First
Reading Genesis 11:1-9
Psalm
– Psalm 32(33):10-15 ©
Second
Reading – Exodus 19:3-8, 16-20 ©
Canticle
– Daniel 3:52-56 ©
Third Reading – Ezekiel 37:1-14 ©
Psalm – Psalm 106(107):2-9 ©
Fourth Reading – Joel 3:1-5 ©
Fifth Reading – Romans 8:22-27 ©
Gospel
Acclamation
The
Gospel According to John 7:37-39 ©
Sixth
Reading – Genesis 11:1-9 ©
Seventh
Reading – Acts 2:1-11 ©
Psalm 103(104):1-2,24,27-30,35 ©
Eighth
Reading 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12, 13 ©
Sequence
– Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Gospel
Acclamation
The
Gospel According to John 20:19-23 ©
(NJB)
Listen!
It
is the Feast of Pentecost, forty days after Easter, marking the beginning of
the Apostolic Age.
Christians
throughout the world celebrate this day; tradition tells us that this feast commemorates
the gift of the Holy Spirit, given by Jesus of Nazareth (Joshua son of Joseph),
to the nascent Church founded in his name.
For
the Church, it is a new era.
Jesus
has left the building…he has left the planet, and though it has been whispered
that he will return, care for community of believers is now in the hands of his
disciples, such as they were.
The
departure of Jesus marks the beginning of the age of prophecy for the Christian
community. It is a time of discernment in which the Church would undergo an evolutionary
process, a process by which it would become a new creation.
From
this point forward Christianity is no longer merely a sect of Judaism; it
becomes an international movement, transcending Palestine as it spreads
throughout the Mediterranean region, Gaul, and the Iberian peninsula, North Africa
and the Near East, all the way to India and eventually…around the world.
It
did not happen overnight, and there remain human communities that have never
heard the name of Jesus…or the good news preached in his name.
In
the Apostolic Age, the Church becomes responsible for teaching the way of
Jesus, the new way, preached in new tongues, told through new stories shaped by
every culture that encountered them; in these stories Joshua son of Joseph becomes
something new as well: Jesus the Christ, a mythological, a man of godly power, fully
human and fully divine.
In
Christian doctrine Jesus becomes identified with God’s own self, the second
person of the Holy Trinity; he is the creator of the universe in whom all
things exist, without whom not one thing comes into being.
Be
mindful.
In
his time and throughout his life Jesus preached the way of love, of
service, of caring, of justice, of mercy of humility. He uttered not a tittle
about his godhood.
Remember.
God,
the creator of the universe, God of law and order. God is not a purveyor of
magic tricks, God does not dabble in the supernatural or trade in miracles; therefore
today’s narrative from The Book of Acts must be understood as a
metaphor.
The
meaning is this:
The
Church had grown to include a great number of people from all parts of the
Roman Empire, from Egypt and North Africa, from cisalpine and transalpine Gaul,
from Arabia and Persia, from all around the Mediterranean Region, from North
and South of the Black Sea, to India.
In
every company of believers there were speakers and translators capable of
sharing the Good News in every tongue that was known; from Ethiopia to
Brittania, from Carthage to the Himalayas.
The
gift of tongues is to be understood as the blessing of a multi-national, multi-ethnic,
multi-cultural community. An individual possessing the gift of tongues, was
someone who had the ability to interpret between one language and another, so
that everyone gathered to hear the Gospel and scripture expounded on, would be
able to understand what they heard.
The
myth of Pentecost, as related here in the Gospel of Saint John, narrates some
of the struggles of the early Church. It was written more than one hundred
years after the death of Jesus, and decades after the Romans destroyed the
Temple in Jerusalem. It was written by and for John’s community, in an era when
the differentiation among Christians and Jews had concretized, when the leaders
in the new Christian movement were trying to establish their bona fides as the true heirs of Jesus’
ministry, and doing so by divorcing themselves from their Jewish roots, by
distinguishing themselves over and against their Jewish heritage.
These
new Christians re-imagined the gift of the Holy Spirit as something that was released
in a breath of ritual remembering, they imagined it as something new, something
new to them, but they were wrong.
The
Holy Spirit has always been with the people, has always been with humanity, the
Holy Spirit did not suddenly come into the world with Jesus’ death and
subsequent ascension. The tradition says that the Spirit was with us at the
beginning when God breathed life into Adam’s inanimate form.
Know
this!
Jesus
said: let the thirsty come, your thirst will be relieved.
