Pentecost is often regarded as the birth of the church, although we also have reference to this sacramental birth in the blood and water flowing from the pierced side of Christ on the cross. Today we witness the birth of the missionary universal Church in the Acts of the Apostles.
To set the proper context, let us reflect on a few points from today’s Gospel. The opening scene is described as a state of “paranoia.” The doors were locked in the room where the apostles gathered and they were cowering in fear.
In the midst of this physical, psychological and spiritual isolation, the Risen Lord appears—a powerful message that he breaks the barriers not just of space, time and matter, but also psychological and spiritual barriers.
This is our story now. In the midst of rising threats of violence, terrorism and even all-out war, we retreat to the room and lock the doors out of fear. We retreat to our comfort zone, and what begins as a desire for safety regresses into an insidious sense of division, discrimination and even hatred.
The warning signs are all around us: Brexit, the “America-first” slogan, both giving rise to populist movements which Pope Francis clearly distinguished from those organically growing from genuine people’s grassroots movements, as experienced in Latin America.
Fear, alarm
He pointed out in an interview with El Pais last January, “Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my opinion, the most obvious example of populism in the European sense of the word is Germany in 1933 … Germany is broken, it needs to get up, to find its identity, it needs a leader, someone capable of restoring its character and there is a young man named Adolf Hitler who says: ‘I can, I can.’ And Germans vote for Hitler. Hitler didn’t steal power, his people voted for him and then he destroyed his people. That is the risk. In times of crisis, we lack judgment …”
The Pope went on to describe this state of fear. “Let’s look for a savior who gives us back our identity, and let us defend ourselves with walls, barbed wire, whatever, from other people who may rob us of our identity. And that is a very serious thing. That is why I always try to say: talk among yourselves, talk to one another.”
He then issues a very chilling warning that this is “typical, a people who were immersed in a crisis, who were searching for their identity until this charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened.”
The Risen Lord breaks our physical, psychological and spiritual barriers, barriers which make us cower in fear and further separate us, worsening the crisis and allowing evil to gain the upper hand. The neighbor becomes the enemy.
The gift of the Pentecost, the gift of the Spirit of the Risen Lord is what Pope Francis “certifies as urgent” to accept— to genuinely listen to and talk with one another and build a better world together. Genuine conversation is our hope to build a community now, in the midst of the realities of our world.
Good spirit
The Spirit of the Risen Lord brings peace, as was the first greeting of Christ in today’s Gospel, after which he shows “proof” that he is the Risen Lord, his wounded hands and side. The fear is overcome and his friends rejoice.
Peace, as all spiritual mentors would say, is always a sign of the good spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Lord. It is the peace that helps us move away from the negative, from the clutches of the evil spirit, and regain equilibrium to open our hearts, minds and souls again to the mission entrusted to us by the Risen Lord.
With this same peace, Christ sends them into the world and gives them the mission to build his Father’s Kingdom—to heal a world wounded and broken by sin and injustice, poverty and violence; to build a world of justice, peace and love.
This too is our story now. This is our hope now. It is to believe and hope that the story of the Pentecost is not an old story in the ancient past, but a “tale as old as time” that is alive, marching on to fulfill its ultimate goal—to unite all things and everything under God’s kingship and Kingdom.
This is the gift of our faith, the journey we took over 80 days ago when on Ash Wednesday, we started the journey that led us through the Cross, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ and brings us now to the room where the doors are locked.
We can continue to live in fear. It may appear as a weakness that allows others to manipulate us. Fear can also appear as power and strength, a fear that can lash out violently at all that appears to threaten us, until the last man standing is the one who truly instills fear, evil itself.
But it is Pentecost, and it is a reminder that we need not live in fear because the Risen Lord has conquered evil once and for all. Yet we still need to make a choice to rejoice in the Risen Lord’s definitive victory, to receive his Spirit, to heal our broken, wounded world.
We are a nation divided, but like the apostles in the Acts of the Apostles, there is a common ground in our diversity that will allow conversation where understanding is possible. Unity need not eliminate diversity; as Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians. There are different gifts, different services, different workings and different parts, but “for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”
Today is Pentecost and I pray you and I, all of us, will allow the Spirit of the Risen Lord to break barriers and to lend us his peace.
Blessed with the Spirit, may we begin to build, in ordinary time, the extraordinary Kingdom of God.—CONTRIBUTED