Pentecostes 2024

What happened here today

Today the disciples were gathered alone with Mary suddenly a roar is heard, the Spirit of God descends, 9 days ago Christ does and now the Spirit descends to lift hearts to God.

1. Seal of the Old Covenant, God also descends in fire.

To understand this festival you have to understand that it is celebrated today, you have to understand its origin.

The mysteries of Christ and His church are prefigured in the Old Testament, this feast of fifty days after the Passover, commemorates when God also descended in the form of fire to Mount Sinai and through Moses, proposed to Israel that it should become His property among all peoples.

"The whole of Mount Sinai was smoking," the passage reads, "because the Lord had descended on it in the fire. The smoke went up like a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently" (Ex 19:18).

So God has made Himself a people where salvation will come, now God forms a New People, uniting the best of the Old People, to bring salvation to the whole earth.

1. The Signs of the Spirit in the Church.

St. Irenaeus: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the Church, and where the Church is, there is the Spirit of the Lord and all grace."

1. Nor does God, because of the sins of his Church, found other Churches, he is fidelism.

Just as out of all the earth God chose a people and gave signs of how to recognize them, now He creates one Church, and leaves signs of how to recognize them.

Never in the Old Testament, even though His people sinned, did God abandon them and found another people.

1. The Holy Spirit gives birth from Mary's womb to the Son of God, the Holy Spirit gives birth to the Church from Mary.

On this day the Spirit descends upon the Apostles and they accompanied by Mary, only in the Church do these signs remain visible, it is only here that you will always see Mary accompanying her Church, so that if Mary is not there it is not the Church of God.

1. There is a union in diversity, where there is division there is no Spirit of God.

1. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church?

The Holy Spirit is the Soul of the Church, he keeps it alive, he holds it together, he sanctifies it through the sacraments.

2. The Holy Spirit in each of its members.

The gifts of the Spirit are seven: wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, godliness, and fear of God.

3. How to identify if there is the Holy Spirit in my person, by the fruits:

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control.

Some groups believe that to have the Holy Spirit is to speak in tongues, to perform miracles, if those are gifts, but they do not give the assurance of the Holy Spirit.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding bell or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, 5 it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, 6 it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Let us ask for the main fruit, not to speak in tongues, not to know higher, let us ask for the main gift: to love God.

Almost 500 years ago, St. Philip asked for the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

He was there, on the eve of Pentecost in 1544, asking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, when he saw a globe of fire coming from heaven that penetrated his mouth and dilated in his breast. The saint felt himself possessed by a love of God so great that it seemed to suffocate him; He fell to the ground, as if he had been knocked down, and cried out in an accent of pain, "Enough, Lord, enough! I can't stand it any longer!"

So let us ask today for the gifts of the Spirit, but let us ask above all for the most important fruit, to love God with my whole being and my neighbor.

If your heart is inflamed, you already have the Holy Spirit, if you don't love your brother, your prayer is just noise.

May Mary obtain for us this grace, the Holy Spirit who moves us to Love God and our neighbor