Pentecost


I think I am going to break some ethics in preaching.

Once, a teen was having a hard time in high school. He worked and studied while his classmates seemed to have all the fun. He went to mass because that was what he was supposed to do, but his heart was not in it.

One Christmas Eve he attended mass with the family but he sat apart from them. Something came over him during the mass and he felt a warmth, and some of his hair stood up on his neck. He didn’t know what it was.

In graduate school a young adult attended weekly mass at the Newman center along with the hundreds of others. It was always lively there at the mass, very different from his home parish. However, one mass in particular, during the singing of the Our Father, he felt all tingly. The hair on his neck stood up and he felt overwhelming emotional. Strange, he thought, am I sick? Then he looked at the people around him, they were crying. He was not alone in this. OMG---It was the Holy Spirit! He then remembered his Christmas eve experience decades ago.

Some 17 years ago, a man was being ordained a priest. As they began the questioning ritual, and when the congregation gave their approval and there was thunderous applause, he turned around and experienced a wave of love and community as he had never felt before. He remembers very little after that. It took him days to recover.

Several years ago this priest, while on a six week retreat with monks at Big Sur walked every morning and engaged in conversation the Trinity. At the very beginning he asked the Father that a certain priest NOT be named as his spiritual director for the retreat. A few days later, he was. The Holy Spirit walked with him and laughed at him. They both ended laughing as this was best spiritual director he could have had at the time.


Come Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit fills the church, creating a community.
The Holy Spirit moves people to form community, to be truly who we are created to be.
The Holy Spirit guides, encourages, pushes, pulls, laughs, cries with us.


The Father’s will: Be those children of God we are created to be. Be a family.
Build a world in which all life is treated with the dignity is deserves;
Build a world in which all people find the capacity to express their inherent goodness;
Build a world in which all people celebrate diversity and their unity.

Build the life of the Trinity here on earth, so that Earth and Heaven are one.

Where in our lives, in this parish and in this diocese is that Spirit working?

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