Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 24, 2026: We were all given to drink of one Spirit...

We were all given to drink of one Spirit…

Are we ready to become sources of living water for our world? 

    We are a people of hope, hope in a promise. Our first reading for the Vigil Mass of Pentecost is the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel, whose inhabitants desired to make a name for themselves, an act of pride that ultimately led to division. Come, let us build ourselves a city and so make a name for ourselves, they say. But God then confuses their language and scatters them all over the earth. In so doing, the people are humbled, but, sadly, they are also divided. It is that division that Pentecost reverses. 

    We see hope for the people of Israel in the remaining readings for the Pentecost Vigil. In the Book of Exodus, Moses reminds the people that God desires relationship with them, so long as they hearken to God’s voice and keep God’s covenant. Unfortunately, they do not do so, and yet God remains faithful, promising the prophet Ezekiel that he will open their graves and have them rise from them, and bring them back to the land of Israel. The prophet Joel similarly speaks of God’s desire for renewal: I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; then everyone shall be rescued who calls upon the name of the Lord. Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, renewal and reunification were not yet possible, but in John’s Gospel, Jesus promises that, not only will they be restored to God, but his disciples will become a source of living water pouring out to renew the earth. And, at the time Paul writes to the Roman community, although the Spirit has come to all believers, Paul knows our ultimate union in Christ will be in heaven: we hope for what we do not see, and wait with endurance. 

    The readings for Pentecost Sunday turn our attention even more closely to the workings of the Holy Spirit. When, in John’s Gospel, having risen from the dead, Jesus comes to the disciples who are hiding behind locked doors, he breathes on them, saying, Receive the Holy Spirit! They are now fully one in him and he in them. At last, filled with the Holy Spirit, they are ready to give witness and speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim – a total reversal of the sin of Babel, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles. The language the disciples now speak is a language that is universal, for it is the language of love, and they are returned to the world, that rivers of living water can flow from them onto the world. 

    As Paul reminds the Corinthians, we were all baptized into one body, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. It is the Spirit that banishes division, the Spirit that makes our union in Christ possible. And so, may we pray, as we hear in Psalm 104, Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth. In Pentecost we are created anew, drenched in the Spirit, that we too might offer hope as we proclaim that Jesus is Lord… to all! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 8, 2025: For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body...

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…
How do we proclaim that Jesus is Lord? 

   Whenever we forget that we are dependent on the Lord, we are bound to run into trouble. Psalm 104 reminds us that everything we need comes from God, who gives us not only breath but food in due time, and fills us with good things. But the residents of the city of Babel (or Babylon) failed to remember this essential truth, and so, the Book of Genesis tells us, they decide to build themselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Their sin is one of arrogance; by striving to make a name for themselves, they are setting themselves above the divinity, and so God confuses their language, scattering them all over the earth. Not until Pentecost will this confusion of language be reversed. 

   The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ gift to the world, a way for him to remain present with us after his Ascension. In fact, well before Jesus’ death and resurrection, he promises that rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me. This is, in John’s Gospel, a reference to the Spirit that will come upon his disciples at a later date. Later in John’s Gospel, after Jesus is raised from the dead but while the disciples are still behind locked doors on the evening of the first day of the week, Jesus breathes on them, saying Receive the Holy Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke will place this gift later in the disciples’ journey, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, when a strong, driving wind – the Spirit itself – drives them from the house in which they were and into the street, enabling them to proclaim the good news in different tongues to devout Jews from every nation under heaven. The confusion of Babel ends with the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of God the Father. 

   Like the disciples after Jesus’ Ascension, like the Romans to whom Paul wrote, we too long for the Lord’s divine presence and groan within ourselves as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. We too long for the fulfillment of all that God has promised, and that longing itself is a gift! But the Spirit is with us always, even in our struggles, connecting us with the Lord and helping us to be aware that the Lord is present with us in different ways, as Paul told the Corinthians: the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God who is at work in us wherever we gather as the Body of Christ. We were all given to drink of one Spirit, that we might reveal that Jesus is Lord to all we meet! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 19, 2024: Receive the Holy Spirit...

 

Receive the Holy Spirit… 

How do we come together as the Body of Christ? 

