Pentecost Sunday. Year B - Sunday, May 23, 2021 (EPISODE: 299)

Pentecost Sunday. Year B - Sunday, May 23, 2021
(EPISODE: 299)

Readings for Pentecost Sunday. Year B
FIRST READING: Acts 2: 1-11
Ps 104: 1+24, 29-30, 31+34. "Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth."
SECOND READING: Gal 5: 16-25
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (no bibl. ref). Alleluia, alleluia! Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. And kindle in them the fire of your love.
GOSPEL: John 15: 26-27; 16: 12-15

Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed - stock photo ID783792871 -Bayeux, France - February 12, 2013: Stained Glass window depicting Pentecost, in Bayeux Cathedral, Calvados, France. - By jorisvo
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Please listen to the audio recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers and homily), for Pentecost Sunday. Year B - Sunday, May 23, 2021, by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/pentecost-sunday-year-b-2021-episode-299  
(EPISODE: 299)
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* (Prologue:  Fr Paul Kelly)

Today's feast day of Pentecost is, in many ways, a birthday celebration.  With the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, on that first Pentecost Sunday, Christ's church was born.  And, as the readings this weekend tell us, we become beloved sons and daughters of God, and heirs to God's kingdom. We have been given the freedom of the children of God.  But the second reading supplies an essential 'qualifier' (lest we get too proud and indulgent), that this freedom is given to us in order that we too can live as Christ did. So we are reminded that Pentecost and our membership of God's family is never meant to be self-serving or indulgent, but all about service, sacrifice and self-forgetting love.
 
"If you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to self-indulgence since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit, the Spirit is totally against such a thing, and it is precisely because the two are so opposed that you do not always carry out your good intentions. If you are led by the Spirit, no law can touch you. When self-indulgence is at work the results are obvious… What the Spirit brings is very different: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. There can be no law against things like that, of course. You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all self-indulgent passions and desires. Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit." (Galatians 5:16-26)
 
The Gospel this weekend also reminds us that the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the lives of the church, will always work to remind us of all that Christ did and said, and keep us close to Christ and his values. The Holy Spirit is the "Spirit of Truth." All who live by the Spirit, strive to live authentic, honest, integrated lives built on truth. 
 
The Gospel today, from Saint John, tells us that Jesus gives his followers the peace they need, because that is the first greeting of the Lord to them:  Peace be with you!  May we (too) know the peace of Jesus in our own lives!  With peace comes the capacity to forgive the sins of others.  This forgiveness is clearly a gift of the Lord who loves us.  This gift is given to each of us individually and also to the Church, through its ministry.
 
At the heart of our Christian life, fear is taken away, peace and forgiveness are given.  May we dispel the fears of others and proclaim the peace and forgiveness given to us in Jesus.
 
In the first reading too, the disciples were not yet able to go out and speak publicly and to proclaim Jesus to others, even though they now knew he was Risen and Ascended to the Heavenly Father.  They had to wait for the Holy Spirit to take hold of them and give them courage in the face of doubt, persecution, ridicule and rejection.  Perhaps at times we too may be shy about proclaiming our faith in the Lord Jesus.  Perhaps today we can pray for this Spirit to come on us and to give us courage so that our faith becomes so much a part of ourselves that it is so natural and easy to speak of our faith, in an unforced manner.
 
Our gifts are different, each person having different gifts.  We need all the gifts that each person has so that we can continue the work of Christ in our world.  How different our world looks when we begin to recognize that each person brings his or her own gifts and that we need everyone's gifts to live in the fullness of Jesus Christ.
 
In the 'everyday' and unexceptional, that is also where we encounter and KNOW the Spirit is at work in our lives; especially when the love and sacrifice we show is clearly coming from a loving hand bigger than our own lives and our own limited motives and actions
 
When we do actions that are loving and unselfish, we are deeply aware that there is a power and a loving presence at work in us that is outside of just ourselves. Transcending our limitations … and not explainable by our own actions… but bigger, ……. And "of which we are just a cooperating part…."
 
It is God, …. It is God's Spirit at work in and through us.  At work in the world.   A power of unselfish, sacrificing love and service. Unconditional love. That is at the heart of creation.
 
Finally, after the Spirit descended, people of different languages and cultures could all hear and understand. But what is interesting is that  the people were still not speaking the same language. They were still speaking in the language of those different nationalities and cultures. The miracle is that even though they were speaking different languages, they could miraculously understand each other. They were all proclaiming the same message-  and the same truth. This is a reminder that the Spirit brings not uniformity, but diversity and variety, where we are all "one" in that diversity, because the common language we speak is the language of God… and that language is true and overflowing LOVE…..
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(Homily:  Fr Peter Dillon).
Pentecost Sunday Year B 2021

We sometimes hear that the feast of Pentecost to referred to as the birthday of the Church, which might be true except when the first Pentecost happened there was no church, as least as we know it today.

In fact there was very little that we would recognise as connecting with our modern day understanding of church. There were no cathedrals or chapels, no popes, priests, monks or religious sisters. These did not come into being for many centuries later. In these early days there was no real estate, no bureaucracy, laws or titles.

