So much is unconscious in our lives. So much is beneath the surface of our awareness and so much needs our scrutiny, our eyes to open, our awareness to expand.
[In this weekend’s readings,] the disciples are hiding. Their fear has driven them into locked rooms, and they are comfortable being there. But the Lord knows that that is not where they belong and that is not where they will be able to proclaim the good news. [Then the driving wind of Pentecost] enters the building, disrupting the peace and quiet of their captivity, their self-inflicted captivity. Tongues as of flame part and descend upon each one of them, an external manifestation of something internal that is happening. Their fear is being burned away. Their perceived need to hide is burning to a crisp. And their ability to speak in words that people will understand begins to come forth from them. This is no illness; this is a healing.
Then they are outside and they are proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, and everybody understands in their own tongue. Every one of these peoples that hears the Word of God proclaimed to them carries their own prejudices, carries their own closed mind. They have their own definitions by which they live, their own definitions by which they judge the world, their own definitions even if they are not conscious of them -- they exist for them, and yet the Word of the Lord reaches through and touches them at the core of their being. The descent of the Holy Spirit is not to be denied, is not an event that can be ignored – it is a necessary event for all humankind.
Jesus breathes on his disciples to bring forth from them a new life. A life that isn’t defined by the boundaries of their past, that isn’t defined by the prejudice that has marked them and held them back. He breathes into them a life that is defined by his love alone. Paul refers to it as a Spirit who gives gifts, gives us capacities that do not originate within us. Kindness and love are not of our own invention; they are gifts from God. Justice is not something that we can just write [into] laws and think that, somehow, we have made it happen. George Floyd knows that. Ahmaud Arbery knows that. So many other people know that. We can talk a good game. We can write laws that claim to create justice, but justice is a gift that comes from outside of us, and it is meant for service, for the benefit of all people, all people no matter their race or color, no matter how their history has brought them to this place, no matter how they have grown up, no matter what has taken place in their lives. The Spirit of God, this gift of love that God has placed in each one of us, that he awakens with the Spirit, is a gift for all of us, is a gift for us to be community, to be a source of life in our world. And it is God’s working. Every gift we have is meant to raise everyone up so that all can be equal participants in a Body, a Body saved by the sacrifice of one man. God is not with us when his gifts do not serve mankind, when they do not make our world a better place, when we use them only to feather our own nest, only to make ourselves comfortable, only to make ourselves feel secure. God didn’t give us his gifts for our security’s sake. He gives us the gifts that love might win over the world.
The wounds of our world are open and festering. Maggots eat away as quickly as they can and yet cannot eat away the contagion from within. We can stand in condemnation for the actions of people who have reached their limit. We can stand in judgment over people whose lives are a shambles, whose hope for justice is all but destroyed. Or we can look to the gifts that the Holy Spirit awakens in us and we can allow them to direct our lives, our choices. We can allow them to define our world, and the way and which we live in it.
This pandemic is a tragedy, but not nearly the tragedy that it is awakening us to. A tragedy that exists without our knowing it, an illness buried deep within our psyches, deep within our definitions. The death and resurrection of Jesus redefined us once and continues to try and redefine us even now. As the Spirit fills us, may we accept the wounds that are ours so that the Spirit might burn them away, so that the Spirit might transform our lives and therefore our society and our world…. so that justice will not just be a word that we have contained in laws but something we live for each other’s sake… so that we do not spend our time and energy decrying other people’s injustice, but look to heal the injustice that dwells in each of us, so that the love of God may touch every heart, may be understood in every language, and may find room in every life.
Excerpts from Fr. Patrick Michael’s
Pentecost homily, May 31, 2020
(A recording of this Mass is on our Facebook page.)
(A recording of this Mass is on our Facebook page.)
Image source 1: Celos, mural in protest against the death of George Floyd, downtown Los Angeles, May 30, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/george-floyds-brother-calls-peace-1507761
Image source 2: Karel Teissig, Black Jesus, https://thejesusquestion.org/2015/07/11/karel-teissigs-black-jesus/
Thank you, Father Pat, for addressing the wounds of our culture that have resulted from centuries of racism. My daughters and also Carlos and I were and are deeply grateful to you for speaking out about this topic on Sunday. They told me it was the first time they had listened all the way through one of your homilies. Your words reached them, which is a true compliment! Thank you again for your honesty, observations, stories and faith.
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