A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 26)
Pentecost Sunday, Year C – May 27, 2007
“They Were All Filled with the Holy Spirit…”
BIBLE READINGS
Acts 2:1-11 // Rom 8:8-17 // Jn 20:19-23 or Jn 14:15-16, 23b-26
N.B. Series 5 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
On September 15, 2002, after a long trip from Manila, I arrived in Fresno, California to help our Sisters in the U.S.A. Region in the Eucharistic-Priestly-Liturgical apostolate. Our Rome-based Mother General was also in Fresno for a fraternal visit to that community. Madre Maria Paola was leaving for her next destination the following day. I was very glad to have a chance to talk to her about some important matters. One of the things that she discussed with me was the possibility of producing a pastoral tool on LECTIO DIVINA – the prayerful reading of the Word of God, via the Internet, like what our PDDM Sisters had started in Spain. I kept that suggestion in my heart and prayed over it. After conferring with our Regional Superior, we organized a team to work on this apostolic initiative. We looked for various materials and resources to help us start the project. Our dear friends, Rev. Fr. Walter Johnson and Msgr. Patrick McCormick, provided us with excellent books and reference materials.
A few days before the Advent season of 2002, we posted on our website (www.pddm.us) the first number of the pastoral tool, “BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA Approach to the Sunday Liturgy”. I had prepared the document, which was diligently edited by Sr. Mary Lucille and put online by our computer savvy Sr. Mary Anh Therese. I was enthusiastic, but not for long. When I was preparing the text of the third issue, I started to feel anxious, insecure and doubtful. My initial alacrity was pre-empted by a sense of incapacity. I doubted whether I would be able to complete the text of the Lectio Divina for the entire Advent-Christmas season. The task of “breaking the Bread of the Word”, which needed ample time for meditative study and reflection, felt overwhelming. Moreover, the weekly deadline seemed impossible to meet. One day, however, when the foreboding of defeat was particularly overwhelming, I heard an inner voice gently speaking to my heavy-laden heart, “The Holy Spirit will teach you everything!” I listened more attentively to that inspiring voice. And little by little, the brooding doubt gradually dispelled. Animated by the illuminating presence of the Holy Spirit, our apostolic team simply moved bit by bit, from one week to the next. Now we are in our fifth year!
Indeed, the Spirit of truth has been poured upon us by virtue of the passion and death of Jesus on the cross and by his resurrection, glorification and ascension into heaven. This multi-faceted, but unitary paschal event has unleashed the tremendous power and energy of the creative Holy Spirit upon the incipient Church and the entire creation. Today, Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate the Glorified Lord’s gift of the Holy Spirit, the memory of the Church. We also celebrate the deep love of Jesus in sending us his marvelous gift. On the eve of his passion and death, the Lord Jesus promised his disciples: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I told you” (Jn 14:26). We celebrate today the fulfillment of that promise. Ministering to us as our Advocate and Helper, the Holy Spirit reminds us of what Jesus said and enables us to understand the meaning of Jesus’ teaching and the life-implication of his paschal mystery.
The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann underlines the exquisite beauty of this gift: “The gift and the presence of the Holy Spirit is the most magnificent and wonderful thing that can happen to us, the human community, all living things and this earth … In the presence of the Holy Spirit the end of the history of guilt, suffering and death has begun … And what the first Christians experienced at the first Pentecost according to Acts 2 took place during the first days of the new creation of the world: the pouring out of God’s creative power and spirit that gives life eternally, a stormy wind and tongues of fire with divine breath. Pentecost, as Christians call this event, is thus not an appendix and also not an addition to ‘Good Friday’ and ‘Easter’. Pentecost is the goal of Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection by God into the glory to come. Where the Holy Spirit is, God is present in a special way and we experience God in our lives that are thus quickened by a source out of the depths of our being. We experience life, healed and redeemed, complete and in its entirety, with all our senses. We feel and taste, we touch and see our life in God and God in our life.”
The feast of Pentecost also celebrates the Holy Spirit’s inaugural appearance to the whole community of believers, enabling the Christian disciples to bring the good news to people “from every nation under heaven”. All the nationalities hearing the Good News proclaimed to them by the disciples on that Pentecost day in Jerusalem foreshadows the spread of Christ’s saving event to the ends of the earth. Originally, a Jewish agricultural feast of the harvest, Pentecost became the beginning of the Church’s mission to the world, a harvest of peoples instead of agricultural products.
The Christian Pentecost is likewise a celebration of the “inculturation” of the Gospel – its taking root and eventual growth and fruition within diverse cultures, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – the power of evangelization. Indeed, the Gospel, proclaimed by Christian disciples to all nations and watered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, produced abounding fruits and led to new expressions of divine creativity.
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 3, assert: “The event of Pentecost is a mystery of universal importance. The miracle of tongues unhesitatingly entrusts the proclamation of the gospel to fragile human language, which is always changing. No longer is there a sacred language, determined once and for all or received from the past as the only one capable of authentically transmitting the good news … The Spirit has been given to the Church so that it may assume every human language and all of the cultures expressed therein. In each one the good seed of the Word must be sown with both hands, because, in each, the fruits of the Spirit may be borne a hundredfold. In its calling, the Church is confronted with the challenge of constantly translating the gospel into the native speech of every nation under heaven.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION
By Rev. Fr. Charles Ramirez
Pastor: Parish of Immaculate Conception
Monrovia, CA-U.S.A.
