Pentecost Sunday - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2016

I have a woman friend, a healthy feminist, who can find herself counting the number of times at Mass that the title “Lord” is applied either to God the Father or to Jesus. Indeed, calling God “Father” annoys her as much as does “Lord”. Despite my own male insensitivity and the limitations of the English language, I do share her dislike for the title “Lord”, not just because of its distracting masculine bias, but because of its associations with power and honour. It came to be attached to both God and to Jesus at a time when kings and emperors were the focus of people’s attention. It carries such unfortunate historical associations that it could well be relegated to history. However, it is there in our liturgical texts, and will probably stay there for at least the immediate future.

All that is by way of introduction to today’s reflection for the Feast of Pentecost and our celebration of the Spirit of God. 

You may have noticed how the central prayer of the Mass, the Eucharist Prayer, is introduced by the summons, “Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God”. It then goes on after a few breaths to proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of hosts”, and continues, via a number of twists and turns, to conclude with the somewhat jubilant Doxology, “Through him, and with him, and in him, God almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honour and glory is yours, forever and ever”.  So, as well as giving thanks to the Lord our God, we have continued the triumphant theme and sought to give God also “all honour and glory”. I am happy, very happy, about giving “glory” to God. To give glory means simply to reveal and to make obvious, in whatever ways we can, the wonder and the beauty of the mystery that is God. But about giving “honour” I am not so sure. Honour reminds me again of the demands of kings and emperors.

So, with all its limitations [real or imagined], our Eucharistic Prayer is a prayer addressed to God, God the Father; and we pray it “through, with and in” Jesus. Each of those prepositions resonates deeply with me. Jesus used all of them, in slightly different contexts, to give some feel for the colour and depth of our relationship with him. 

But what is the thrust of the phrase, “in the unity of the Holy Spirit”? Is it just to give the Spirit a mention and so to include all the members of the Holy Trinity? For me, it is much more. As I understand it, the Spirit is the climax and perhaps even the purpose of the Trinity. The Spirit captures the very life and excitement of God. Within the inner realm of Trinitarian life, the Spirit is the joy-filled energy constituting and flowing from the mutual love of the first and second Persons. God is love – and love is life lived at its best and its most intense. Love sums up the nature of God: God is alive in relationship, not alone in unattainable isolation.

There is more. We know from our human experience of love that the joyful energy released in mutual love is creative, physically, emotionally and spiritually. The God who is love is also creative God, who, through the divine energy of love that is the Spirit creates the cosmos, and us humans, and sustains us in being moment by moment. The Persons of God, united in intense and joyful relationship, call us into relationship, relationship with them and with each other, too. Indeed, “through, with and in” Jesus, who became one of us, we can, through the infinite magnetic power of the Spirit drawing all things into relationship, become  “sharers in the divine nature”.

“Through him, and with him, and in him, God almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honour and glory is yours, forever and ever”.