Pentecost 2024
Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:3-7; John 20:19-23
I don’t know about you, but I tend to think that you need the gift of tongues to get through that First Reading, with all those names of ancient peoples to pronounce. I recall a young man at Castlerigg Youth Centre launching into that reading: we held our breath to see how he would cope, and he received a round of applause at the end, the shoals safely negotiated.
What is described is the reversal of the Old Testament incident at Babel, when God confused the languages of the earth: what is needed is a new gift of tongues, so that the people of the earth may speak a common language of justice, of peace, of faith, and of mutual love. We need Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, Russians and Ukrainians, factions within such countries as Sudan, Syria, Iraq to learn to speak together, putting aside the language and the spirit of violence and hatred; and we need a similar gift from the Spirit to the Church, where polarisation so often raises its literally diabolical head. Perhaps that should be our first prayer today, for a new version of the gift of tongues to descend upon all the peoples of the earth.
(That isn’t how I originally planned to begin my homily. Did the Holy Spirit stick an oar in—assuming that the Holy Spirit has an oar—to change things around? I do not know.)
My original plan was to raise the question “Did you receive the Spirit?” a question raised by St. Paul on his visit to Ephesus, and adopted as a book title by the Dominican scholar Fr. Simon Tugwell more than fifty years ago. It is a question which, initially at least, we can answer without difficulty. “Yes, we did receive the Spirit,” when we were baptised and confirmed, and we have continued to receive the Spirit throughout our lives.
After that answer, I would like to raise a second question: “How did you receive the Spirit?” Was it the Pentecost, or the Easter Sunday evening giving of the Spirit? The Spirit’s descent at Pentecost was spectacular—all bells and whistles: a loud and powerful wind, tongues of fire, and the gift of languages.
On Easter Sunday evening, by contrast, the Spirit was breathed gently into the disciples by Jesus, the Risen Christ, and the Spirit’s gift was the power to forgive sins. So how have/do you experience the Holy Spirit’s descent upon you?
Speaking personally, I have never been involved in the Charismatic Renewal, so I am not in a position to speak about it. People who are involved appear to experience the Pentecost Spirit, with powerful and exuberant reactions. Indeed, the Charismatic Renewal is sometimes called Catholic Pentecostalism.
I suppose that I am not naturally given to exuberance, unless I am watching football or cricket, where I do recall throwing my school cap in the air when Lancaster City scored their ninth goal against Prescot Cables on a December Saturday afternoon in 1962. Temperamentally, I am more at home with the Easter Sunday bestowal of the Spirit, the gentle breathing which has equally powerful though less spectacular results.
Traditionally, that event has been seen as the origin of the sacrament of Reconciliation, Penance, Confession, whatever we wish to call it, and that is a legitimate interpretation. The power of that sacrament, when used prayerfully, thoughtfully, and wisely, is immense; it is a sacrament in which the Holy Spirit is manifestly at work.
Are there, though, wider implications? Just as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a gift for the whole Church, and not merely for those gathered in the Upper Room, so the breathing of the Risen Christ at Easter was not limited to its immediate recipients. The apostles and their successors were indeed empowered to be ministers of sacramental forgiveness, but the whole Church was enabled to be a forgiving people. The Holy Spirit has been breathed into YOU in order that you may share God’s forgiveness in and with the world.
As baptised and confirmed Christians, you have been literally INSPIRED—breathed into—to be a people of forgiveness, people who do not bear grudges, people who encourage others to forgive. The Holy Spirit has enabled the Church to minister God’s forgiveness to the world, and we must be, not a people who condemn, but a people who forgive, and who help others to receive and to share the gift of forgiveness.
What else does the Holy Spirit give to us, and through us, to others? What are the further implications of both Pentecost and the evening of Easter Sunday? You may recall, as you were preparing for Confirmation, learning lists of the gifts, and even the fruits, of the Holy Spirit. That is fair enough, but those lists mustn’t limit us. The gifts of the Spirit are, in fact, innumerable, and may differ, as St. Paul tells the Corinthians, from person to person.
“The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose” he writes. Firstly, you have been given the gift of saying “Jesus is Lord”. After that, the sky is the limit. One task for you this Pentecost is perhaps to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you your own spiritual gifts. And then all of us must pray for a new outpouring of the Spirit throughout the Church and throughout the world.