Do
not be confused on this point; belief is not the coin you exchange for access
to God. Jesus said simply: “Come if you are thirsty. Drink and be restored.”
Jesus
calls us to follow the way, and the way is life, trust him and
keep to the way. Give water to the thirsty, feed the hungry, take care
of the orphan and the widow and the poor.
Do
not muddle around in the rhetoric of John, or allow John’s confusion stop you
from understanding that when John attempts to qualify the good news of the
Gospel and its message of infinite hope, when John attempts to circumscribe it by
any measure, it is precisely there that John deviates from the way.
Remember
this!
The
spirit has always been with us, all things come into being in the spirit of
God, are sustained by God’s spirit and to God’s spirit all things and beings return,
just as day follows night.
Reflect
on the teaching of Paul:
Who
teaches that God is the creator of the universe; the eternal God is the first
source and center of all things. The infinite God engenders all potentialities
and yet interferes with none of them, having created the universe in state of
absolute freedom, uninfringed by divine coercion.
God
does not manipulate creation, and yet the entirety of what passes in the
created order, moves according to God’s eternal purpose, there is no
contradiction in this mystery.
The
Spirit of God animates all beings, sustains all of creation throughout all
time. Pentecost is a feast that acknowledges and celebrates this reality, it
does not mark the instantiation of the reality at a particular point in time.
The
mission and ministry of Jesus is passed on to the church and the community of
believers through this revelation. We here it in the calling to love and care
for those in greatest need, to serve justice and be merciful in the face of the
world’s horrors.
It
is wise and good to anticipate the coming of God. It is wise and good to desire
the divine presence. Anticipate that moment, relish it, cherish it, but remain
present to the people and events that are actually occurring in the world.
When
you are in prayer and your thoughts are unformed, when your feelings are
unclear and no words come to your mind, or when the words that do come are
inappropriate for prayer; then be silent, quiet your mind, still the murmurs in
your heart, let go of the voices and listen.
Be
mindful: the prayers we pray for ourselves, are the same prayers we are called
on to pray for everyone else, even our adversaries, including our most bitter
enemies.
If
you pray for light and understanding, if you pray for life and peace, if you
pray for solace and grace, if you pray for healing and guidance, if you pray
for any blessing at all, make that prayer a prayer for everyone.
Remember
the wisdom of Isaiah who says: in the end every knee shall bend, and every
tongue confess the name of God. In the end we are all in this together.
Remember
what the Psalmist wrote:
It
is impossible to hide our sins, our guilt, our anger, and our self-loathing
from God.
All
sins are forgiven by God, though for us to forgive ourselves and for us to
forgive each other, these are much more difficult tasks.
We
experience misery in our guilt until we admit our faults and ask forgiveness,
until we give up our anger and forgive those who have hurt us; until then we
are bound by it.
Have
faith, trust: the death of the body is not an impediment to God’s salvific
will. God will go beyond any threshold to save God’s children; God has promised
to pierce the veil of death.
If
you follow the way Jesus taught, then you are on the path of love and
mercy, seeking reconciliation, you are forgiving and among the forgiven.
Know
this!
God
does not require or even desire our praise and exaltations, except insofar as
those praises take the form of mercy and compassion expressed toward our fellow
human beings. Serve God through the love and kindness you show one another;
this is the way of salvation…it is close to you…have no fear.
God
does not come and go from our lives according to our deeds and merits. God’s
salvation reaches everyone. The God of Jesus Christ is the God of all people,
and Pentecost reveals this.
All
of those things which we imagine that divide us one from another, all these thoughs
and ideas are illusions born of fear, a lack of trust (faith) in our neighbors,
in ourselves, and in God.
We
are all the children of the living God, the living God whose voice is love and
who dwells within our beating hearts.
Remember
this!
First Reading Genesis 11:1-9 ©
The
Tower of Babel
Throughout
the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they
moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled.
They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire.’
(For stone they used bricks, and for mortar they used bitumen). ‘Come,’ they
said ‘let us build ourselves a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven.
Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered about the
whole earth.’
Now
the Lord came down to see the town and the tower that the sons of man had
built. ‘So they are all a single people with a single language!’ said the Lord.
‘This is but the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard
for them to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language on the spot so
that they can no longer understand one another.’ The Lord scattered them thence
over the whole face of the earth, and they stopped building the town. It was
named Babel therefore, because there the Lord confused the language of the
whole earth. It was from there that the Lord scattered them over the whole face
of the earth.
