Pastor's Letter-- May 31, 2020

Happy Solemnity of Pentecost! We cry out (singing in our hearts!) Come Holy Ghost! Today marks 50 days since Easter. It has been seven full weeks. What a unique experience it has been. I hope it looks rather different a year from now for all of us, allowing us to worship together more and more fully.

Our communal worship is of course encapsulated above all in the Mass. As the greatest work we can do as a people of God, the Mass is indeed what we longed for most as a people of faith. We want to be able to be united in prayer, around Mary our mother, just as the first disciples were in the upper room at Pentecost. As we continue our “hybrid” situation of Mass - online for many and in person for some - we keep our eyes focused not on what may happen a week or a month from now, but focused on what God is doing today, how He is moving, how the Holy Spirit is already here and work among us and within us. God isn’t waiting for Pentecost to happen later. He wants to send us His Spirit now. So let us be open to what he wishes to give us. The Holy Spirit works in the church to create unity and diversity at the same time. This is a profound mystery but indeed it is also visible, and we all have experienced it in some way.

I believe the description from Lumen Gentium (a document of Vatican II Council) is very helpful for us to see how this works:

This instinct of faith is awakened and kept in being by the Spirit of truth. Through it the people of God hold indefectibly to the faith once delivered to the saints, penetrate it more deeply by means of right judgment, and apply it more perfectly in their lives. They do all this under the guidance of the sacred teaching office: by faithful obedience to it they receive, not the word of men but in truth the word of God.
Moreover, the Holy Spirit not only sanctifies and guides God’s people by the sacraments and the ministries, and enriches it with virtues, he also distributes special graces among the faithful of every state of life, assigning his gifts to each as he chooses. By means of these special gifts he equips them and makes them eager for various activities and responsibilities that benefit the Church in its renewal or its increase, in accordance with the text: To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for a good purpose.

These charisms, the simpler and more widespread as well as the most outstanding, should be accepted with a sense of gratitude and consolation, since in a very special way they answer and serve the needs of the Church.

Saint Thérèse, pray for us to listen to the Holy Spirit each day like you did!