    Taken together, our readings for Pentecost (both Vigil and Sunday) give us a sense of God as life-giving restorer of God’s people. And the people need it! The story of the Tower of Babel, in the Book of Genesis, points to the growing wickedness of the people migrating in the east, who build themselves a ziggurat as an exercise in arrogance, a condition that has plagued humankind over the ages. But God will intervene over and over to save God’s people from themselves. In the Book of Exodus, God sends a message to the people via Moses, assuring them that, if they hearken to his voice and keep his covenant, they shall be God’s special possession. Ezekiel speaks of a vision of dry bones transformed by the Lord God by means of sinew and flesh, that the Lord might breathe life into them. In the Book of Joel, the Lord similarly pours out his spirit upon all flesh. It is an extraordinary promise of restoration, one that offers the hope of salvation to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. Thus can Psalm 104 come to pass: Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth. 

    It is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that is the fulfillment of all of the prophecies in salvation history. In John, Chapter 7, Jesus proclaims that anyone who longs for the life God has promised can find it in Jesus himself: Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink, he says. Faith, hope and love are byproducts of the living waters of Christ – the Spirit of truth itself that proceeds from the Father, John 15 tells us, going forth and being shared. That Spirit or Advocate is meant to guide all to the truth; it is through the Spirit that Jesus, once he has ascended to the Father in Acts of the. Apostles, continues to be present to the disciples, allowing them to say Jesus is Lord. It is through them, as they come together in the Body of Christ, that the Lord himself will be revealed, as first happens at Pentecost, when tongues as of fire rest on each of them, and they are all filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to proclaim. 

    It is this same Spirit, as Paul tells the Romans, that perfects our prayer, coming to the aid of our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought. All of creation is groaning in labor pains, waiting to receive the fullness of life, longing for something, yet unable to identify what precisely it seeks… But we can, because we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, which gives us an intimation of the fullness of life that is possible in Christ. Moreover, every spiritual gift, Paul tells the Corinthians, every gift from the Spirit, exists to benefit the whole, gathered together in one Body, united in Christ, bringing Christ’s love to bear upon the world. It is the Spirit, in short, dwelling with us, that makes it possible for us to be Church and to function together in a way that benefits our world. Peace be with you, Jesus says to the disciples in John’s Gospel, breathing on them as they receive the Holy Spirit – their access to salvation, and ours, ours to share. Peace be with you! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 28, 2023: Lord, send out your spirit, and renew the face of the earth...

Lord, send out your spirit and renew the face of the earth…

Are you ready to be transformed? 

    The people of Israel have long recognized God’s power to renew the face of the earth; Psalm 104 is a proclamation of praise to God for all God has done for God’s creation. In Genesis, God breathes God’s spirit into Adam to animate him, and God ensures that all of creation has what it needs in order to bring forth life. In John’s version of the Pentecost, Jesus similarly breathes upon the disciples when he visits them in the upper room, when the doors are locked, after the resurrection. Receive the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, after twice wishing that peace be upon them. In a sense, Jesus is calling the disciples past their desire for the so-called normal, that they might be open to change, to transformation. They have a lot of fear to overcome; fear drives our lives all the time. But the peace of the Spirit helps us to conquer fear, that we might appreciate all that God is doing in our lives. 

    The Pentecost story the evangelist Luke presents in the Acts of the Apostles is radically more dramatic: a driving wind, flames as of fire, and the unanticipated ability to speak in different tongues are extraordinary events one would normally associate with a theophany (or visible manifestation of the Lord), all of which are possible because the Spirit enables them. Typically, a theophany portends that transformation is imminent; something happening out of the ordinary marks that change is to come. But these events are no more extraordinary than the mighty acts of God of which the disciples speak, a reference to both the death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as to their experience of Jesus revealed to them as Messiah and Son of God. God’s revelation and God’s activity are indeed extraordinary, and call us all to open ourselves to transformation. 

    God renews us, every single day. That is what it means to be alive: ongoing renewal through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We have different kinds of spiritual gifts, as Paul tells the Corinthians, yet in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, that we might work for the benefit of our community and of our world. The Spirit that works in each of us embodies God’s activity, renewing us all as God renews the face of the earth. May we too be filled with the Holy Spirit, changed, transformed, that we might bring that Spirit to our world. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. (Note: Because this class took place in 2020, only one Mass was live-streamed and so Fr. Pat only preached on one set of readings, rather than the full set of Vigil and Sunday readings. You can access the entire set of Vigil readings here.) 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 6, 2022: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness...

