Pentecost Sunday

See Commentary on John 14:15-16, 23-26 in John 14:1-15, John 14:16-24, John 14:25-31

Homily 1 - 2007

Each of us hears them in our own native language – and they came, according to the current world map, from: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Northern Africa, Italy and the Mediterranean. Despite their different languages and nationalities, they heard the apostles preaching to them in their own languages about the marvels of God – about the marvellous redeeming, reconciling love of God.

Luke pictured the Pentecost event as a reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel – that tragic mythical story according to which people first lost the ability to communicate with each other. Restoring, with Pentecost, the possibility of communicating was a symbolic step heralding the now marvellous possibility of people once more understanding each other, broadening their horizons, respecting and exploring difference, redefining the idea of neighbour, and learning to move beyond the limiting boundaries of their own familiar ways of doing things, in order to reach out to others in love and to become reconciled.

The Hebrew Scriptures put sin – pride, specifically - as the cause of the disastrous loss of people’s ability at the Tower of Babel to communicate and to understand each other. That was quite an insight!

Communicating with others, understanding them, respecting and accepting them in their differences being reconciled, is still difficult. It doesn’t come easily. I suppose we could say that, without the intervention of the Spirit of Jesus, it doesn’t happen at all.

We can see the connection between Luke’s dramatic presentation  of the coming of the Spirit and the more subdued account in John’s Gospel (that we read today).

As Jesus there breathed on the apostles the Spirit, he commissioned them with the mission: whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained. Sin is precisely a breakdown in love, a failure in relationships. It takes shape in the self-preoccupation that leads to destructive behaviour of some kind or other. Sin is always destructive or our own or of others’ dignity. The work, then, of the Spirit of Jesus serves to enable and empower reconciliation, the re-building of relationship, and the construction of God’s Kingdom.

Today marks the beginning of our nation’s annual celebration of National Reconciliation Week. It is forty years since the nation first recognised the original people of this land as citizens and allowed them the privilege of voting. Hopes for ongoing reconciliation were high forty years ago – but so much still needs to be done.

Given the continuing reality of sin, and its power to hide the obvious, genuine reconciliation between individuals and groups can only happen through the power of the God’s Spirit. It’s a wonderful coincidence that, this year, National Reconciliation Week happens during the afterglow of this wonderful Feast of Pentecost.

Let’s pray to God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, for our own continual conversion, for the ongoing conversion of our nation, that we as Australians may all hear together and treasure God’s universal and inclusive love for all people, without distinction. In that way, we might learn to love all, whoever they are, and to devote our intelligence and energy, especially to those among us in greatest need.

Christians, Catholics, have no monopoly of the Spirit, of course. God’s Spirit, as Jesus said, breathes where it wills. But we can have privileged access to that Spirit of Jesus: our Baptism and Confirmation hard-wired us for the purpose. However, we constantly need to click on, to download.

I hope still that we Catholics, following the unambiguous lead of our bishops, will be at the forefront of our nation’s moves towards genuine reconciliation - that, like the Apostles on that first Pentecost, we may be heard clearly preaching the marvels of God, and of God’s inclusive, non-discriminating, universal love and care for all.

Homily 2 - 2010

I have the feeling that the Church is generally seen as more focussed on pointing out where people are wrong than in saying “Welcome aboard!”

Certainly, it is important to be clear about behaviour that is sinful, that is, that is ultimately destructive of the dignity either of others or of ourselves. But we are all involved in sin in one way or another.

There were a lot of people involved in the death of Jesus – from the Jewish leaders and Pilate, the Jewish crowd and the Roman military, down to Judas who betrayed him, Peter who publicly and repeatedly denied him and the other disciples who abandoned him to his brutal death. What motivated them all was self-interest – self-interest at the expense of another.

And we are all into that, and for a lot of the time. There lies the essence of sin. Sometimes we are aware of what we are doing and choose to act deliberately. Most times, we are so used to it that we do not even notice it.

The message of Jesus to those to the disciples, complicit in his murder by their plain absence, was: Peace be with you! The message to Jesus to everyone in our world who has sinned, who has put self-interest before others, whether spectacularly so or otherwise, whether fully aware or blissfully ignorant, is Peace be with you!

