Receive The Holy Spirit!
2023년 5월 28일Receive The Holy Spirit!
< Pentecost Sunday >
Today we celebrate the greatest feast in our calendar. It’s not as joyful as Christmas, or as dramatic as Easter, but it is the most important event in the history of our Church and the history of the human race. Why? Of course God becoming human, born of a virgin, is a great mystery. Jesus dying on the cross for our sins is more necessary. His resurrection more glorious and his ascension more breathtaking. But we would never have learned about any of these things had not the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and transformed this rag-tag bunch of weaklings into bold witnesses to the Gospel.
At that time, Pentecost was a Jewish feast, celebrating God giving the commandments to Moses 50 days after Passover. Passover commemorates God delivering the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Pentecost celebrates God making these former slaves his own Chosen People, through the Law of the Covenant. This is what the Eleven Disciples and the Blessed Mother were celebrating when a mighty wind shook the Upper Room. Tongues as of fire fell and rested over each of their heads. Speaking in many tongues the disciples ran into the crowded streets declaring the mighty works of God to people of different nations and languages, creating a new Chosen People of God, open to all races and nations. And guess what?! The miracle is on-going! The Holy Spirit continues to descend on people all over the world, no less than on that day and no less on us. In a word, we celebrate Christmas, we commemorate Easter, but we participate in Pentecost. We are the Church. We are members of God’s kingdom. We are forgiven. We are saved. Spread the Word!