Pentecost Sunday – Mass during the Day (Cycle B) – May 23, 2021 Gathered and Sent: Receiving, living and sharing the Spirit that Christ gives us Acts of the Apostles 2: 1-11 / Psalm 103 / 1 Cor 12: 3b-7, 12-13 / John 20: 19-23
One of the more recognized liturgical hymnbooks in use in the USA is an edition with the name, Gather. My seminary professor would say, in joking manner but with serious implications, that perhaps we should publish another hymnbook with the name, “Scatter.”
It is true that to gather is a principal aspect of our Christian community, the Catholic Church. At the same time, as church we have a missionary mandate and we must not stay put in the sanctuary or remain gathered and contented with the situation we live in but must be willing to go out into the world and carry out the mission that Christ has entrusted to us.
Just as the Lord entrusts us with a mission, so he also give us who and what we need to carry it out: the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit unites us and brings us together but also challenges and sends us to where there is no peace and where there is no love so that the presence of Jesus Christ will become visible and experienced there by way of our collaboration with the kingdom of God. We are called to disperse ourselves like the sower of the seeds and go forth preaching the word of God and celebrating the sacraments. Moreover, the treasures of our faith and the church exist to enrich the world and it falls upon us to share them. As he urged the friars of the Order of Preachers to preach, St. Dominic liked to say, “Grain stored rots, grain that is sown bears much fruit.”
Still, the church must not fall into the temptation of activism but act from a solid doctrinal foundation and with much spiritual discernment so that our efforts are in union with the message of Christ and make the love of God visible and real. The early motto of the Order of Preachers on the purpose of preaching also serves to remind us of the value of prayer and spiritual reflection by explaining that to preach is to “share the fruits of our contemplation.”
The words of the Risen Christ that we hear in today’s reading from chapter twenty of the Gospel according to St. John make clear that we are to gather in order to be strengthened and sent. The key is to welcome the gift of God that Christ promises and gives us: the Holy Spirit. As he speaks to the disciples gathered behind closed doors, Christ expresses the equilibrium needed between to gather and to go forth on mission: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…’” (John 20: 21b-22). Before sending the disciples, the Lord Jesus gives them his peace. We cannot give peace and make it grow in our world without first having received it as a gift from God that is embraced in the depths of our hearts and in community.
In this manner we can recognize the dynamic of the Christian life: the base is union, to be in relationship with God as individuals and as community. In order to be strengthened, it is necessary to receive and welcome the Holy Spirit that Christ gives us as spiritual nourishment and his lasting presence in us and among us. From there we must be open to the demands of our faith, especially how the Lord commands us to love our neighbor and even more those who are in need.
Such a dynamic is nothing more and nothing less than the movement of the Holy Spirit gathering us and strengthening us so that we become true disciples gathered and available to go forth like a good sower and scatter the seeds of the Gospel message convinced that what Christ gives us is meant to be shared.