The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness…

How do we come to unity in community?

    Human beings often live in a state of constant discontent, sometimes heightened by pain and suffering. Frequently, that discontent is of our own making. Witness the actions of the people migrating in the east in the Book of Genesis, who decide to stop in Shinar and build a tower there. God recognizes their self-centeredness and arrogance and scatters them from there all over the earth. Creation has forgotten that God and only God is the source of all, that God is responsible for all that is. Recognizing the manifold works of God, Psalm 104 asks the Lord to send out his spirit, and renew the face of the earth. Even after Jesus’ death and rising, the Romans still experienced discontent: all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now, Paul writes to them. But the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, Paul reassures them, interceding for the holy ones according to God’s will. Moreover, as Jesus had promised at the Jewish feast of Tabernacles in John's Gospel, Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me. We thirst for the fullness of God; if we believe in Jesus, we will find what we seek and that source of life that is the Spirit will flow from us into other people’s lives. The promise of the Spirit is that unity that will heal the disunity of Babel in Shinar; what God reveals in Jesus transcends all human limitations, eliminating division and allowing all to become conduits of the Spirit. 

    The confusion of Babel gives way to the unity of understanding when, in the Acts of the Apostles, the time for Pentecost was fulfilled. In Jerusalem on that day, each one hears the disciples speaking in his own language. Their proclamation of the good news is meant by all and understood by all, to bring them all together in belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Something extraordinary is happening, something that defies their ability to explain. Psalm 104 notes that when you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. In Jerusalem that day, all can say Jesus is Lord thanks to the Holy Spirit active in their midst. The Spirit may work in each of us differently, Paul tells the Corinthians, but it is all for the sake of the whole; the purpose of the Spirit is to draw us together into one body. When the disciples receive the Spirit directly from Jesus on the evening of that first day of the week, in John's Gospel, they are not yet ready; the doors are locked and will still be locked a week later. We know that the Spirit is in us as well; we know that Jesus believes we have it in us to be his disciples. We may need to grow into it, to grow away from our fundamental discontent, but we have what we need because we receive his Spirit in baptism, and we are thus a new creation. And then? We must live Christ, giving witness to the mercy of God, remaining fully present in him and allowing him to be fully present is us. Our job now is to love the world and to let love do what it is meant to do, serving our larger community through our unity, thanks to the Spirit, in the Body of Christ.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 31, 2020: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness...

The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness…

What can the Spirit of God accomplish in us?

  In the Old Testament, the people of God are bound to God in covenant through the spirit of God that comes upon them; to break covenant is a sign of self-focus, an indication of a failure to give room to the spirit of God working within them.  We see this failure to recognize a need for God’s spirit at work in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis, when the people look to the work of their own hands as sufficient to greatness; in Exodus, on the other hand, the people are bound to God and God to God’s people through the work of God’s spirit in covenant, visible to them in the form of peals of thunder and lightening, a heavy cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast .  The dry bones of Ezekiel are another example of a people dead to God through sin, but when God breathes spirit into them, they are lifted to new life.  God’s ability to transform us through God’s spirit is evident in Joel as well, when God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and all people with thereby coming to unity in God.  Lord, send out your spirit, and renew the face of the earth, we sing in Psalm 104 – this is God’s action in our lives, time and time again, from the beginning of time.

  Jesus is clear to his disciples on this point:  Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me, he tells the crowd at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles in John’s Gospel.  He is speaking in reference to the Spirit that we will receive once he has died and risen, a Spirit that will flow through us and from us to other.  That Spirit is the breath Jesus breathes upon the apostles in the upper room in John as well:  Receive the Holy Spirit, he tells them, receive, that is, the ability to do what I am sending you to do, to open yourselves to the Spirit in your life so you can understand those who need to be forgiven and forgive them.  It is the same Spirit that comes like a strong driving wind upon the disciples at the time for Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles – the tongues as of fire that come to rest upon them offer them enlightenment, a light they did not have previously, a kind of interior vision.  Henceforth, as Paul tells the Corinthians, all of our different gifts are given to us by the same Spirit, even our ability to proclaim Jesus as Lord.  It is the Spirit that makes it possible to come together in one Body, coming to the aid of our weakness as Paul notes in the Letter to the Romans, drawing us closer, ever closer to God, our faithful guide to perfect Love. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordcloud.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 9, 2019: We were all given to drink of one Spirit...

