Sunday Sermon for May 19, 2024, the Solemnity of Pentecost, Year B
Readings: Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23
In the first reading today, we hear about the Holy Spirit filling the hearts and minds of the Apostles and empowering them to preach the Gospel so that everyone hearing them heard in their own native language. There are fifteen different locations mentioned in the text, so there were people of many languages represented in the crowd. We do not know if each Apostle was given the grace to speak one or two languages so each person could understand, of if they simply spoke in one language in everyone understood in his or her own language.
This gift was necessary for them to begin the task of preaching as missionaries to people in many different lands. Today, this particular gift is not as essential because we have priests and catechists in most countries of the world who preach and teach their own people. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not present and working in many ways in our world today. St. Paul tells us in the second reading that there are many different kinds of spiritual gifts. He also tells us that the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for some benefit.
This means that each and every baptized person has been given one or more spiritual gifts that God desires the person to use for building up the Body of Christ. Sometimes we are completely unaware of the gifts we have been given. Sometimes that is because gifts have been there since we were young and, because it seems normal to us, we assume that everyone operates this same way. Only years later when we find out this is not typical do we realize this is actually a gift from the Lord.
Sometimes we are not even aware that any kind of gift is operating in us or through us. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostles simply began to preach. Perhaps they realized their fear was gone and they had been given the grace to preach boldly. However, they may not have realized that people from different parts of the world were all understanding what was being said until after they were approached by people who spoke different languages and told them what happened. Initially, they were only aware that a gift was given for them to preach.
This kind of gift is still working in the Church when priests and deacons cooperate with the Holy Spirit and their message is heard and understood by a variety of people in the parish: elderly, middle aged, young, male, and female. It is not a matter that each of these people hears the homily, but when the preacher is cooperating with the Holy Spirit, each person hears different things, sometimes things that were not actually spoken. By this, I do not mean a simple mishearing or misunderstanding; that happens often enough. In this case I mean the Holy Spirit opens the hearts of each person to hear the Word of God in the way that will benefit them the most.
The speaker is completely unaware of anything out of the ordinary taking place, and the person hearing is not aware that what is being heard is not what the speaker is actually saying. The priest or deacon will often learn about this when he is talking with the people after Mass and people will tell him what they heard or what touched them in the homily. It is impressive enough when people in different age groups all like the homily, but when people tell the speaker they appreciate this or that point from the homily, it is only the priest or deacon who knows he did not say that.
Some gifts the Holy Spirit gives are more obvious. For example, some people can heal others, some have the ability to read souls, some are given the grace to know what is troubling a person, even when that person is unaware of it themselves. These are gifts given to the Church by which the work of our Lord continues. In the Gospel we hear about the gift priests are given to forgive sin, and we can certainly add to that the grace to change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus, as well as the grace to confect the other sacraments.
All this is important for us to understand that the Holy Spirit is working in the Church and in our own lives right now. The way He works may not seem extraordinary to us, so we might not even notice the Holy Spirit’s gifts working within us. Yet even the grace to believe and remain faithful to the Church’s teaching is a pure gift which we may take for granted. Be at peace and glorify God through the gifts He has given to you!
Fr. Altier’s column appears regularly in The Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly published in St. Paul, Minn. For information about subscribing to The Wanderer, please visit www.thewandererpress.com.