Psalm – Psalm 32(33):10-15 ©
Happy
the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
He
frustrates the designs of the nations,
he defeats the plans of the peoples.
His
own designs shall stand for ever,
the plans of his heart from age to age.
Happy
the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
They
are happy, whose God is the Lord,
the people he has chosen as his own.
From
the heavens the Lord looks forth,
he sees all the children of men.
Happy
the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
From
the place where he dwells he gazes
on all the dwellers on the earth;
he
who shapes the hearts of them all;
and considers all their deeds.
Happy
the people the Lord has chosen as his own.
Second Reading – Exodus 19:3-8, 16-20
©
Moses Led the People Out of the Camp
to Meet God
Moses went up to God, and the Lord
called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Say this to the House of Jacob,
declare this to the sons of Israel:
‘“You yourselves have seen what I did
with the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to
myself. From this you know that now, if you obey my voice and hold fast to my
covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own, for all the earth is
mine. I will count you a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation.”
‘Those are the words you are to speak
to the sons of Israel.’
So Moses went and summoned the elders
of the people, putting before them all that the Lord had bidden him. Then all
the people answered as one, ‘All that the Lord has said, we will do.’
Now at daybreak on the third day
there were peals of thunder on the mountain and lightning flashes, a dense
cloud, and a loud trumpet blast, and inside the camp all the people trembled.
Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the
bottom of the mountain. The mountain of Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke,
because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. Like smoke from a
furnace the smoke went up, and the whole mountain shook violently. Louder and
louder grew the sound of the trumpet. Moses spoke, and God answered him with
peals of thunder. The Lord came down on the mountain of Sinai, on the mountain
top, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain.
Canticle – Daniel 3:52-56 ©
To you glory and praise for evermore.
You are blest, Lord God of our
fathers.
To you glory and praise for evermore.
Blest your glorious holy name.
To you glory and praise for evermore.
You are blest in the temple of your
glory.
To you glory and praise for evermore.
You are blest on the throne of your
kingdom.
To you glory and praise for evermore.
You are blest who gaze into the
depths.
To you glory and praise for evermore.
You are blest in the firmament of
heaven.
To you glory and praise for evermore.
Third Reading – Ezekiel 37:1-14 ©
A Vision of Israel's Death and Resurrection
The hand of the Lord was laid on me,
and he carried me away by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle
of a valley, a valley full of bones. He made me walk up and down among them.
There were vast quantities of these bones on the ground the whole length of the
valley; and they were quite dried up. He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these
bones live?’ I said, ‘You know, Lord.’ He said, ‘Prophesy over these bones.
Say, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The Lord says this to these bones:
I am now going to make the breath enter you, and you will live. I shall put
sinews on you, I shall make flesh grow on you, I shall cover you with skin and
give you breath, and you will live; and you will learn that I am the Lord.”’ I
prophesied as I had been ordered. While I was prophesying, there was a noise, a
sound of clattering; and the bones joined together. I looked, and saw that they
were covered with sinews; flesh was growing on them and skin was covering them,
but there was no breath in them. He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy,
son of man. Say to the breath, “The Lord says this: Come from the four winds,
breath; breathe on these dead; let them live!”’ I prophesied as he had ordered
me, and the breath entered them; they came to life again and stood up on their
feet, a great, an immense army.
Then he said, ‘Son of man, these
bones are the whole House of Israel. They keep saying, “Our bones are dried up,
our hope has gone; we are as good as dead.” So prophesy. Say to them, “The Lord
says this: I am now going to open your graves; I mean to raise you from your
graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel. And you will know
that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my
people. And I shall put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I shall
resettle you on your own soil; and you will know that I, the Lord, have said
and done this – it is the Lord who speaks.”’
Psalm – Psalm 106(107):2-9 ©
O give thanks to the Lord for he is
good, for his love has no end.
Alleluia!
Let them say this, the Lord’s
redeemed,
whom he redeemed from the hand of the foe
and gathered from far-off lands,
from east and west, north and south.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is
good, for his love has no end.
Some wandered in the desert, in the
wilderness,
finding no way to a city they could dwell in.
Hungry they were and thirsty;
their soul was fainting within them.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is
good, for his love has no end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their
need
and he rescued them from their distress
and he led them along the right way,
to reach a city they could dwell in.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is
good, for his love has no end.
Let them thank the Lord for his love,
for the wonders he does for men:
for he satisfies the thirsty soul;
he fills the hungry with good things.
