Pentecost
One
Pentecost
Pope Benedict XVI, in a homily on Pentecost said that this feast, “is distinguished from all the Solemnities by its importance since what Jesus himself had announced as the purpose of the whole of his mission on earth is brought about in it. Indeed, on his way up to Jerusalem he had declared to his disciples: "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" (Lk 12: 49). These words were most visibly brought about 50 days after the Resurrection, at Pentecost…the feast par excellence of the Holy Spirit: "There appeared to them tongues as of fire... and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:3-4).”
The real fire, the Holy Spirit, was brought to the earth by Christ. And God wants to continue giving this "fire" to every person in every generation.
Then Pope Benedict stated that, “there is a "normal way" which God himself chose "to cast fire upon the earth". This way is Jesus, His Only-Begotten Son, incarnate, dead and Risen…”Now, dear brothers and sisters, in today's Solemnity Scripture tells us once again how the community should be, how we should be in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
At the end of the account of Pentecost, Acts 2:41-42 tells us the Christian community was devoted to four things: the teaching of the Apostles, friendship, the breaking of the bread (which was the original title for the Mass and the Eucharist), and prayer.
If we want to receive the fire of the Spirit, then we must be devoted to the same four things.
Two
The Breaking of the Bread – The Eucharist
The early Christians called the Mass and the Eucharist the breaking of the bread. Acts 2:46 says the first community was dedicated to receiving the Eucharist daily. Receiving Jesus set their hearts ablaze!
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, upon seeing the Sacred Heart of Jesus ablaze with love of every individual in the world was seized with remorse about how little she loved Jesus in return, how cold her heart was in comparison to the burning love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for her.
Jesus knew what she was thinking. So, she relates, “He asked for my heart. I begged him to take it; he did and placed it in his own divine Heart. He let me see it there a tiny atom being completely burned up in that fiery furnace. Then, lifting it out now a little heart-shaped flame he put it back where he had found it. “There, my well-beloved,” I heard him saying, “that’s precious proof of my love for you, hiding in your side a little spark from its hottest flames. That will be your heart from now on; it will burn you up—to your very last breath; its intense heat will never diminish…”
If the heart of Margaret Mary is cold then my heart is frozen, maybe you feel that way too.
What can we do?
The Mass is an exchange of hearts. At Mass we are invited to offer our hearts to Jesus when the priest says, “Lift up your hearts” and we say, “We lift them up to the Lord.” Then Jesus gives us His heart in the Eucharist at Communion.
Receive the burning Heart of Jesus as often as you can in Mass and it will set your heart ablaze!
Three
Prayer unleashes the action of the Spirit in our lives.
Luke 3:21, “After Jesus was baptized, Jesus was praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him.”
Acts 1:14, “Before the Holy Spirit was unleashed in their lives the Apostles gathered around Mary, devoted themselves to prayer, and then the Holy Spirit came upon them powerfully.”
The Catechism (1309-1310) reminds us that more intense prayer opens our soul to receive the strength and graces of the Holy Spirit with docility and readiness to act. Like the Apostles, we commit to gather around Mary each day in prayer in the Rosary so that the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit may be unleashed in our lives.
But don’t feel you have to stop there. Allow Jesus to draw you into a deeper and deeper friendship with him in prayer by reading and reflecting on Scripture or some writing of a saint. And let him draw you even deeper just by sitting with Jesus in unconcern and idleness, aware of his merciful presence!
Four
The Apostles Teaching
I have to admit, my parents and many good people tried to teach me the Catholic faith when I was young, but I was interested in everything but the faith. When I was about 22, I realized that I didn’t know anything about my faith and this was ridiculous. Maybe that is how you feel. So, what do we do now?
Well, that is precisely why we do the Rosary the way we do, so that you can learn the Catholic faith in daily bite-sized digestible portions through this. That’s why there is one short teaching from our faith before each decade so that we can learn and meditate or think about it under the tutelage of Mary as we pray the Our Father and ten Hail Mary’s. We do our best to teach you all the mysteries or events from the life of Jesus and Mary, plus the entirety of the Catechism and Tradition, the teaching of the Saints through the podcast.
But we don’t want you to stop there. God designed our intellect to be fed with reality in the form of truth every day. The highest truth is the Catholic faith. So, I encourage you to build ten minutes into your routine each day of learning the Catholic Faith. Reread the transcript from the Daily Rosary Meditation or read a little of the Catechism each day or best yet, take one of the Gospels, read a little each day, and get to know Jesus better!
Five
Friendship
Faith is meant to be personal but it was never meant to be private. So what did Jesus do? He gathered together a small group of family and friends with whom he shared his life and his faith in friendship and good conversation. He had Peter, James, and John, the other Apostles, but he also spent time with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and others.
There was this idea in a few places in the early Church to be a solitary monk. A solitary life only worked for a select few, like St. Anthony of the Desert. Solitary doesn’t go so well for most people. You go crazy and you grow cold. So St. Pachomius and St. Basil began forming the monks into a small group of friends who shared life and integrated their faith. St. Basil used to say, “If you live alone, whose feet will you wash?”
Solitary monks didn’t work. Solitary Christians never work. Solitary embers grow cold. If you try to live your faith alone, you will grow cold. Like Jesus, we all need a small group of family and friends with whom we can share life and integrate our faith by good conversation and prayer.
People are used to book clubs but most people never stay up on the reading. So how about this…Invite a small group of family and friends to get together at your house for drinks or desert, or get them together on Zoom or some platform, catch up with one another in friendship, then take one of these Rosaries, play it or print out the transcript and read the meditation just like I do and pray together. And then ask them what I ask Teresa, “What struck you during the meditation? What did it make you think of and why?”
When I am with family and friends we have a little conversation at the end of each point of the meditation and then we pray the decade. In this way, we weave friendship, good conversation, and the Rosary all together. I imagine that’s what it was like between Jesus, the Apostles, and the Holy Women who traveled with them.
We have all kinds of mini-series of Rosary mediations you could use. So, let’s allow Jesus to set us on fire by living the way of the first Christians devoted to the teaching of the Apostles, friendship, the Mass and the Eucharist, and prayer.