So I Send You

May 31, 2009

Pentecost Sunday (Mass during the Day)

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.

And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Acts 2:2-4

“…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ (Jesus) have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.” Galatians 5:22-24

(Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” John 20:21-23

Piety

Let us pray. We claim you, Spirit, as the truth of our hearts. Come, fill our hearts and make us faithful. Your gifts are the heartbeats of Eternal Life in us. Give us open hearts to love even as Christ did. Move us and mold us as lovers of life and all that is holy. Make us noble in the way we reach out to the hurting and the little ones of life.

Teach us what we need to know that we might always possess the truth of Christ in who we are. Let us be totally receiving and totally giving so the life of the Trinity might have a counterpart in us in the Mystery of Indwelling. Make us a giving people so poverty might be driven away forever. Deafen us with the cry of "Abba" from our hearts so we may only hear the word of our hearts calling to our Father in heaven. Speak for us so we might be heard by the Father in the truth of our Christ life within. May each of your gifts be strong in us and may the fruits of your life within us be seen by all. Enkindle in us the fire of divine love and never let it go out. Recreate us anew in Love. Let the Sacred Heart be our heart. Amen.

Study

The Spirit is the voice of our Piety. Piety requires the fullness of our being. The externals of piety are words of our bodies to the Lord. What our body does is fix our prayer to a special time and place. I need to be all there to pray. The harmony of body, mind and soul makes a glorious song to the Lord. There is a beauty to the person who is all there in their prayer. Yet prayer sometimes needs to be faked until we are able to put all of ourselves into what is our communication with God. God sees our heart and what we are trying to do. Consolation belongs to our piety just as much as desolation. God can put himself into our prayer through the way consolations overflow on what we say and what we do. No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. The evil spirit tries to draw us away from our prayer by desolation. The fight we put up against our desolations is the purity of our love for the Lord. Too often we are in love with the gifts of God, not the God of the gifts. God produces all of our gifts through the Holy Spirit. There are many gifts, but one giver of the gifts. We are united as the Mystical Body of Christ when we use our gifts for the good of the community. Then it is that we love God as God. That is the fullness of Piety. In the one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.

Our Study is of the needs of the Body of Christ. We study to put on the mind and the heart of Christ. Our love for each other is increased as we discover more ways to live the love of Christ. The question that John puts to us in Ch.4, 19-21 of his First letter is how it would be possible to love the God we did not see if we did not love the neighbor that we did see. The fruits of the spirit are listed in Galatians 5; 16-25. They are labels we can put on what makes each other likeable. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control are the result of our crucifying our passions and unholy desires. We have to study our behavior to see how we can improve. From such study we learn to connect better to the Spirit of Christ. It does not happen by accident that we can be seen as Christ-like. It takes real study for these fruits of the spirit to shine in our hearts.

Action

Actions need to flow out of these fruits of the Spirit. With our minds enlightened by the Spirit, our actions can change the world we are living in. Love rampant in each of us by the fruits of the spirit will bring people to say once again by what they see of our actions. ”See how these Christians love one another”. It befits us to pray before we begin any work for the coming of the Spirit over all of us. The gifts of the spirit will help us to break out of the fears of our hearts. For every need of the Community there can be another coming of the Spirit if we but ask.