Jerome Pistoni
Reflection on Pentecost Sunday by Fr. Ciza Donatien sx
Fifty days after Easter, we celebrate the great day of Pentecost when Christ filled the Church with the power of his Spirit and sent it out into the world to bring his peace, joy and forgiveness to all people.
In the first reading the apostles receive the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city of the gift of the Spirit! It is not only the city where Jesus instituted the Eucharist, but also the city where he was resurrected; it is also the city where the Spirit was poured out on humanity. At the time of Christ, the Jewish Pentecost was very important: it was the feast of the giving of the Law, one of the three feasts of the year for which people went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. The enumeration of all the nationalities gathered in Jerusalem for this occasion is the proof: “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; as well as visitors from Rome-Jews and proselytes alike Cretans and Arabs”.
To help us understand what is happening, Luke carefully evokes at least three texts from the Old Testament: here they are: firstly, the gift of the Law at Sinai; secondly a word from Prophet Joel; thirdly, the episode of the Tower of Babel.
Let us start with the gift of the Law at Sinai: at Pentecost, the sound “like a powerful wind” suggests that we are here in line with what happened at Sinai, when God gave the tablets of the Law to Moses; we find this in the book of Exodus: “On the morning of the third day there were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. But Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stationed themselves at the foot of them. Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the LORD came down upon it in fire. The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The trumpet blast grew louder and louder, while Moses was speaking and God answering him with thunder.” (Ex 19: 16-19).
Secondly, Luke certainly wanted to evoke a word of the prophet Joel: “I will pour out my spirit on every being of flesh”, says God (Jl 3:1; “every being of flesh” that is to say every human being). In Luke’s eyes, these “devout Jews, from all the nations under heaven”, as he calls them, symbolize the whole humanity for which Joel’s prophecy is finally being fulfilled. This means that the famous, long awaited “Day of God” has arrived.
Thirdly, the episode of Babel: at Babel, humanity learns diversity, at Pentecost, it learns unity in diversity: henceforth all the nations under heaven intend to proclaim in their various languages the only message: the wonders of God. Babel means no single thought, unity is not uniformity.
This Pentecost Sunday, the Gospel speaks to us only about love. It’s curious! Indeed John teaches us that God is love. We are no longer slaves, we are children of God. To love God is to love one’s neighbor. But it doesn’t mean that if we don’t love God, God won’t love us. With God, there are no bargaining, no conditions!
Finally, let’s go back to the word “Advocate”: it is true that we need an Advocate…but not before God, of course! Saint Paul told us well in the letter to the Romans (which is the second reading of this feast): “The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons” (Rm 8:15). So we are no longer afraid of God, we do not need a Defender before him. But then in front of whom do we need an advocate? Jesus said it well, “I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Advocate who will be with you forever”. Yes, we need a Defender, a lawyer to defend us: but it is in front of ourselves, in front of our reluctance to put ourselves at the service of others, in front of our shyness of the type “what that so few loaves and fish for so many people?” We really need this Defender who will constantly plead in us the case of others. And in doing so, it is actually us that he will defend, because our true happiness is to let ourselves be shaped every day by the potter in his image.
CIZA Donatien, sx
Reflection on Pentecost Sunday by Fr. Ciza Donatien sx
Fifty days after Easter, we celebrate the great day of Pentecost when Christ filled the Church with the power of his Spirit and sent it out into the world to bring his peace, joy and forgiveness to all people.
In the first reading the apostles receive the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the city of the gift of the Spirit! It is not only the city where Jesus instituted the Eucharist, but also the city where he was resurrected; it is also the city where the Spirit was poured out on humanity. At the time of Christ, the Jewish Pentecost was very important: it was the feast of the giving of the Law, one of the three feasts of the year for which people went to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. The enumeration of all the nationalities gathered in Jerusalem for this occasion is the proof: “Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; as well as visitors from Rome-Jews and proselytes alike Cretans and Arabs”.
To help us understand what is happening, Luke carefully evokes at least three texts from the Old Testament: here they are: firstly, the gift of the Law at Sinai; secondly a word from Prophet Joel; thirdly, the episode of the Tower of Babel.
Let us start with the gift of the Law at Sinai: at Pentecost, the sound “like a powerful wind” suggests that we are here in line with what happened at Sinai, when God gave the tablets of the Law to Moses; we find this in the book of Exodus: “On the morning of the third day there were peals of thunder and lightning, and a heavy cloud over mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. But Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stationed themselves at the foot of them. Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke, for the LORD came down upon it in fire. The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The trumpet blast grew louder and louder, while Moses was speaking and God answering him with thunder.” (Ex 19: 16-19).
Secondly, Luke certainly wanted to evoke a word of the prophet Joel: “I will pour out my spirit on every being of flesh”, says God (Jl 3:1; “every being of flesh” that is to say every human being). In Luke’s eyes, these “devout Jews, from all the nations under heaven”, as he calls them, symbolize the whole humanity for which Joel’s prophecy is finally being fulfilled. This means that the famous, long awaited “Day of God” has arrived.
Thirdly, the episode of Babel: at Babel, humanity learns diversity, at Pentecost, it learns unity in diversity: henceforth all the nations under heaven intend to proclaim in their various languages the only message: the wonders of God. Babel means no single thought, unity is not uniformity.
This Pentecost Sunday, the Gospel speaks to us only about love. It’s curious! Indeed John teaches us that God is love. We are no longer slaves, we are children of God. To love God is to love one’s neighbor. But it doesn’t mean that if we don’t love God, God won’t love us. With God, there are no bargaining, no conditions!
Finally, let’s go back to the word “Advocate”: it is true that we need an Advocate…but not before God, of course! Saint Paul told us well in the letter to the Romans (which is the second reading of this feast): “The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons” (Rm 8:15). So we are no longer afraid of God, we do not need a Defender before him. But then in front of whom do we need an advocate? Jesus said it well, “I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Advocate who will be with you forever”. Yes, we need a Defender, a lawyer to defend us: but it is in front of ourselves, in front of our reluctance to put ourselves at the service of others, in front of our shyness of the type “what that so few loaves and fish for so many people?” We really need this Defender who will constantly plead in us the case of others. And in doing so, it is actually us that he will defend, because our true happiness is to let ourselves be shaped every day by the potter in his image.
CIZA Donatien, sx