June 11 Pentecost

Pentecost

It’s a joyful day in the church because on this day of Pentecost, we commemorate the birth of the Church. This Celebration of Pentecost brings us to the joyful conclusion of the Easter season. 

Today’s scripture tells us what had happened on the day of day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary as flaming tongues. The frightened apostles were transformed into flaming preachers and were given the gift of tongues by a special anointing of the Holy Spirit. The listeners experienced a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit through the apostles’ gift of tongues and some speaking in their native languages. And the early Christians became powerful witnesses and brave martyrs for their Faith in Jesus.

Holy Spirit has given ten gifts in our life. Everyday the Holy Spirit enlightens us with these special gifts. Those ten gifts are the three gifts that we received at our Baptism, namely faith, hope and charity and the seven gifts we received at our Confirmation namely wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.

We need to remember again those ten gifts on this feast day. The gift of faith allows us to see the invisible in the visible world.  Hope gives us the ability to trust in God who is our Father.  Charity provides us with the grace that we need to love God and to love our neighbor.

Wisdom detaches us from the things of this world and causes us to desire only the things of Heaven.  The gift of understanding helps us to penetrate the truths of our Catholic Faith.  Counsel enables us to see and choose correctly those actions that will help us give glory to God and ensure our own eternal salvation. Fortitude gives us the strength to overcome those obstacles our life on. The gift of knowledge shows us the path to follow and alerts us to the dangers that we must avoid in order to attain eternal life in Heaven. 

Piety enlightens us with a tender and filial confidence in God and allows us to joyfully embrace our discipleship with Christ. Finally, the gift of fear of the Lord fills us with a deep respect for God and makes us fear anything that may offend him.

What is the role of the Holy Spirit in our Christian life:  As an indwelling God, He makes us His Living Temples. As a strengthening God, He strengthens us in our fight against temptations.  As a sanctifying God, He makes us holy through the Sacraments:  He makes us children of God and heirs of Heaven through Baptism. He makes us temples of God, warriors and defenders of the Faith, through Confirmation. c) He enables us to be reconciled with God by pardoning our sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  He gives us spiritual nourishment through the Holy Eucharist. As a teaching God, He clarifies and constantly reminds us of Christ’s teachings. As a listening and talking God, He listens to our prayers and enables us to pray. 

 Dear brothers and sisters, on this Pentecost we need to open our hearts to the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. How this can happen in our life? We need to permit the Holy Spirit to take control of our lives by constantly remembering His holy presence and by praying for His daily anointing so that we may fight against our temptations and addictions. We need to ask the help of the Holy Spirit to do good for others and to be reconciled with God and others every day. In this Eucharistic celebration we shall pray to the Holy Spirit to abide so powerfully in our hearts that our souls so that we would wake up to his presence.