It is the offer of forgiveness, a call to wholeness – to peace and to a whole other way of living that puts care and respect for others above self-interest. It is this offer of certain, unconditional forgiveness that makes it possible for us to face up to the truth of what we do and that gives us the motivation  and the power to change. I think that it is only the certainty of forgiveness, along with the clear knowledge that, despite ourselves, we are radically loved, that enable us really to admit our sin and, at the same time, to find the power to be different.

The Jesus who said to his disciples: Peace be with you, then went on to say: As the Father sent me, I now send you. It is helpful to remember what had been made clear earlier in the Gospel: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved.

This is the mission that Jesus now entrusts to all disciples: Show to the world that God loves it. Show to the sinful world that God loves us all, whatever we’re up to.

And we are as good as anyone else to announce this message because we know because we have heard and believed God’s message of forgiveness, and Jesus’ greeting of peace. More than that, Jesus has given to us what he calls the Holy Spirit, the irresistible power of love, the mysterious power that love has to change, to enthuse, and to energise us.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our self-destructing, our mutually destructing, our lost and wounded world could hear the Church, the community of disciples, not condemning it but saying: Come on board, and discover who you really are, where you are respected for who you really are, where you are welcome, where you can be one with us, helping each other to listen to, to believe and to respond wholeheartedly the God who loves us all.

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”.

Homily 4 - 2019 

As the crucified Jesus went into his agonising death, the disciples had abandoned him, and Peter had even denied knowing him. How must Jesus have felt? He was “completely like us in every way”, after all. And here he was, risen, coming especially to connect with them; and his first words were “Peace be with you”. He had obviously forgiven them. But at what a price? I suspect that Jesus’ struggle to forgive had meant his having to draw on the deepest resources of his humanity – indeed, as the Letter to the Hebrews put it, to “become perfect through suffering”.

It is impossible to love without learning also to forgive. And if we do not love, we cannot truly be happy. That is a pretty stark choice! It may explain why there is so much restlessness, such deep divisions and polarisation within society, even within the church. I shudder whenever the TV News reports some tragic murder, and the reporter asks the grieving family how they feel, and so often the response comes, “The monster should rot in prison”, or “rot in hell!” And yet, remember Rosie Batty, the mother who forgave the husband who had killed their only child. We made her Australian of the Year. Deep within, apparently, we seem to admire the strength of soul of the person who can forgive the seemingly unforgiveable.

To forgive can be extremely difficult – as we all know. It can seem like surrendering all sense of personal dignity, and letting ourselves be treated like doormats, expecting that we leave ourselves open to be abused again some time in the future. It can also seem like betraying the love and respect we have for another we love whose dignity has been violated.

We often confuse the meaning of forgiveness in other ways, too. So often we hear, “Forget it!” “Get over it!” “Let bygones be bygones!” To do that is only to avoid the hard work of forgiving. Excuse, by all means, what can or needs to be excused. Excusing and forgiving are not the same thing – forgiveness deals precisely with the inexcusable. But while forgiving has its price, so, too, does withholding forgiveness. Withholding forgiveness breeds resentment and bitterness. If these are not dealt with adequately, they become poisonous – psychologically and even physically. This is true not just for us as individuals, but for the community and society in general, leading to floating anger, lack of cooperation, discontent and various levels of depression.

Yet, important as it is, defining forgiveness is difficult. What does it involve? I think Jesus’ greeting to the disciples in today’s Gospel is enlightening. He wished them “Peace”. Does that capture the essence of forgiveness? If it doesn’t, it goes very close to doing so. It would need to be honestly meant – but is certainly worth thinking about.

Jesus went on to say, “As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.” Was Jesus sending the disciples to preach the message of “peace”, not just in words [that is no big deal] but essentially in deeds? Is that fundamentally the mission of the Church – to be lived out by you and me? Not surprisingly, Jesus went on to say explicitly, “For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven …” – effectively connecting the wishing of peace with the commitment to forgiving.

In today’s climate, it is better that the Church not preach anything. We have lost credibility. To preach forgiveness can only be heard as a ploy of defensiveness. But what we can do is to live the message of peace – especially with those who criticise us and thereby shame and hurt us. We can respect them, listen to them, take seriously what they say, and in our hearts genuinely wish them peace. It might be difficult. Perhaps that is why the newly risen Jesus gifted the Church with the “Holy Spirit”, the efficacious outpouring of the joyfully creative love of Father and Son.