Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost
May 19, 2024
John 15: 26-27, 16: 12-15
Gal 5: 16-25
Our Lady of the Assumption,
Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from
the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify
to me” (John 15: 26).
Descent of the Holy Spirit
(National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception)
An advocate is one who stands at the side of
someone and defends him. That’s one of
the meanings of the Holy Spirit of whom Jesus speaks to his apostles at the
Last Supper. In our gospel this morning,
Jesus identifies this Advocate as a witness:
“he will testify to me” and “he will guide you to all truth” (15:26;
16:13).
The Holy Spirit has been a guide to Jesus ever
since his baptism by John, when the Spirit came down upon him in the form of a
dove (Mark 3:15 and par.)—not as dramatic a descent as what we heard in the 1st
reading: “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”
(Acts 2:3-4).
The Advocate “will testify to me,” Jesus
stated. Jesus promised to send this
Advocate to his apostles, and he kept his promise. How does the Spirit testify to Jesus? Jesus continues to bestow the Spirit on the
Church that he founded on the apostles. He
told them, “You also testify.” So the
Church continues the apostolic mission of preaching the truth under the
Spirit’s guidance.
1st, as we heard in the 1st reading, the apostles
went out into public and preached the Gospel.
Acts 2 continues by summarizing St. Peter’s sermon that day: God raised Jesus from the dead and made him
the means by which God forgives our sins, fills us with the Holy Spirit, and
grants us a share in Jesus’ life. This
is the fundamental truth of our faith, which the apostles went forth to preach
all over the world—in person or thru their successors right down to today.
2d, the Spirit backed up the apostolic preaching
by enlightening the minds and hearts of the men whom he chose to write down the
message of Jesus, which was handed on orally for 20 years after the
resurrection. Guided by the Spirit of
truth, the Church composed the Gospels and the rest of what we call the New
Testament, and the Church also ratified selections of the Jewish sacred
writings and collected them as what we call the Old Testament. We recognize these sacred Scriptures as the
Word of God; i.e., God is their ultimate author, regardless of whose name is
put on a particular part, such as John, Paul, David, or Moses. Thru the Scriptures the Spirit continues to
“guide us to all truth,” and that’s why we ought to read the Bible faithfully.
3d, the Spirit continues to guide the Church to
truth in its teachings. “I believe in
one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,” a Church that maintains and
explains the preaching of Jesus’ apostles; a Church that applies Jesus’
teaching to the present age and the present needs of humanity. Jesus told the apostles that the Spirit of
truth “will declare to you the things that are coming” (John 16:13).
Like St. Paul writing to the Galatians in mid-1st
century, the Church still identifies “the works of the flesh” (5:19), the
sinful deeds of our fallen human nature like lust, hatred, jealousy, anger,
excessive drinking, and black magic.
Thus the Church speaks against war, human trafficking, abortion, deviant
sexual practices, racism, public corruption, organized crime, and our own lies,
abusive language, and gossip. Like St.
Paul, the Church continues to promote peace, patience, gentleness,
self-control, etc. A commentary I read
yesterday remarks that these virtues are “a recipe for a moral life…. But they
seem much better described as a portrait of a happy [life].”[1]
Also yesterday Pope Francis embraced together 2
victims of the Israel-Hamas war: an
Israeli whose parents were murdered on Oct. 7 and a Palestinian whose brother
was slain in Gaza; the crowd that witnessed that 3-fold embrace applauded
wildly.
And that, brothers and sisters, is what the Spirit
of truth demands of us: not the applause
but the practice of moral, honest, peaceful lives.
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