Pentecost Sunday

We’ll start this reflection with an overview. With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, our “understanding” of God is complete. The Father sent the Son to redeem us. The Son, in turn, sent the Holy Spirit to teach, guide, and enlighten us. We contemplate God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier – One God, three Persons: The Holy Trinity.

In the Feast of the Body of Blood of Christ, we celebrate Jesus’ abiding presence among us in the Eucharist. Then we celebrate the tremendous love of the Heart of Christ revealed to us through his life, sacrificial death, and resurrection. This is commemorated in the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

But today, we focus on the Feast of Pentecost. In Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are given an important teaching: “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Paul is telling us that we have been drawn into the life of the Trinity because the Holy Spirit has poured God’s love into us. And so, we dare to call God, “our Father.”

This first reflection is profound, but so basic to who we are as Christians. We believe that we’re children of God because we share God’s very life by sharing in God’s love. We deepen and perfect that love when we love as Jesus loved – when we love as totally as we can, when we pour out our lives for one another every day, when we live, not for ourselves, but for others.

Prayer:

John the evangelist taught us, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.” Heavenly Father, send your Spirit to assist me in the ministry of Jesus, the ministry of love. Help me to accept your love and to grow as a vehicle of your love. Amen.