caring that is always present and cannot be hidden. • I’m thinking of the spiritual counseling that I am honored to be a part of…these holy people come and touch me with the Spirit and their desire to go deeper in realizing the presence of God in every activity of their lives…that’s the Spirit. • I’m looking around at a number of friends who are planning retirement or just retired and how each of them wants to ‘give a return’ for all God’s goodness to them. These people have always impressed me with their helping those with difficulties and the less fortunate…and now their ‘retirement plans are to do more and go deeper into the caring and helping profession. This is all about the Spirit. • I’ve noticed quite a deepening in people’s spiritual lives. They are wanting to be fed and fed deeper and they are looking for help in doing this. • I continue to rejoice at the number of people who are involved in the two year Spiritual Direction Institute that was started by Msgr. Chet Michael so many years ago. These people want a deeper relationship with the Lord and they are reaching out to the Spirit to help them be people who help and share. • I hear so many people so dissatisfied with the condition our country is in and how we have to get back to what we were…a people under God. Is it the Spirit that is making us aware of the inadequacies and the need for reform? I do believe so. • THE SPIRIT IS MOVING ALL OVER THE WORLD AND IN EACH OF US. Fr. Flor McCarthy wrote New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies. He has a wonderful sermon on Pentecost…I now share a few of his insights: “Before the coming of the Spirit, the apostles were virtually living in hiding in the upper room. A great task had been entrusted to them yet they had neither the strength nor the will to begin it. But after Pentecost they were changed people. What was it that the Holy Spirit did to them and how did the miracle of change come about? Even though we are dealing with mystery that doesn’t mean we can’t understand anything about it. We have to realize that the apostles were wounded people. They were wounded by doubt and grief, by fear and failure, and above all by a sense of inadequacy. Jean Vanier is a man who knows a great deal about what helps wounded people to change. He has set up little communities around the world for (mentally) handicapped people. When the handicapped are locked away in institutions, terrible damage is done to their hearts and spirits. A wounded body will heal naturally, but not a wounded heart. A wounded heart will harden, just to survive, and then fill up with anger and bitterness. But when the handicapped are taken out of institutions where they are made to feel unwanted, and put into communities where they are loved, Vanier has witnessed, over and over again, the miracle of change. This helps us to understand something of what happened to the apostles. In saying that the apostles were wounded, one is not suggesting that they were wounded to the same degree as some handicapped people are. Nevertheless, they are wounded. But after the coming of the Spirit they were changed people. They left their hiding place, and set out courageously to preach the Gospel. We mustn’t think that the change was affected in an instant. It had to be a gradual thing, a growth process. And growth can be slow and painful. We do not easily let go of old habits and attitudes. People change when they are given hope; when someone believes in them, and gives them a task to do. Above all, they change when they are loved They come out of their shells, and hidden energies are released in them. The miracle of human change is the only real miracle. All of us have a capacity for goodness. We have hands that can care, eyes that can see, ears that can hear, tongues that can speak, feet that can walk, and above all hearts that can love. BUT each of us has some HANDICAPS, which keep us from realizing our true and full selves. We need someone to awaken us to what is inside us. Someone who will bid us live, and help us grow. For us followers of Jesus, that someone is the HOLY SPIRIT. The power that changed the apostles is available to us too, the gentle power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit awakens us to the mysterious power within us, bids us live, and helps us grow. The poet Pablo Neruda said: ‘I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.’ That’s what the Spirit does.” NOW AM I LISTENING? The Spirit speaks a language of PEACE, a language of COOPERATION, a language of FORGIVENESS, a language of HOPE, a language of TOLERANCE, a language of FRIENDSHIP, a language of UNITY, a language of LOVE…This is the miracle of Pentecost and it is happening each day all around us and within us…Come Holy Spirit. Sacred Space 2016 shares these words: “Let me take time to be still, to wait on the Lord, to realize that Jesus approaches me as He did the disciples, wishing me peace I hear Him say, ‘Peace be with you.’ I notice my reactions, my protests. I see, too, where I am able to receive His gift of God’s Spirit and pray that I may pass these gifts freely to others. The risen Jesus penetrates the disciples’ defenses, overcomes their fears, and brings them joy. I ask Him to pass through all my security systems and liberate me from whatever prevents me from ‘having life and having it in all its fullness.’”