Amazed!

May 28, 2023

Pentecost Sunday, Mass during the Day, Year A

Acts 2:1-11

… all were amazed and perplexed, saying … ‘What does this mean?’”

… others mocked … ‘They are filled with new wine.’”

“This is the Spirit that at the beginning

“moved upon the face of the waters;”

who moves the world ;

who exists in creation,

and gives life to all things;

who also worked mightily in the prophets,

and descended in flight upon Christ.

This is the Spirit that was given to the apostles in the form of fiery tongues.

This is the Spirit that David sought when he said, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Gabriel also spoke to the Virgin of this Spirit,

“The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.”

By this Spirit Peter spoke that blessed word, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

This Spirit established the rock of the Church .

This is the Spirit, the Comforter, that is sent because of you,

that He may show you to be the Son of God.” ❡9

Hippolytus The Discourse on the Holy Theophany, §§ 8-10

“Doubtless, the Holy Spirit was already at work in the world before Christ was glorified.

Yet on the day of Pentecost,

He came down upon the disciples to remain with them forever (cf. John 14:16).

The Church was publicly displayed to the multitude,

the Gospel began to spread among the nations by means of preaching,

and there was foreshadowed [presaged] that union of all peoples in the catholicity of the faith by means of the Church of the New Covenant,

a Church which speaks all tongues,

understands and accepts all tongues in her love,

and so supersedes the divisiveness of Babel.”

Catholic Church, “Decree on the Mission Activity of the Church: Ad Gentes”, Vatican II Documents (Vatican City 2011).

You may say to me

— That’s an idealized version of what the Church should be.

— Yes, it is.

I might ask you

— What have you done? …

— What has any of us done

to make the Church better realize this ideal?

to make this ideal more real

in the world we really live in?

This is just a question

I ask myself from time to time.

I strongly recommend to everyone

to ask themselves the same question;

to wonder:

What responsibility to I bear

for bringing this vision to life

in this real world we live in?