Pentecost 'the human spirit endowed with grace'

Pentecost Sunday - Solemnity - Year B

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 15:26-27.16:12-15.

When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me.
And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. 

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond - - -
- - -
Sent: Monday, 28 May 2012, 11:28

Subject: Fw: Pentecost Homily and Pictures

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

at Nubraw Abbey

Pentecost Sunday May 27th 2012

It was the celebration of the Knights Templar at Nunraw, for their Annual Pentecost Liturgy.  Dom Raymond, Abbot OCSO Emeritus, presided for the homily and time of silence and reflection.

The Knights mustered outside the Abbey Church, in the glorious  sunshine of the day. Through the recessional, the Templar families were escorted through retiral banners.  

Fr. Raymond, in the Homilywas promted by the occsion,    "Whenever Pentecost comes along it always reminds me of a little girl . . . "

 

 

 

PENTECOST  2012

 

Whenever Pentecost comes along it always reminds me of a little girl of  about four years of age who once visited the guest house with her mother.  They were sitting having a cup of tea and as I approached them the Mother suddenly said to me: "Father, Leah wants to know who the Holy Ghost is, will you tell  her?"  As you can imagine I was rather nonplussed.  How can you explain to a four year old who the Holy Spirit is?   However, the angels came to my aid and I found myself saying:  "Leah, when you grow up you will be a very beautiful young lady and one day you will meet a handsome young man and you will so want him to offer you his heart and you will give him your heart.  Well that's what it is like when God gives us his Holy Spirit.  When God gives us his Holy Spirit he gives us his heart, and he very much wants us to give him our hearts."  I thought that my guardian angel had just given me a bit of brilliant inspiration there! But the look on Leah's face said something different.  She pouted her little lips and said somewhat fearfully: "I don't want to give my heart to anybody!"

So, from inspiration I passed immediately to deflation and disappointment.  But that wasn't to be the end of it!

A long time afterwards I happened to meet Leah's Mother in the Guest House again and I was delighted to hear her tell me that Leah would sometimes come to her and say: "What was it that Fr Raymond said about the Holy Spirit?"  So something seems to have stuck;  a seed was planted in her little mind and heart that would surely bear fruit some day.  Please God. 

 

The Holy Spirit seems to so many people to be the most remote and mysterious of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.  When we think of the other two Persons of the Blessed Trinity they seem to be so much more understandable.  We all know what we mean when we call the First Person of the Blessed Trinity our Father; it seems so natural.  We all know something of what it is to have a father.   And when it comes to the second Person of the Blessed Trinity then who could be more understandable and approachable than Jesus, the Word made Flesh.  But the idea of God the Holy Spirit remains such a mystery to so many.  In fact we can be tempted to say:  Why did God have to reveal his Trinity at all?  Would it not have made things so much simpler for us if He hadn’t told us in this world at all?  And then we could have found out when we reached heaven without all the complications in this life of having to believe in a mysterious Trinity.   

But TO get back to the Holy Spirit.  There is a sense in which, far from being the most remote and unintelligible of  the Three Divine Persons, the Holy Spirit is in a way the closest of them to us and the one we can share our lives with the most intimately.

He the one who, not only shares our most intimate feelings and hopes and desires, but who stirs them up within us and creates all that is good and beautiful within us.  The Spirit is Gods love for us at work within us.

This may sound very beautiful but also a bit theoretical and remo te from everyday experience.  But that is only because we forget to live our everyday experiences in communion with God. God is always as close to us as we dare to believe He is.  This is particularly true of recognising his Holy Spirit working within us. 

Let’s take a couple of practical examples: 

First, an example of how he speaks to us:  We have all experienced certain moments in life when a sense of peace comes over us, a peace that is almost tangible. (It may be as we sit comfortably by our fireside after the days work.  It may be a quiet moment among the beauties of nature for instance or any one of a thousand different situations.  But, if at such moments we recall the inspired verse of the psalms: “I will hear what the Lord God has to say: A voice that speaks of Peace.”  Then we will realise where that peace comes from, it is the voice of the Spirit in our hearts saying “Peace be with you”.  And, of course God’s word is creative and effective.  It creates what is says.  And God is always speaking that word to us, but we don’t always listen.  We don’t always give ourselves the chance to hear because our minds are so busy with other things.

Then another way the Spirit speaks in our hearts is the way he invites us to joy.  Joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  He is like a little boy for example walking along the shore at the sea-side with us saying look at the sea, look at the waves, look at the yachts in the wind… look at this look at that.   There are so many wonderful and beautiful things around us and so many wonderful people we meet each day.  The Spirit urges us to rejoice in them all as being his gifts to us:  The fullness and richness of Life, pressed down and shaken together and running over.

He is like a very good friend who so much wants us to share in his own joy in all the good things he has made.  “God delights to be at play with the children of men” as the Book of Wisdom tells us.

