Feast of Pentecost_A - Lord, Send Out Your Spirit and Renew the Face of the Earth_053120

Deacon Tom Writes.

“Lord, Send Out Your Spirit

and Renew the Face of the Earth”

Pentecost Sunday, Mass during the Day,  Year A

On this Feast of Pentecost, we not only celebrate the birthday of our church but also our ability to reunite with our brothers and sisters in receiving the Eucharist in many churches throughout the country. Thus, we have abundant cause for joy. We pray to receive a special gift from God, the Holy Spirit for which we are grateful. And to express our gratitude for this chance to receive the Eucharist.

 We pray for the Spirit of God to come into our lives and enliven our hearts so we may be able to know God’s presence at work in our lives and in our world, renewing us and filling us with His love.

This Pentecost we pray for the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and awaken in us a desire to know God and to do His Will. But we need not ask…. Jesus told us that He would send…“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name -- will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.”    JN 14:26. This is the nature of Christian discipleship … that we grow daily in the knowledge and love of God and of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is the Holy Spirit who breathes into us the knowledge of God’s love for us so that we, in turn, can love others as Jesus taught us.  For indeed…“we have been given the manifestation of the spirit for some benefit”…. and that benefit is so that we can realize God’s abundant love for us and lead us to make visible that love by our witness and service to one another.

Jesus sends his disciples into this world that still hungers for love, peace and forgiveness. These are gifts of the Spirit that transform our lives and conforms them so that we become Christ-like in every way.  Too difficult?  Yes, for us, but not for Christ to accomplish in us.  That is the power of Pentecost for the disciples of Christ today.  As Christ sent his first disciples into the world to dispel the darkness and give it hope, he now sends us so we can continue to be people of hope…. who forgive and love one another. We, like those who have gone before us, have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit and, so empowered, are sent into the world to be witnesses of God’s love and to cooperated with the Holy Spirit so that together we can renew the face of the earth. 

Enjoy the day~

Deacon Tom