Doves and Fire

As I write this, we are on the verge of it being one of the most important days of the year. Pentecost, celebrated 50 days after Easter, is the Birthday of the Church, the day that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and they began to live out Christ's command to go out and baptize all nations.

My life at this point has me working at and living next door to a Church. As anyone who works for a Church or has spent any significant time around a Church can tell you, I witness a lot of different things. Today, what I witnessed was the life of the Church captured in a way so fitting for the day before Pentecost: in a span of 6 hours, the Church was host to daily Mass, a funeral, and a wedding.

For a priest like my Pastor and priests all over the world, this day was nothing new or different in its schedule. In the course of a day, one man is asked to walk people through the various stages of life all in one day: daily devotions, sorrow at the loss of a loved one, extreme joy at the celebration of Marriage or Baptism, and whatever else may come up. The Church, in Her wisdom and love for Her people, becomes within a matter of hours a place of seeking hope in the midst of despair as well as a place for celebration and great joy.

This is what Pentecost was about. The Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and Mary who were hiding in the upper room waiting for the promise that Jesus had given them before they went out and fulfilled their calling (read Acts 1-2 again, it's worth it). God, as He always does, came through for them; also as He usually does, He surprised them.

Gathered in the upper room, none of the apostles could have ever imagined the way that the Spirit would come; they wouldn't have thought of fire, and wouldn't have assumed that they'd be able to speak random languages that they'd never learned. Gathered in the upper room, they wouldn't have pictured us, 2,000 years later, having great joy at Baptisms and Weddings and great sorrow at funerals all in the same day here in the United States. Gathered in the upper room, they almost certainly wouldn't have been able to lay out the image of the Magisterium and the way the Church functions in the modern world (I mean come on, the Pope tweets).

And yet they listened, and then they acted. This is what we celebrate on Pentecost. This is what it's all about. The Church is about daily listening to the call of the Lord, taking His commands and His gifts, and giving them back to all people in love and in service. The Church is about being able to mourn with those who mourn and celebrate with those who celebrate (cf. Romans 12:15). The Church is about taking the powerful gift of the Holy Spirit and living in it, never giving in to doubt or despair but rather trusting in all that God calls His people to do, and doing it all with great joy.

May God bless each one of us with His Spirit in a new and profound way this Pentecost.

"Continue to walk in the faith and, faithful to the mandate that has been entrusted to you, go out with solicitude and joy toward all creatures and pass on to them the gifts of salvation...Let yourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit to be the leaven of new life, salt of the earth and light of the world."  -Pope Benedict XVI