Of course, once the physical churches were established they became magnificent works of art and architecture, established to let God and his followers how he was to be praised. Throughout the world and across the ages many churches were built and fortunately many of them still stand as a great testimony to the deep faith of those who gathered in them. Yet as magnificent as many of these buildings are they are simply the shell in which the actual church gathers, that is, the people of God, and the faith community.

On this day of Pentecost, which is actually the fiftieth day after Easter, the gathering of the disciples, was probably to celebrate the Jewish feast which celebrated the ancient covenant which God gave to his people through Moses.  In the Acts of the Apostles Luke turns this gathering into a powerful and dramatic event when the Holy Spirit descended on to people, not commissioning structures to be built, but inspiring the disciples to spread the message, and in that sense the church was born.

There was a leader, a blundering fisherman named Peter, who was joined by a small group of very ordinary people, marginal people who were connected by three important things: baptism into Jesus, breaking of bread and a readiness to tell others of what they heard, seen and learned? We know very little about how and where they met, possibly in houses or in secret to avoid the attention of the Roman authorities, but we can assume there was plenty of robust discussion about what was going to be the most effective way of delivering their new message to a sometimes hostile audience.

There was the assumption that each person upon whom the Spirit fell, had gifts to use to spread the message, and that was all they had to start with. Simple people with a variety of gifts, as St. Paul so confidently states: "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it". Not necessarily great orators or wealthy merchants, not politicians or law makers, just people who had met and became convinced that Jesus was who he said he was, and that they would be accompanied by the Spirit of God in all their future work.

That was and still is the essence of "church", not that anyone completely understood what each other was trying to say, but that was the real miracle of that first Pentecost. That ordinary people who had spent time hiding and in fear, were now making bold proclamations as the Spirit prompted them.

As Luke tells us, in the quite outstanding reading from Acts, that the Spirit filled these first disciples with words to speak to all these people from unpronounceable places. The various languages are symbols of the many varied ways that we too can use our unique gifts to bring the Gospel alive. The great variety of gifts emerge from the one Spirit in which we were all baptised. Part of our task is to discover how the Spirit has gifted us.

It is not rare to find people not wanting to find out their giftedness or even wanting to display it, since having accepted the gift, it only comes to its fulfilment when shared with the community. It is when we witness to our faith through action that we become the church – at least the community that Christ established. Everything else – the buildings, the Vatican, the encyclicals, while helpful are basically peripheral and incidental to the primary identity of discipleship.

As we gather this Sunday, in a building constructed in modern times, it is good for us to remember we have all that we need to experience what the apostles experienced. We have the simplicity of the Gospels. We are a group of disciples listening to the Word of God, and receiving the broken bread in memory of Jesus, as well as the constant presence of the Holy Spirit who binds us together and helps us to witness Christ in the world.

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References:

Homily – fr peter Dillon

Prologue - Fr Paul W. Kelly

MISSION 2000  – PRAYING SCRIPTURE IN A CONTEMPORARY WAY. YEAR B. BY MARK LINK S.J,

SHARING THE WORD THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR. GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ.,

KARL RAHNER SJ, (1904-1984), IN BELIEF TODAY, 40-41,

MONASTERY OF CHRIST IN THE DESERT. ABBOT'S HOMILY}
 
Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed - stock photo ID783792871 -Bayeux, France - February 12, 2013: Stained Glass window depicting Pentecost, in Bayeux Cathedral, Calvados, France. - By jorisvo


Pentecost Sunday. Year B  (Sunday, May 23, 2021)  (EPISODE: 299 )
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
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{{May Our Lord's justice sustain you}} welcome everyone, we gather -  To Pray, listen and reflect upon God and God's Kingdom.

As we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery, let us admit our failings and ask the Lord for pardon and strength. 
Lord Jesus, you have revealed yourself as the way to the Father: Lord, have mercy

You have poured out on your people the Spirit of truth: Christ, have mercy

You are the Good Shepherd, leading us to eternal life: Lord have mercy
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation
1. We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.
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Ps 104: 1+24, 29-30, 31+34. "Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth."

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION ((no bibl. ref.)). Alleluia, alleluia! Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. And kindle in them the fire of your love.
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PREFACE: Preface of Pentecost
EP III
(theme "Come Holy Spirit Hymn - PWK )

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{heartfelt thanks to you all , for uniting in prayer and for reflection, upon God's overflowing goodness and care.}

Go in peace.(glorifying the Lord by your life)

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Archive of homilies and reflections:  http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email:  paulwkelly68@gmail.com

To listen to our weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here:  https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks

You are welcome to subscribe to Fr Paul's homily mail-out by sending an email to this address: paulkellyreflections+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection"  - Led by Rev Paul Kelly

Prayers and chants  — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)

Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989,  and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)

"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009,  The Grail - Collins publishers.

Prayers of the Faithful -   " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'.   E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993) . (Sydney Australia).

Sung "Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" -  By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. The Gloria, Copyright © 2011 ccwatershed.org.

"Come Holy Spirit" Hymn: inspired by the Hymn by the 9th Century Hymn by Rabanus Maurus. Music and lyrics by Paul Kelly. Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk, 2020. Sound effects by Mark DiAngelo, (soundbible.com, 05.11). https://www.airgigs.com/user/stefankelk

"Quiet Time."  Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.

[ Production -  KER -  2021]

May God bless and keep you.
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