This weekend, we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost. This day marks the beginning of the Church and the end to the Easter Season. Forty days after we left the empty tomb, we found ourselves looking up into the heavens to see Christ ascend to the father on Ascension Thursday. Now, ten days after that event and fifty days after leaving the empty tomb, we gaze heavenward not to see Christ ascend, but to experience the descent of the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, comes into the world to renew the face of the earth. This same Holy Spirit descended on our Blessed Mother and She conceived Christ in Her womb. That Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles with our Lady in the upper room, which is depicted in the Pentecost stained glass window in the Church (and on the bulletin cover). Once they received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they went out to all the world and proclaimed the truth. St. John reminds us what the truth is: “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever possesses the Son possesses life; whoever does not possess the Son of God does not possess life.” This is why Christ admonished us to remain in Him and His love; so that we would have life. Consecrate yourselves this day in that truth.
Come, Holy Spirit!
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Wayne