20160515 GROWING IN THE SPIRIT OF THE RISEN LORD
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Red.
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First reading
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Acts 2:1-11 ©
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When Pentecost day
came round, they had all met in one room, when suddenly they heard what sounded
like a powerful wind from heaven, the noise of which filled the entire house in
which they were sitting; and something appeared to them that seemed like
tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages
as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech.
Now there
were devout men living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at this
sound they all assembled, each one bewildered to hear these men speaking his
own language. They were amazed and astonished. ‘Surely’ they said ‘all these
men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in
his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from
Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; as well as visitors from Rome –
Jews and proselytes alike – Cretans and Arabs; we hear them preaching in
our own language about the marvels of God.’
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm
103:1,24,29-31,34 ©
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Send forth your
spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.
or
Alleluia!
Bless the Lord, my
soul!
Lord God,
how great you are,
How many are your
works, O Lord!
The earth
is full of your riches.
Send forth your
spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.
or
Alleluia!
You take back your
spirit, they die,
returning
to the dust from which they came.
You send forth your
spirit, they are created;
and you
renew the face of the earth.
Send forth your
spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.
or
Alleluia!
May the glory of the
Lord last for ever!
May the
Lord rejoice in his works!
May my thoughts be
pleasing to him.
I find my
joy in the Lord.
Send forth your
spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.
or
Alleluia!
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Second reading
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Romans 8:8-17 ©
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People who are
interested only in unspiritual things can never be pleasing to God. Your
interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the
Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the
Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. Though your body may be dead it
is because of sin, but if Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself
because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from
the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give
life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.
So then,
my brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to
live unspiritual lives. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but
if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.
Everyone
moved by the Spirit is a son of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit
of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it
makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united
witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as
well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to
share his glory.
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Sequence
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Holy Spirit, Lord of
Light,
From the clear
celestial height
Thy pure beaming
radiance give.
Come, thou Father of
the poor,
Come with treasures
which endure
Come, thou light of
all that live!
Thou, of all
consolers best,
Thou, the soul’s
delightful guest,
Dost refreshing peace
bestow
Thou in toil art
comfort sweet
Pleasant coolness in
the heat
Solace in the midst
of woe.
Light immortal, light
divine,
Visit thou these
hearts of thine,
And our inmost being
fill:
If thou take thy
grace away,
Nothing pure in man
will stay
All his good is
turned to ill.
Heal our wounds, our
strength renew
On our dryness pour
thy dew
Wash the stains of
guilt away:
Bend the stubborn
heart and will
Melt the frozen, warm
the chill
Guide the steps that
go astray.
Thou, on us who
evermore
Thee confess and thee
adore,
With thy sevenfold
gifts descend:
Give us comfort when
we die
Give us life with
thee on high
Give us joys that
never end.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them
the fire of your love.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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John 14:15-16,23-26
©
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Jesus said to his
disciples:
‘If you love me you
will keep my commandments.
I shall ask the
Father,
and he will give you
another Advocate
to be with you for
ever.
‘If anyone loves me
he will keep my word,
and my Father will
love him,
and we shall come to
him and make our home with him.
Those who do not love
me do not keep my words.
And my word is not my
own:
it is the word of the
one who sent me.
I have said these
things to you while still with you;
but the Advocate, the
Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will
send in my name,
will teach you
everything
and remind you of all
I have said to you.
GROWING
IN THE SPIRIT OF THE RISEN LORD
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: [ ACTS 2:1-11;
ROMANS 8:8-17; JOHN 14:15-16, 23-26 ]
Today we reach the
climax of the Easter Season by celebrating the feast of Pentecost. For 50 days after
Easter, we contemplated on the Risen Lord and the new life that He offered us
by His passion, death and resurrection.
Indeed, the scripture
readings in the last seven weeks of Easter basically contemplated on the Risen
Lord and how this resurrected life could be lived by us through the sacraments
of Initiation.
In Christ Jesus, through baptism, we share in the new life of Christ and have
become a new creation. Through the Eucharist, which is where the Lord
makes Himself present in a par excellence manner, Christians continue to be
nurtured and be fed by the Lord, sharing in His life, passion, death and
resurrection more deeply and also becoming more and more united with the
Church, His body. Finally, through the sacrament of confirmation, they
were given the Spirit and His gifts for witnessing to the Risen Lord in the
world. The sacrament of confirmation empowers the newly baptized to live
out their respective vocations in the world, be of service and a witness to the
new life that they have been given in Christ.
Yet, today’s scripture
readings remind us that being born again in Christ into a new creation is just
the beginning of new life, not yet the consummation. Baptism is just the entry into the life
of Christ when we die to our sins and rise to a new life in Christ. It is
not yet the realization of the fullness of the resurrected life. It only
brings about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and gives us the grace of
renewing ourselves daily for the final resurrection. It is at most
anticipatory. Indeed, all sacraments have this dimension of the ‘already’
and the ‘not yet’. Sacraments are symbolic of the future reality and yet
this future has already begun in us when we live out the sacraments. So
the sacraments are not just a foretaste of the fullness at the end but also
instrumental in helping us to reach that ultimate goal which is to be fully
resurrected with Christ at the end of our lives. Therefore, it means
that Pentecost is that period of the Church when members of the Church continue
to grow in the Spirit of the Risen Lord until consummation. That is
why Pentecost is not a one-off event but a series of events. Pentecost is
ongoing until the end of time.
The primary purpose of
the giving of the Holy Spirit is for mission, as Jesus told the disciples
earlier on: “But you
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth.” (Acts 1:8)
This explains why the Acts of the Apostles was written as a sequel to the
gospel of St Luke because he wanted to write on the ongoing mission of the
Church that was begun by the Lord. And this will go on until the
Kingdom of God is established at the end of time and spread to all of creation.
