Dear Parish Family,
Today concludes the Easter season, the fifty days that, from Jesus’ resurrection to Pentecost, are marked in a particular way by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is more than the afterglow of Easter; it is Easter's culmination. The Jewish feast of Passover (commemorating the release from captivity) finds fulfillment in the feast of Weeks (pentecostes in Greek), commemorating the Sinai covenant. Similarly, Easter, celebrating the divine victory over the shame of death by crucifixion, finds its fuller meaning in the enlivening of the Christian community through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is in fact the Easter Gift par excellence. He is the Creator Spirit, who constantly brings about new things. Today’s readings show us two of those new things. In the first reading, the Spirit makes of the disciples a new people; in the Gospel, he creates in the disciples a new heart.
A new people. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came down from heaven, in the form of “divided tongues, as of fire… [that] rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages” (Acts 2:3-4). This is how the word of God describes the working of the Spirit: first he rests on each and then brings all of them together in fellowship. To each he gives a gift, and then gathers them all into unity. In other words, the same Spirit creates diversity and unity, and in this way forms a new, diverse and unified people: the universal Church. To live in the Spirit we need to work hard to avoid getting into a ‘ghetto mentality’. It is very easy to find in the Church various reasons to get into tight compartments: language, customs, religious practices from countries of our origin etc. When this happens, we choose the part over the whole, belonging to this or that group before belonging to the Church. We become avid supporters for one side, rather than brothers and sisters in the one Spirit, then he brings about unity: he joins together, gathers and restores harmony.
A new Heart. When the risen Jesus first appears to his disciples, he says to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them” (Jn 20:22-23). Jesus does not condemn them for having denied and abandoned him during his passion, but instead grants them the spirit of forgiveness. The Spirit is the first gift of the risen Lord, and is given above all for the forgiveness of sins. Here we see the beginning of the Church, the glue that holds us together, the cement that binds the bricks of the house: forgiveness. Because forgiveness is gift to the highest degree; it is the greatest love of all. It preserves unity despite everything, prevents collapse, and consolidates and strengthens. Forgiveness sets our hearts free and enables us to start afresh. Forgiveness gives hope; without forgiveness, the Church is not built up.
The spirit of forgiveness resolves everything in harmony, and leads us to reject every other way: the way of hasty judgement and the one-way street criticizing others. Instead, the Spirit bids us take the two-way street of forgiveness received and given, of divine mercy that becomes love of neighbor, transforming us into a vibrant community: ‘see how they love one another’.
Fr. Thomas Kunnel