weekly Reflexion

FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK

Dear Parishioners,

Pentecost is the final Feast Day of the Easter Season. It describes and highlights the final gift of Christ Jesus given to his gathered followers (the Church) – the gift of the Holy Spirit.

From this time on, the early Christians and the Scripture writers refer to the Holy Spirit or the “Spirit of Jesus” that guides the Church and is the source of the life of Christ in believers. Jesus has completed his work of salvation and redemption and now He sends from heaven the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide the Church, to strengthen the Church, to convince and solidify the Church in her Faith in Jesus Christ.

It is the Holy Spirit that comes to the first disciple on Pentecost Sunday; it is the Holy Spirit who is the active agent in the spread of the Church in the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles. The Holy Spirit is mentioned over fifty times in that Book; and it is the Holy Spirit given to us in Baptism that makes us the sons and daughters of God. It is the Holy Spirit who is the source of the seven gifts of wisdom and understanding, right judgment and courage, knowledge and reverence and awe of our God.

It is the Spirit who guides the Church throughout the ages to the present day and it is the Spirit of Christ, living in us, who strengthens and supports us in our perseverance in Faith and in service in the name of Jesus.

I share all of the above with you so that you can see the centrality of the Holy Spirit in the work of Christ and in the work of the Church. Our individual task is to be guided by the same Spirit and to be “in touch with” that Spirit in our prayer. The goal of Christian living is to be “Spirit filled”. And this is a life-long task. It requires prayer, openness to the life and the guidance of the Church and the Sacraments, a personal attitude of humility and receptivity to the guidance of that Spirit in our lives. And then we leave the rest in the hands of God. We are not the authors of our own holiness; this is God’s doings and the work of the Holy Spirit.

I may not know how that openness to the Spirit of Christ always happens but I can see the result of it in the lives of good, believing and caring people. The great Saints of the Church in the past and the caring people of the Church in the present are signs to me of the guidance and grace of the Holy Spirit. People who give themselves over to a cause of helping others reflect to me the guidance of the Holy Spirit; people who challenge me to treat others with respect, compassion and love are always reflecting the presence of the Holy Spirit in our world. Those who give their lives working for the poor of the world, for an end to violence, for food for the hungry of the world, for human dignity are reflecting the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. And those who “bother” our consciences, pointing out the non-Christian values of our society and the world we live in are witnessing the presence of the Holy Spirit.

I hope that this Pentecost the Holy Spirit will continue his work in the lives of each of us, challenging us to look at our lives and our world and work for the changes needed in both these places so that we and our world may become more Christ-like.

Fr. Dan