Cycle C - Year II:

15 May 2016: Pentecost Sunday

(Liturgical color: Red)

Gospel: Please read John 20:19-23

The Holy Spirit, the Power within us!

We celebrate today Pentecost Sunday, which comes fifty days after our Lord's resurrection. That is why it is called Pentecost, from the Greek "pentekoste" which means the fiftieth (day after Easter).

The Scriptures describe this great event thus: "suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong

driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues...." (Acts 2:1-4)

After Jesus' ascension to heaven, it is now the turn of the Holy Spirit to continue His saving work through the disciples and our Holy Mother Church. The Holy Spirit is the one who will gather together and unite men and women of every race and tongue in one body and one faith. So that empowered by the Holy Spirit the apostles began their work as fishers of men until our generation.

Pentecost Sunday is really the celebration of the birth of the Universal Church. So today we greet ourselves a Happy Birthday, or Happy Anniversary, or Happy Foundation Day, as we mark a fresh start for all of us as the New Church, the People of God in journey toward the Father's house in heaven.

The evangelist John shares with us the Gospel for this Sunday, which speaks about the first encounter of the risen Lord with His disciples.

When the resurrected Christ appears, He offers proof of His resurrection by showing the disciples the wounds of His passion, His pierced hands and side. Then He calmed their fears and brought them peace, the peace which reconciles sinners and makes one a friend of God.

Then Jesus commissioned His previously weak and timid apostles to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. He breathed on them the gift of the Holy Spirit to equip His disciples with power, grace, and strength to accomplish their great mission.

Until today, in our own generation, we too are empowered by the same Holy Spirit to continue the missionary work, to face challenges of our time, especially in matters of faith and morality.

Through the gift of faith we, too, proclaim Jesus as our personal Lord and our God. For He died and rose again so that we might have new life in Him. In other words, the Lord offers each one of us new life in His Holy Spirit so that we may know Him personally and walk in this new way of life through the of the Lord's resurrection.

Ho do we "experience" the Holy Spirit in our lives today?

When we struggle to pray, for example, because of so many distractions, or perhaps when we want to pray but do not have the words to say, it is the Holy Spirit that links us to God and interprets our desire before Him. In the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, "It is the Holy Spirit who helps our inability, who enlightens our minds and warms our hearts, guiding us as we turn to God."

Let us pray....that the Holy Spirit come and shower us with His gifts (of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord) to keep us unwavering in our faith and remain committed to all the teaching of the Church handed down from the Apostles to the bishops and the Pope. May we use these gifts of the Holy Spirit to build and strengthen the Church as the Body of Christ through constant prayers. Because it is through prayers that the Holy Spirit works in our humanity, strengthen our weakness and transform us from men bound to material realities into men filled with the Spirit of Christ Himself.

Our people has spoken. We pray especially that the Holy Spirit guide us as in the next six years of our collective journey as a nation. We ask this through the intercession of Mary, our Mother and Protector. Amen.

A blessed Pentecost Sunday to us all. And thank you for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!