O give thanks to the Lord for he is
good, for his love has no end.
Alleluia!
Fourth Reading – Joel 3:1-5 ©
I Will Pour Out My Spirit on All Mankind
Thus says the Lord:
‘I will pour out my spirit on all
mankind.
Your sons and daughters shall
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men see visions.
Even on the slaves, men and women, will
I pour out my spirit in those days.
I will display portents in heaven and
on earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.’
The sun will be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord dawns,
that great and terrible day.
All who call on the name of the Lord
will be saved, for on Mount Zion there will be some who have escaped, as the
Lord has said, and in Jerusalem some survivors whom the Lord will call.
Fifth Reading – Romans 8:22-27 ©
The Spirit Himself Expresses Our Plea
in a Way that Could Never Be Put into Words
From the beginning till now the entire creation, as
we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only
creation, but all of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too
groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free. For we must be content
to hope that we shall be saved – our salvation is not in sight, we should not
have to be hoping for it if it were – but, as I say, we must hope to be saved
since we are not saved yet – it is something we must wait for with patience.
The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For
when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself
expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who
knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means, and that the
pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God.
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia!
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and
kindle in them the fire of your love.
Alleluia!
The Gospel According to John 7:37-39
©
'If Any Man is Thirsty, Let Him Come
to Me!'
On the last day and greatest day of the festival,
Jesus stood there and cried out:
‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to me!
Let the man come and drink who believes in me!’
As scripture says: From his breast shall flow
fountains of living water.
He was speaking of the Spirit which those who
believed in him were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet because Jesus
had not yet been glorified.
Sixth Reading – Acts 2:1-11 ©
They Were All Filled with the Holy
Spirit and Began to Speak
When Pentecost day came round, they had all met in
one room, when suddenly they heard what sounded like a powerful wind from
heaven, the noise of which filled the entire house in which they were sitting;
and something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these
separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled
with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave
them the gift of speech.
Now there were devout men living in Jerusalem from
every nation under heaven, and at this sound they all assembled, each one
bewildered to hear these men speaking his own language. They were amazed and
astonished. ‘Surely’ they said ‘all these men speaking are Galileans? How does
it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians,
Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and
Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; as well
as visitors from Rome – Jews and proselytes alike – Cretans and Arabs; we hear
them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.’
Psalm 103(104):1-2,24,27-30,35 ©
Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face
of the earth.
Alleluia!
Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God,
how great you are,
clothed in majesty and glory,
wrapped in
light as in a robe!
Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face
of the earth.
How many are your works, O Lord!
In wisdom
you have made them all.
The earth is full of your riches.
Bless the
Lord, my soul.
Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face
of the earth.
All of these look to you
to give them
their food in due season.
You give it, they gather it up:
you open
your hand, they have their fill.
Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face
of the earth.
You take back your spirit, they die,
returning to
the dust from which they came.
You send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you
renew the face of the earth.
Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face
of the earth.
Alleluia!
Seventh Reading – 1 Corinthians
12:3-7,12-13 ©
In the One Spirit We Were All Baptised
No
one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he is under the influence of the Holy
Spirit.
There
is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of
service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of
different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of
them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a
good purpose.
Just
as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because
all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one
Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as
citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.
Sequence – Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Holy Spirit, Lord of Light,
From the clear celestial height
Thy pure beaming radiance give.
Come, thou Father of the poor,
Come with treasures which endure
Come, thou light of all that live!
Thou, of all consolers best,
Thou, the soul’s delightful guest,
Dost refreshing peace bestow
Thou in toil art comfort sweet
Pleasant coolness in the heat
Solace in the midst of woe.
Light immortal, light divine,
Visit thou these hearts of thine,
And our inmost being fill:
If thou take thy grace away,
Nothing pure in man will stay
All his good is turned to ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew
On our dryness pour thy 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.
Thou, on us who evermore
Thee confess and thee adore,
With thy sevenfold gifts descend:
Give us comfort when we die
Give us life with thee on high
Give us joys that never end.
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia,
alleluia!
Come,
Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of
your love.
Alleluia!
The Gospel of John 20:19-23
As the Father Sent Me, So Am I Sending
You: Receive the Holy Spirit
In
the evening of the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room
where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among
them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his
side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to
them again, ‘Peace be with you.
‘As
the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’
After
saying this he breathed on them and said:
‘Receive
the Holy Spirit.
For
those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you
retain, they are retained.’
The
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Pentecost) Year A
