COMMUNITY OF THE SPIRIT.
June 5, 2022.
Solemnity of the Pentecost Sunday – C.
“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and
kindle in them the fire of your love.”
A Hebrew proverb says: “Join the community: the wolf
snatches only the stray sheep that wanders off from the flock.” And a
Traditional proverb adds: “The community of living is the carriage of the
Lord.”
The Christian community is a community in the spirit and a
community of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit of God that breaks our barriers
and differences and brings us together as one body to proclaim our faith in
Christ. The Christian life and the following of Christ do not annihilate our
diversities, differences, oppositions, and fears. But through the work of the
Spirit, all these are put together and they give us a reason to become a place
of common unity and communication, different from a place of uniformity where
everyone loses his identity and origin. The Spirit of God does not make a
Tabula Rasa of our differences and diversities. Instead, it leads us to
understanding, despite our differences, and makes those diversities a riches
for the community. Rightly, we can say that we are a community of the Spirit
and that the Holy Spirit is the New Law of our Christian Communities.
We are today fifty days after the Resurrection of the Lord,
ten days after he ascended into heaven. The promise he made to his disciples
before his Ascension is fulfilled today. The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and
the Advocate has descended today on the believers, on the Apostles and made
them a community of faith to proclaim fearlessly that Jesus Christ is the Lord,
and all people can hear them and listen to them. No more barriers of language,
culture, tradition, and origin. No more fear. The Babel that broke us apart
from each other is overturned. Our differences are now a cement of
complimentary and unity. We are one community, one body, one world, with one
faith.
In the first reading and the Gospel, we have narratives of
the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. Quite different the two
narratives, but somewhat complementary in the teaching that the Spirit promised
by the Lord and who came on the Pentecost is the giver of a new law for
community life. That the Holy Spirit enables humankind to do good and be united
despite the differences. The Holy Spirit of God is the source of unity. That is
one of the beautiful messages of Pentecost. Wherever the Spirit of God
descents, it does away with all our barriers, destroy our sins, and takes out
from us all fears. We hear from the first reading that when the Holy Spirit
descended on the disciples, they began to speak in other tongues and all the
people heard them in their different languages. The fearful disciples went out
from the Cenacle where they were closed. The people outside heard them
distinctly, without confusion, speaking in a diversity of tongues. The old
confusion of Babel, the sin of humankind was taken away and diversities became
a source of communication and communion. For the disciples, all these things
were not learned in a language institute or an academy. It is the Spirit who
taught them, in fulfillment of the Lord's promise: "the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and
remind you of all I have said to you." The Spirit of God is a teacher of
unity and making our diversities a means of community where everyone needs his
fellow, a symbol of fraternity and peace.
What the Spirit did at the first Pentecost, he is still
doing it today with us. We are a community through his action. There cannot,
however, be a perfect community without love. Thus, the exhortation of the
Lord: "If you love me you will keep my commandments. I shall ask the
Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever."
The Christian community lives by the love we have for the Lord and our brothers
and sisters. Without love, the Holy Spirit cannot find a dwelling in us, and
therefore, there cannot be unity and community.
Paul in the second reading tells us that our identity as
children of God is given to us by the Holy Spirit. "Everyone moved by the
Spirit is a son of God." In the Spirit we are no longer slaves but
children, freed from since and given a dignity to call God "Abba!
Father!"
At our Baptism, this was made true for us. We became children of God by our immersion in the Trinitarian Godhead. This has some implications for our being today. As children of one God, unity must be the seal of all our relationships. We may well be different and have diversities of views, these must not break us apart. You may be politically leftist, I rightist, another one centrist, or moderate or communist... we are brothers and sisters. We are one people. Our views or opinions are just artifacts. The most substantial is what we are, and this must be the reason for us to communicate and find common ground for the common good. May the Holy Spirit help us to reach this understanding and build the world of tomorrow, a world of peace, love, fraternity, harmony...
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