Pentecost – Easter Alive

Church is different than the mall. The Easter decorations have given way at the mall long ago. Hallmark has moved the Easter cards with their cheery flowers, bunnies, and chicks. Graduation and summer festivities like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July have moved to the better-selling front of the store. The Sunday Assembly at church, nonetheless, is still singing Alleluias and Easter tunes. The faithful are undaunted even after the Great Fifty Days of Easter.

Pentecost this weekend breathes new spirit into Easter. The community takes a deeper breath as the Spirit of God moves within the Church. Believers have moved from Easter to Ascension Day, and now to Pentecost. The liturgical community has moved from the glorious white of Easter to the vibrantly alive red of the Spirit.

Through the Easter mysteries we have learned of the Christ by passing from death to life in the Spirit-filled waters of baptism. Over and over we have heard that we have risen to new life in Christ by water and Spirit. We have seen before us in hundreds of candidates, who have celebrated the Sacraments of Initiation, the mystery of Christ made alive and visible within our parish community.

Easter Journey
Beginning with the Easter Vigil we have embraced new believers at the baptismal font as they came alive again by water and Spirit. We have named their journey, and ours, as the Paschal Mystery. In Christ we have explored the passage beyond death to resurrection. On moving through the waters we have seen them anointed in Confirmation by the action of the Spirit. The journey has culminated at the Eucharistic Table, where they were welcomed for the first time. They ate and became the Body of Christ.

The community has baptized hundred of infants and children at that same font. Parents and godparents have presented their children to be initiated by baptism into the mystery of Christ within them and in the community. These children were anointed also “as Christ was anointed priest, prophet, and king.” They, like the adults, were given a candle, “the light of Christ”, to celebrate their being “enlightened” in Christ.

Still other baptized children have been welcomed for their First Holy Communion. Two very large communities of children and adults have gathered

in the Easter Season to eat and drink with the Lord as the disciples did after his resurrection. They - like the disciples on the road to Emmaus - “came to know him in the breaking of the bread.”

Within our Hispanic community young people and adults have gathered to encounter the Lord alive among the believers. These young and adult believers were confirmed by the laying on of hands and by the anointing of the Spirit. New life was breathed into their baptismal faith. Many of them were welcomed for the first time to the Lord’s Table.

Pentecost Seeing and Believing
The Pentecost story lives again in the community of believers today. Easter is not invisible. The disciples saw and knew Jesus risen from the dead. In the Pentecost moment of the scriptures the community of those risen in Christ is seen and known in the vibrancy of the moment.

The Acts of the Apostles’ account of Pentecost is exciting in its details. The disciples were gathered. They were still timid and afraid. There was the sound as of a great wind – God powerfully present in the storm. Tongues as of fire came on each of the believers. They began to preach and teach, and wonderfully, all heard as in their own tongue. The Spirit breathed in the disciples and within the community. The community of believers became as alive as Christ risen from the dead. Moved by the Spirit, the community preached and baptized and all received the Spirit.

Pentecost is about the community of believers and their life in the risen Lord. They breathe his same life-giving Spirit and are able to give it to others by baptism and the laying-on-of-hands. Christ lives in the community. They see and they believe.

John’s Gospel presents a quieter picture of the Pentecost event without naming the day. John simply tells us the disciples were gathered and still afraid. Easter evening was the day for John, when Jesus passes among the believers and significantly tells them not to be afraid and to be at peace. Interestingly Jesus breathes on them and invites them to be reconcilers within the community. The breath of the Spirit is manifest visibly in the community of loving reconciliation. A quieter, but equally real, experience of Spirit-filled life in Christ risen from the dead, is Easter brought to completion in the Pentecost infusion of the Spirit.

CDH