As a child in elementary school I can remember my mother telling me to pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t totally understand what she meant, but if my mother told me to do it, there must be some benefit. I can remember in seventh grade preparing for my confirmation. I remember we had to memorize about 135 questions about our Catholic Faith. I don’t remember any of the questions. But I do remember two things about my upcoming Confirmation: would I pledge not to drink alcohol until I was twenty one and what would the slap on the cheek from the Bishop feel like. Granted back then in 1960 in the pre-Vatican Church, we were to be “Soldiers of Christ” filled with the Holy Spirit. We were so young and unaware of the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We were kind of like the early apostles who heard God’s word, but didn’t fully understand what it all meant.
Today’s feast of Pentecost is a celebration of God’s new and astounding presence in the world through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God and the Risen Christ. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. The Holy Spirit animates “the People of God” to seek all that is good and holy, to give honor and glory to God.
It is interesting for me how the Holy Spirit works very quietly in our lives prodding us to move closer to God. It was the Holy Spirit that hounded me to seek out priesthood. At the age of thirty-four years old I gave up running from God and his call to priesthood. This is a person who went along with the ritual of going to Church every Sunday because it was an obligation as a Catholic Christian. God wanted more from me and led me to the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church. It was Pentecost Sunday in 1977, at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, California that I was prayed over for a greater infilling of the Holy Spirit. After the “Life in the Spirit” Seminar, I became more aware of the workings of the Holy Spirit in Sacred Scripture.
The Holy Spirit, the principle of life and the missionary expansion of the Church, is the promised Advocate announced by Jesus at the Last Supper. Before the completion of his Passover, Jesus told his disciples: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you” (Jn 14:26).
It was there on Pentecost Sunday in 1977 that I truly felt the movement of the Holy Spirit. Though I had already possessed the Holy Spirit at Baptism and Confirmation, it was bottled up. It wasn’t until I let go and let God take possession of my life that the lid of the bottle came undone and the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit became more evident. I have never been the same.
I can imagine the Apostles’ having a more powerful experience along with other devout Jews from surrounding areas being able to understand what Peter was saying to them. We should take great joy that we are led by the Holy Spirit and considered children of God. We have received a Spirit of adoption from God the Father, in Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to continue to pray for inspiration to the Holy Spirit. Remember it is the Spirit of God that prays for us when our words can’t fully express our deep groaning to God. I have learned a lot since 1961 that consumed by the Holy Spirit, we can express a joy of love and service to the world and give honor and glory to God. Also, that the touch of the Spirit is a breath of fresh air that blows where it wills to sanctify our Church and world. It is more powerful than a slap on the cheek from the Bishop. The Holy Spirit makes the living word of God come alive in our hearts and the celebration of the Eucharist the focal point of our worship.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What is the personal meaning for us of the Holy Spirit as a “gift”? How do we receive this gift and respond to it? Do we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our life as an “Advocate”? Do we allow the Holy Spirit to teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus did and taught? How is the mystery of God’s indwelling at work in us? Do we endeavor to be an active participant in the mystery of God’s indwelling in us by the power of the Holy Spirit?
B. Why is the feast of Pentecost a celebration? What is the meaning of this celebration for us personally? Why is the event of Pentecost a cause for rejoicing? Are we Spirit-filled Easter people marked with love, service and joy? Are our thoughts, words and actions “Pentecostal” and do we experience our life as healed and redeemed, blessed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit? Do we allow the power and energy of the Holy Spirit to flow and animate our daily life?
C. Do we believe that the Holy Spirit is the Easter energy that makes one people of all nations? Do we allow the event of Pentecost to impel us to communicate to the ends of the earth and to the entire creation the radical salvation won for us by the Paschal Mystery of our glorified Lord Jesus Christ? Do we docilely cooperate with the Holy Spirit in “inculturating” the Gospel? Do we allow ourselves to be arbiters of life and the instruments of the Holy Spirit in today’s world?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(From Fr. Frank Pavone’s “Pentecost Novena for Life”)
Lord Jesus,
on the day of your Ascension,
you instructed the disciples to pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
After nine days of prayer passed,
you sent them that Spirit,
who filled them with light and courage
to go forth and proclaim he Gospel of Life.
Today we pray for an outpouring of that same Spirit.
Send Him upon us, so that we can be Advocates for life.
Send Him upon public officials, so that they can carry out their duty to protect life.
Send Him upon the clergy, so they can proclaim boldly the Gospel of Life.
Send Him upon the abortionists, so that they can stop taking life.
Send Him upon mothers and fathers, so that they can say yes to life.
Send Him upon the unborn, so that they can have life.
Come, Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life,
and renew the face of the earth!
Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” (Acts 2:4)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that the Christian community may experience anew and more deeply the wondrous gift of the Holy Spirit. Pray that there be a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church in the modern world. By your love, by your acts of charity and compassion for the poor, weak and vulnerable, by promoting the culture of life in today’s pervasive culture of death, and by expressing the joy and truth of the Holy Spirit in your daily life, celebrate worthily and meaningfully the gift of Pentecost.
B. ACTION PLAN: To help us respond more lovingly and intimately to the gift of the Holy Spirit that has been poured into our hearts, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 3, n. 26): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US