Ignite The Fire Of God's Love

Homily 06 08 2014
Pentecost - A

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An old beggar lay on his deathbed. His last words were to his youngest son who had been his constant companion during his begging trips. "Dear son," he said, "I have nothing to give you except a cotton bag and a dirty bronze bowl which I got in my younger days from the junk yard of a rich lady."

After his father's death, the boy continued begging, using the bowl his father had given him. One day a gold merchant dropped a coin in the boy's bowl and he was surprised to hear a familiar clinking sound. "Let me check your bowl," the merchant said. To his great surprise, he found that the beggar's bowl was made of pure gold. "My dear young man," he said, "why do you waste your time begging? You are a rich man. That bowl of yours is worth at least thirty thousand dollars."

We Christians are often like this beggar boy who failed to recognize and appreciate the value of his bowl. We fail to appreciate the infinite worth of the Holy Spirit living within each of us, sharing His gifts and fruits and charisms with us.

On this major feast day, we are invited to experience and appreciate the transforming, sanctifying and strengthening presence of the Holy Spirit within us. This is also a day to renew the promises made to God during our Baptism and Confirmation, to profess our Faith, and to practice it.

"It will always be Pentecost in the church," affirmed Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, on Pentecost Sunday 1978, "provided the Church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit shine forth from her countenance. When the Church ceases to let her strength rest on the Power from above which Christ promised her and which he gave her on that day, and when the Church leans rather on the weak forces of the power or wealth of this earth, then the Church ceases to be newsworthy. The Church will be fair to see, perennially young, attractive in every age, as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her and she reflects that Spirit through her communities, through her pastors, through her very life"
-The Violence of Love, The Plough Pub. Co., Farmington, PA: 1998.

Archbishop Romero's declaration reminds us -- as does today's Gospel -- that Pentecost is not just one day, but every day.

Without breath, there is no life. Without the Spirit, the Church is a field of dry, dead bones.

Fulton J. Sheen once said about the Church, "Even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people--frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith."

Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love.

We need to be Spirit-filled Christians: Spirit-filled people acknowledge their weaknesses, ask for the strengthening, anointing and guidance of the Holy Spirit every morning, ask for His forgiveness every evening and pass on that forgiveness to those who sin against them. Spirit-filled people are praying people.

Paul encourages us, "Pray on every occasion as the Spirit leads. For this reason keep alert and never give up; pray for all God's people" (Eph 6:18).

They are praying and worshipping God in their families and parishes. They try to grow continually in their Faith, and they seek out every opportunity to discover Christ and what it means to be children of God.

Spirit-filled people are people who allow the Spirit to change their lives through their daily reading of the Bible and the frequenting of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist.

Spirit-filled people speak words that heal, restore, make people happy and build people up instead of tearing them down.

Spirit-filled people pass on the love of God to the people living around them by their acts of kindness, mercy and charity. Hence, let us pray for a spirit of love instead of hate, a spirit of helpfulness instead of non-cooperation, a spirit of generosity instead of greed and a spirit of gentleness instead of ruthlessness.

"Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love. AMEN."

"Well, Chippie doesn't sing much anymore."

It happened in Galveston, TX. A woman was cleaning the bottom of the cage of her parrot Chippie with the canister vacuum cleaner. She was not using an attachment on the tube.

When the telephone rang, she turned her head to pick it up, continuing to vacuum the cage as she said, "Hello," into the phone. Then she heard the horrible noise of Chippie being sucked into the vacuum. Immediately she put down the phone, ripped open the vacuum bag, and found Chippie in there, stunned but still alive.

Since the bird was covered with dust and dirt, she grabbed it, ran it into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held the bird under the water to clean it off. When she finished that, she saw the hair dryer on the bathroom sink. She turned it on and held the bird in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off.

A few weeks later, a reporter from the newspaper that originally published the story went out to the house to ask the woman, "How's Chippie doing now?" She said, "He just sort of sits and stares."

Today's Gospel tells us that it was what happened to the apostles. They all were traumatized by the arrest and crucifixion of their master and bewildered by his post-Resurrection appearances and his command to prepare for the coming of his Holy Spirit.

Many of us can identify with Chippie and the apostles. Life has sucked us up, thrown cold water on us, and blown us away. Somewhere in the trauma, we have lost our song. Hence, we, too, need the daily anointing of the Holy Spirit to keep us singing songs of Christian witnessing through agápe love.

With the grace afforded by the Spirit, the church continues to revere the old and ruthlessly revise so as to keep the church pertinent to the world in which it is to be salt, light and leaven. Surely, this was the intent of the Second Vatican Council, whose members were challenged to open the windows of their minds and hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to blow them in the direction already plotted by Jesus.

That same Spirit continues to blow, empowering the church to speak -- not in a language long dead, but as it did on that first Pentecost in a language that can be understood by all peoples, everywhere.

Peace be with you. We are one body. We share one Spirit. Amen, Alleluia.

jjl

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