FEAST OF PENTECOST - 1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13
More than ever before, the world we live in is a world divided, with nations fighting against nations and groups against groups. It is a world full of conflicts with ever increasing violence. In our days, there is a lot of violence done as a service to God and in submission to him, as if such a god could be a true God. How can he be called great the god that demands violence and death in order to establish is sovereignty? Such a god is not different from the power of evil, personified in Satan.
We are in need of solidarity and communion, which make peace possible, a peace that is built on justice and mercy. And that is what we celebrate in the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of the Holy Spirit, who sets our hearts on fire, filling them with love and thus enabling us to announce the good news of peace.
The giving of the Torah
The Feast of Pentecost was originally a Jewish feast called Shavu’ot or Festival of Weeks because it came seven weeks after the Passover (see Lev 23:16). In the Feast of Pentecost, the Jewish people celebrate the giving of the Torah, that is the giving of the Law (the commandments) which set people free and establish them as God’s People. Indeed, we cannot live in peace and be free without the rule of law, God’s Law, which is not oppressive but sets forward the principles that should guide us in building a society in which human dignity is affirmed and respected.
The healing power of the Holy Spirit
With the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the feast acquired a new and deeper meaning. The Holy Spirit came as a Comforter, a Counsellor, a Healer and an Advocate - the Paraclete. Being the one who sets our hearts on fire with love, he can heal us of our pride and self-centredness, which was the source of division. The disruption and violence which started with the tower of Babel are healed on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit makes of different nations speaking different tongues one people, the new People of God.
The Holy Spirit brings communion
St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, speaks of the Spirit as the source of communion established in the diversity of all the members of the fraternity. The first work of the Holy Spirit is to lead us to faith in Jesus Christ, because “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.” (1 Co 12:3). Then, the Holy Spirit gives a great variety of gifts and they are given “for the common good” (1 Co 12:7); they are not given to bring jealousies and enmities or to create infightings within the same group. “For in the one Spirit we were all baptised into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Co 12:13)
It is the Holy Spirit that guides and strengthen us in the work of reconciliation, which is the path for peace and for communion. Communion is only possible when it is built on diversity. If the gifts we received become a source of divisions, destroying peace and harmony, then we are misusing what was given to us, making of them our own property, without any respect for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
With the Psalmist, let us pray: “Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.” (Ps 104:30)
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