Dear Friends, June 9, 2019, Pentecost Sunday, Year C
Let me wish you all a very Happy Feast of Pentecost! This is without question a very important feast in the liturgical calendar. It is the Feast of the Holy Spirit. It is the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles on the feast of Pentecost. It is the birthday of the Church.
The Gospel of John (Ch. 20:21-23) tells us that when Jesus appeared to the disciples after his Resurrection he new they were in fear of the Jews. He showed them his hands and his side and they rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them, “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.”
Today’s Psalm 104 wonderfully describes the work of the Spirit. The Response says, “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.” Thus it is the powerful breath of God that renews the face of the earth. The church is blown by this wind to all the four corners of the earth. That is when the church received its mission to burn for Christ and to speak about him. Let us as children of God and disciples of Christ spread the word of God. Let us show our love for God by keeping His commandments.
Let us continue to reflect on the beautiful Apostolic Letter of St. John Paul II on the importance of Sunday for us Catholics and how to keep it holy. He had written this lovely piece in 1998 with the title: Dies Domini. Let us set aside a little time to reflect on the following paragraphs:
DIES DOMINI (Continued)
From the Sabbath to Sunday
- Because the Third Commandment depends upon the remembrance of God's saving works and because Christians saw the definitive time inaugurated by Christ as a new beginning, they made the first day after the Sabbath a festive day, for that was the day on which the Lord rose from the dead. The Paschal Mystery of Christ is the full revelation of the mystery of the world's origin, the climax of the history of salvation and the anticipation of the eschatological fulfilment of the world. What God accomplished in Creation and wrought for his People in the Exodus has found its fullest expression in Christ's Death and Resurrection, though its definitive fulfilment will not come until the Parousia, when Christ returns in glory. In him, the "spiritual" meaning of the Sabbath is fully realized, as Saint Gregory the Great declares: "For us, the true Sabbath is the person of our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ". (14) This is why the joy with which God, on humanity's first Sabbath, contemplates all that was created from nothing, is now expressed in the joy with which Christ, on Easter Sunday, appeared to his disciples, bringing the gift of peace and the gift of the Spirit (cf. Jn 20:19-23). It was in the Paschal Mystery that humanity, and with it the whole creation, "groaning in birth-pangs until now" (Rom 8:22), came to know its new "exodus" into the freedom of God's children who can cry out with Christ, "Abba, Father!" (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). In the light of this mystery, the meaning of the Old Testament precept concerning the Lord's Day is recovered, perfected and fully revealed in the glory which shines on the face of the Risen Christ (cf. 2 Cor 4:6). We move from the "Sabbath" to the "first day after the Sabbath", from the seventh day to the first day: the dies Domini becomes the dies Christi!
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(14) "Verum autem sabbatum ipsum redemptorem nostrum Iesum Christum Dominum habemus": Epist. 13, 1: CCL 140A, 992
Happy Feast of the Pentecost!
Be Blessed!
With love,
Fr. John