However, the Holy
Spirit, whilst it is given for mission, is principally also for the growth of
the life of the Christian in the Lord. We cannot be missionary for Christ
unless we are disciples. So discipleship in the Lord is an ongoing process impelled by
the Holy Spirit. Before we can go out to proclaim Christ to the world and
be His living witnesses of love and life, we must deepen our sonship in
Christ. This is what St Paul is telling us in the second reading.
Pentecost cannot be reduced to merely some spiritual enthusiasm and religious
emotions that we experience but rather an obedient Christian living of the
gospel.
Unfortunately, many of
us forget that baptism is just the beginning of this process of being formed in
Christ until the day we die. In truth, many Catholics stop growing the day they were
baptized. This is also true for those who have been renewed in the Holy
Spirit at some retreat or seminar, like the LISS or Conversion Experience
Retreat. They think that growing in faith is like attending a course
where at the end of it you get a paper stating that you have graduated, and
life continues as before without any change. Christian faith is a
different thing. It is a process that never ends since the moment we were
baptized. This explains why the liturgical colour after Pentecost is
green, signifying that the Church is still growing each day in the power of the
Spirit. The giving of the Spirit at baptism marks the long journey that
is to be undertaken for the rest of our lives, growing in discipleship each
day.
How can we grow in
discipleship, which is basically, to grow in the Spirit of the Risen
Lord? Firstly, we are called to obedience to the commandments of Christ. Jesus said, “If you love me you
will keep my commandments. Those who do not love me do not keep my words.
And my word is not my own: it is the word of the one who sent me.” So if
we claim that we love Jesus and believe that He is the Way, the Truth and the
Life, it means that we are ready to obey His commandments since they are the
way to the fullness of life and love. This obedience is not a
reluctant submission to the commands of Christ but like Jesus a total surrender
in love to the Father. Jesus’ obedience was the result of His identification
with the Father’s will and love for humanity.
Secondly, St Paul
reminds us that unless we walk in the Spirit, we cannot live. “In fact, unless you possessed
the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him. Though your body may be
dead it is because of sin, but if Christ is in you then your spirit is life
itself because you have been justified.” Negatively, it calls for death
to the self, particularly what is worldly, especially sensual living and
pride. “People who are interested only in unspiritual things can never be
pleasing to God.” So we are called to live a transcendent life which is
one of love, peace, joy, service and compassion; not one of self-centeredness,
pleasure and self-indulgence. Life in the Spirit entails a struggle for
freedom from the flesh and to place ourselves under the Lordship of Christ.
Thirdly, it means living
a life of freedom in the Spirit. St Paul wrote, “The spirit you received is not the spirit
of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it
makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!” Of course, this struggle for authentic living
in freedom means suffering, which is symbolized in our desire to die with
Christ, effected internally through personal mortification and external
persecutions. When a Christian deepens his sonship in the Lord, he
lives like a free person because the Spirit removes all fear from his
life. Fear is the work of the devil to hinder us from giving ourselves to
God and for service. Fear is the cause of all our sins. But when we
are children of God, we know that the Father will take care of us.
We are confident that regardless of what happens, our future will be glorious
in Christ. Like Jesus and the apostles, we can therefore spend our lives
in total giving to God and the service of the gospel. We are called
to share the gifts of the Spirit we have received and put them into action.
Fourthly, a life of
discipleship requires ongoing formation. We are called to deepen not just our knowledge
of the Lord but our relationship with Him. This is the reason for the
giving of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you
of all I have said to you.” All that needs to be revealed has been
revealed in Christ. He has shown us the fullness of revelation because He
is the revelation of God. But there are many things that we do not fully
understand, partly because of the depth of what Jesus wanted to teach us and
also because of new situations. The Holy Spirit’s task is not to reveal
to us new truths, but to deepen our understanding, interpretation and
application of what has been taught to us by Christ. By growing in
understanding and perception of the truth in Christ, we come to know Him more
and by so doing, we also come to know our Father as well.
In the final analysis,
the joy of the Christian lies in his or her personal relationship with the Holy
Trinity, the Father, Son and the Spirit. This is the implication of today’s gospel when the
Lord said, “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love
him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” Through the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Lord comes to our hearts with His
Father. Through the Holy Spirit, we come to be in touch with the Lord and
in seeing His face, we see the Father’s face and experience His Trinitarian
love for us. Such a life is truly what we call a Christian life because
it is a sharing of the life of the Trinity. With Jesus, we can then truly
call God ‘Abba Father’.
Consequently, we need
the Holy Spirit to do all these things. On our own, we are helpless unless we receive the
help of God the Holy Spirit Himself. It is for this that the Lord
promised that He will pray to the Father to give us the Holy Spirit. This
is the prayer of Jesus for us all. It is His desire that we receive the
Holy Spirit so that we can truly live the resurrected life and be empowered to
love and give as He did in union with Him. This too is the constant
refrain of the Church, “Come, Holy Spirit.” That was what we prayed in
the responsorial psalm, “Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of
the earth.” With the Holy Spirit, everything is possible.
So let us ask for the
renewal of the Holy Spirit in our lives, not once but again and again.
That is why we celebrate Pentecost every year. We need the Holy Spirit to
constantly renew us and empower us. We must make ourselves available to
the Holy Spirit through renewal programs, retreats, contemplation and
especially through the reception of the sacraments, particularly the
Eucharist. In this way, the Holy Spirit dwells with the Church, the
Christian community more and more, bringing us all together in Christ and
forming us all truly into the sons and daughters of God. The world cannot
see Christ today but they can see Christ in us. By sharing our love with
them, we bring the world together in unity. This, then, is the way to
renew the face of the earth and to proclaim the marvels of God working in our
lives.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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