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.
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
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:
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.
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.