Finally I would like to try to describe the difference between our communion with the Spirit of God within us and our communion with any other human being no matter how close the love that binds us to them:  Take two human lovers sitting together on a lovely warm moonlight night.  The beauty of the scene soaks into them and their mutual enjoyment of it seems to bind them closer together but there is no way that either of them can turn to the other and say: “Thank you for making the moon for me”.   When we share such moments with the Spirit however, that is precisely what we can say: “Thank you for making the moon for me;  for making wonder of the whole universe for me; for making my friends for me.  When we share good things with our friends, don’t we add to our enjoyment of them?  That is only a faint image of how we share good things with the Spirit, because we know that it is the Spirit Himself who is the very creator and inspirer of all the joy and goodness that is welling up within us.   “He will be a fountain of living water within you” as Jesus tells us.  
I would like to conclude with a comparison between our union with the spirit and the joy of a very happy marriage. The greatest lesson that the most happily married couple in the world will ever learn from each other, and learn it they most certainly will, is that in the end they are not enough for each other.  There will always be a depth in each partner that the other can never reach.  And yet those depths want to be reached, needs to be reached and touched and shared in.  It is only the Spirit of God, who has been truly given to us, who can share our life with us at that depth.

The human spirit, especially the human spirit endowed with grace, is so deep and immeasurable that only God can satisfy its need for love and companionship.

 

Pentecost depicted by icon

Stations of the Resurrection

  

PENTECOST 

Meditations by Terry Tastatd

Original Icons by Carolne Lees

John 16:13-14

[Jesus said:} "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

This icon depicts Pentecost, but not as a onetime-only event in the past. Rather, it helps us to understand Pentecost as a process continuing through all ages and countries, as the Spirit of God moves over the world.

The Spirit is depicted as an orb, like the sun, its rays reaching down toward Mary and the apostles. As the Spirit flickers toward them, we notice that its symbolic rays are coloured green, a reminder that fruitfulness is one of the gifts of the Spirit.

It is the Spirit also who drives the Church outward, making us evangelists. If we believe in God, we cannot stand still. .We must give an account of the hope that is in us. The fruits of this are seen in the figure of the king emerging out of darkness. We know that in history missionaries often converted kings first, because this would encourage their followers to come after them. So the king represents the achievement of the Church in bringing the gospel to the pagan world.

The king has heard the good news of Christ risen from the dead; hence he carries in his hand white garments. These garments remind us of Christ, set free from the tomb, just like the king who emerges out of darkness. But the white garments are also a symbol of baptismal robes, baptism setting the seal on our Christian com­mitment and joining us to the mystical body of Christ, the Church.

Around the tomb the apostles and Mary give their affirmation. The hands of the apostles are lifted in blessing, while the arms of Mary rise in praise and intercession. She pleads for many, constantly, for of all the saints in eternity she has been uniquely privileged. Looking at the icon we see that around her head are Greek words that tell us that she is "Mother of God." Through her, the Christ, the Messiah, has come into the world, human and divine.

There is a unity here among the apostles and Mary. Each figure is distinct, yet each sits comfortably with the others, for the unity of the Church does not mean uniformity, but rather harmony. Some of the disciples are robed in red, because in the history of the Church in virtually every age, there have been men and women who have paid for their faith with their lives.

We adore you and praise you, O Risen Lord

Because by your death and resurrection you give life to the world.

We are one people,

drawn from many nations. Holy Spirit,

go-between God,

weave your people ever more closely together so that our faith in action

and the joy of our worship

may draw others to know you.

Pentecost

10th. of twelve Orthodox Feasts

One of the 12 Icons on the wall of abbey offices cloister.

12 Otherwise called, "Festival Row" of an iconostasis screen.

Interest for further discovery.

Waiting for the Holy Spirit with Mary the Mother of Jesus

The Cenacle Icon

Compiled from Knox-Cox “The Gospel Story”
………………. (combining extracts from: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts)

Then, from the mountain which is called Olivet, went back full of joy to Jerusalem  into the upper room where they dwelt. All with one mind, gave themselves up to prayer, together with Mary the mother of Jesus, and the rest of the women and his brethren.  Matthias was added to their number as a witness of Jesus resurrection and took rank with the eleven apostles.  They spent their time continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.

When the day of Pentecost came round, while they were all gathered together in unity of purpose, all at once a sound came from heaven like that of a strong wind blowing, and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then appeared to them what seemed to be tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in strange languages, as the Spirit gave utterance to each.

Compiled by W.J.W. 

The Gospel Story, Knox and Cox. Appendix:  p.431.

'With Mary the Mother of Jesus' (p. 428)
We must go to Mary, the Mother of the Mystical Body,
for all the graces we need; no work can prosper without her prayerful assistance.

Via Lucis - Stations of the Resurrection. CTS.

Waiting for the Holy Spirit
with Mary  the Mother of Jesus

From the Acts of the Apostles

... All these joined in Continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. (Acts 1:12-14)

First Meditation

They were waiting for the Holy Spirit. After coming down from the mountain, they begin to pray. Jesus is no longer visible. The cloud of the Ascension has placed Jesus in glory. The Risen Lord, no longer visible to our

human eyes, can now only be seen with the eyes of faith. The Easter people now call on the Holy Spirit. His coming is eagerly awaited, for in the fullness of his gifts he will give birth to the Church, and guide its first steps to becoming the herald of his resurrection. The invocation of the Holy Spirit is always efficacious. This was guaranteed by Christ when he said: "If you then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Lk 11:13). From this moment on the Easter people is united in the name of the Risen Lord. With him in our midst, we implore the Father for the Holy Spirit, the spirit of love who renews the face of the Earth. Then will come an eternal Pentecost. The Easter prayer is marked by the presence of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was present from the beginning at Cana, where people first began to believe in his signs. She was present at Calvary where the Church was conceived. Now she is present in the Upper Room, where the Church is born. Mary the mother of Jesus; she it is who knows best the Easter mysteries: death and life, cross and resurrection.