We were all given to drink of one Spirit…

How does the Spirit dwelling within us transform our world?

  Left to themselves, humans tend toward self-centeredness.  We read in the Book of Genesis the story of Babel, in which the people build an enormous ziggurat, not to deepen their relationship with God but to make a name for themselves.  The end result?  God scatters them over all the earth, and any hope for union is lost. 

  Paul recognizes the dangers of self-centeredness in his epistles to the Corinthians and to the Romans when he notes that if we remain in the flesh, self-centered, self-focused, our only concern is what we can accomplish ourselves, and we will remain disconnected, isolated, separate, without anything larger that connects us.  But if we drink of the Holy Spirit, and allow our existence to be defined in terms of God rather than of ourselves, then it is possible for love to be eternal.  For no one can say, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.  Paul also notes that we know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now – we long for forgiveness, long for redemption, long for union, but have not yet found them, and so we wait for adoption.  But the Spirit allows us to transcend our own self-centeredness when it intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings and enables an ever more full relationship, and union, with God.

  All of this is only possible because Jesus, by his death and resurrection, promised to create an open passage between God and us, such that, as he says in John’s Gospel, rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes.  This is the work of the Spirit that those who come to believe in him were to receive at Pentecost and beyond.  Later in this same Gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room to transfer his mission to them:  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.  Receive the Holy Spirit.  The disciples are thus tasked with opening the way of salvation to all by going out and loving their world through a love facilitated by the Advocate, the Spirit.  It is the Spirit that will allow that love to flow from them, that they might renew the face of the earth (Psalm 104), fostering union among all peoples.  The Pentecost story as told in the Acts of the Apostles is different, but with the same ultimate result:  the apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit, which will dwell in them and flow from them as they proclaim the mighty acts of God.

  We are called to no less!  May we too be filled with the Holy Spirit every single day, that we might proclaim God’s manifold works and bring his forgiveness to all, fostering union as God’s love flows from us to the world.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 20, 2018: Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me...

Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me…

Does God’s love flow from within you?

   At the time of the construction of what we call the tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis, the people were too thrilled by their own ingenuity in brick-laying to be paying much attention to God, and the resulting confusion of their languages is a sign of the barrier they have erected between themselves and the Lord.  No love flows from them, only arrogance, as they feed their own egos. That barrier will be eliminated with the coming of Jesus, who, in John’s Gospel, invites all to come to me and drink, that Jesus’ love will flow from within him who believes.  In the words of Psalm 104, Jesus, sending his Spirit, will renew the face of the earth.  Only then can the Spirit come to the aid of our weakness, as Paul tells the Romans, opening us, breaking down any boundary or barrier we have created, that we might be united through prayer to God, and through our actions, to other.

   John’s Gospel also tells us that, after his resurrection, Jesus breathes on his disciples, filling them with his Spirit, so that the Spirit of truth will guide them to all truth, that they might testify to his life, death and rising.  The Spirit will indeed fill the disciples in Luke’s account of the Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, reversing the confusion of Babel by the creative act of God’s Spirit, in the form of breath and wind.  It is a moment of profound transformation wherein the Spirit enters the disciples and then flows through them, is released by them, that they might proclaim the Good News.  As Paul tells the Corinthians, each may be given a different kind of spiritual gift, but we are all given to drink of one Spirit, that we might, as the Letter to the Galatians notes, know the fruit of the Spirit, that is, love, joy, peace, and more. And that love and joy and peace must flow from us to the world.

   We all thrist for depth, for love as God knows it.  To believe in Jesus is to come to him, so that that which you seek will flow from within you.  As we participate profoundly in the love of God, a life flows from us into the lives of others, and back into us.  The more we are connected, the more we recognize what flows between us, connecting us.  So let us, on this Feast of Pentecost, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and allow that Spirit to flow like a river from us, connecting us, one and all, in the love of God.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  http://www.wordle.net