Pentecost
Sunday
at St.
Mary’s in Salem
22-23 May 2021
Acts
2:1-11
Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the
earth.
1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13
Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Jn 20:19-23
Praised be Jesus Christ!
Some of the big feasts in the Church calendar, which fall on
Sundays at this time of year, have a Sequence prayer or hymn before the
Alleluia verse. In the old, old days, even if people did not know the Latin,
they were familiar with two of them, the Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes
for Easter and for Pentecost Veni, Sancte Spiritus
(Come, Holy Spirit). The melodies are lovely, and people could easily
identify from the music the mystery being celebrated. Albeit with a different
melody, one of the most popular refrains of the Taizé movement has those three
words: Veni, Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit).
A central theme to the Pentecost Sequence is the forgiveness
of sins by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. At one point we sing:
This same theme is also prominent in the readings from Sacred
Scripture for Pentecost Sunday. We see this especially in the choice of the
passage from the Gospel of St. John which recounts the mission the Risen Lord
Jesus entrusted to the Apostles:
“Peace be with you. As the Father has
sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this,
he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you
forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” Above all else, the Holy Spirit gives life to the
Church through the forgiveness of sins.
Let it be noted that after more than two generations of
exposure to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, most people’s first
thought associated with Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is
probably related to praying in tongues and other kinds of emotional or ecstatic
manifestations of the Spirit. For some Catholics this is fine, but others
remain skeptical. If you read the account in the Acts of the Apostles
attentively, however, it is unmistakable that people came running and remained
to listen because Peter and the other Apostles were communicating clearly. “Are
not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear
them in his native language?” On this point, it is always best to stick to
St. Paul, who taught that other gifts, like the gift of teaching or prophecy,
were more important than that of speaking in tongues.
So then, in the first place we should associate Pentecost
with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles for the sake of the
mission of proclaiming the Gospel: “Peace be with you. As the Father has
sent me, so I send you.” And secondly, and of no less importance, for the
forgiveness of sins: And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said
to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.” We tie the institution of the
Eucharist and the priesthood to the Last Supper on Holy Thursday and the
institution of the Sacrament of Penance, giving priests the power to bind and
loose, to forgive sins in His Name, we tie to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
upon the Apostles in that same Upper Room on Pentecost Sunday.
I guess you could say that priests have much they can learn
from the feast of Pentecost in terms of the importance of their ministry in the
confessional. The Church which officially came into being on Pentecost has a
twofold mission of preaching Jesus and forgiving sins in His Name. This mandate
comes from Jesus, the Risen Lord, Himself. If a priest does not make himself
available to his people for confession, then he is seriously falling down on
the job. It is all about freeing people through forgiveness. Priests should
know that because of the reticence of many people, their doubts and sometimes
fears of confession, making Christ’s forgiveness accessible might demand of them
to go out of their way, to bend over backward, in order to win God’s people
over to Christ in His Church through repentance and the forgiveness of sin.
The role of the faithful in this regard is no less important.
You need to go to confession. The basic rule is that if you commit mortal sin,
you need to get to confession as quickly as possible. Even if you are such a
good person that you cannot accuse yourself of serious or grave sin, by Church
precept you are required to go to confession at least once a year. Most people
tie that yearly confession to preparing for their Easter Duty, which is to
receive Holy Communion worthily during the Easter Season, which extends from
Easter Sunday through Trinity Sunday, a week from now.
That is what we are asking of the Holy Spirit and that is
what we ask of confession. I do not think that the minimum of confession once a
year is sufficient to show that we are truly honest about getting that
accomplished. One of the reasons that already back in the first millennium penitential
practice with the Irish monks became so popular, that is, private confession
without public penance as had been the rule for six hundred years or more, is
that it offered people guidance and direction on a regular basis, enabling them
to make progress more easily in the spiritual life, not only for conquering
mortal sin, but growing in grace and holiness.
“Heal our wounds, our strength renew; On our dryness pour
your dew; Wash the stains of guilt away, Bend the
stubborn heart and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that
go astray.”
I bet that not many of you would have guessed that I would
use Pentecost to make a plug for regular confession even of your venial sins. Resolve
to go to confession at least once in each of the four seasons of the year, and
preferably once a month the way our parents and grandparents did. Why? Well, what
else could be our intent in praying the Pentecost Sequence?
“Wash the stains of guilt away, Bend the stubborn heart
and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go astray.”
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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