Weekend Wisdom, May 19th, 2024 - Pentecost

Happy Pentecost Sunday!!

One of my favorite prayers is this prayer to the Holy Spirit…

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the free of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, instructs the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolations. Amen!

Today, on this 50th day of the Easter Season, we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of the disciples at that first Pentecost. The power of the Holy Spirit filled the disciples with the free of God’s love. The disciples were also filled with the courage and inspiration to boldly share the Good News. From those tiny seeds of faith in Jerusalem, Christianity has spread to all corners of the world. It is estimated that today, over 2.3 billion people practice some form of Christianity globally. So, about one-third of the world's total population is Christian. Wow!! May we never underestimate the power of God!

During his Last Supper discourse, Jesus said this to his disciples:

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” - John 14:16-17

The Holy Spirit is our Advocate to the Truth. Especially during these turbulent times, we need to stay rooted in the truth since we know that the evil one (often referred to as ‘The Accuser”) seeks to confuse, divide, and destroy. As Jesus told us, “the truth will set us free!”

This coming week, we return to the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. May the color green, that we will see at Mass, remind us that this is a time for growth. A time for us to grow in our knowledge and our love of God. With the help of the Holy Spirit, it’s also a time for us grow our Church by continuing to spread the Good News and invite others into the family of God! As we heard in Mark’s Gospel last weekend: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

May God bless you and your family!

Deacon Mark