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The priest just talked about the nice weather, and about how we can feel God’s closeness through the beauty of creation, of which we are part, and by feeling the warmth of the sun on our faces. But there was no mention about Pentecost as such. I find that the feast days are often passed over in silence. The Ascension was one such case. Not a word about it. Oh well.
Our pastor offered a few comments about how Pentecost, at some times in history, had held almost the same importance in the liturgical year as Easter, even superceding that of Christmas. He offered a few other worthwhile thoughts too, but I don’t remember much; I wasn’t operating on anything near a full night’s sleep.
I don’t remember if he commented on the Gospel in terms of speaking in tongues, but I remember thinking as we heard it that..this must have been quite a sight. It’s been just a few months since a notorious rabbi suffered Roman execution; his followers insisted a few days later that the same rabbi rose from the dead. Now, the day after the Sabbath, there are these 11 guys going about, each saying something, but you may be hearing several different languages.
At very least, it would be one dickens of an attention getter!
To tell you the truth, I understood nothing. I am in Paris, went to a BEAUTIFUL EF Mass (Cantata) with the Antiphonally done (as is Parisian custom) sequence. Of course, my French isn’t good enough for me to understand the sermon, but a Mass this well done is, in itself, a sermon, nest pas?
Vestments were very beautiful and obviously very old. This was a marvelous experience, what a Pentecost I had!
Was visiting family in Maine. Bishop Malone conferred the sacrament of confirmation on five candidates from the Latin Mass Chaplaincy of St Gregory the Great. He spoke briefly about how fitting it was for the candidates to receive the gifts of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost, just as the Apostles had. His Excellency exhorted them and their sponsors to accept the will of god even in Northern New England, which he informs us was judged the most secularised region of the US. Sadly, his excellency could not stay for mass.
At mass, Father preached about the greatness of the Holy Spirit’s gifts which are bestowed upon the Apostles at Pentecost. No longer were they mere disciples learning from the master, but they would themselves carry the message boldly wherever they would go. Then he answered the charge of why there is so much unfaithfulness and wickedness even in the Church, despite the gifts of the spirit: hardness of heart. He said that for us as Christians we might display our own hardness of heart by refusing even to say grace in public before a meal. He also worked in some Catechesis in there about the 7 gifts of the spirit and the fruits. I dont really do it justice here, but Fr Parent is an excellent preacher. The folks in Maine are lucky to have him, I think.
The Mass itself was beautiful, with a chanted introit and sequence, both in Latin. Unfortunately, the sermon told us how “the gays with AIDS” had saved the church, and that the Spirit “blows where she wills.”. We were traveling, and just went to the church nearest our hotel.
Our pastor said we should be nice to each other. We went Saturday night and the first reading was about the Tower of Babel. I don’t remember how the tower of Babel lead to “we should be nice to each other”.
On Sunday I went to the EF parish in town and got a stemwinder about Old Testament parallels with Pentecost.
I focused on how the coming of the Holy Spirit helps us to “bear under” the full Truth of the Gospel.
http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2012/05/burdened-to-breaking-by-truth.html
Fr. Philip Neri, OP
At EF Mass, fear of the Lord sets us free from the sin of human respect. The celebrant himself, Fr Isaac Mary Relyea, illustrated this, and completely credibly mentioned having been kicked out of more than one diocese for his particular presentation of the Faith, perhaps for instance the way he talks about “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”. Also, as is alleged in almost every sermon by this priest, Russia still hasn’t been consecrated to Our Lady. Also, it is crucial for parents have their children Confirmed no later than age 12 and if they are willing to go elsewhere to have that happen, he has connections and the parents should come talk to him. A seminarian, no two seminarians in their birettas sat in choro but I didn’t recognize the second one as being one of our diocese and I think he was praying from an EF Divine Office book after Mass.
At the Novus Ordo Mass I attended, celebrated by my good bishop vested in gorgeous Roman chasuble and maniple and Mass included the sprinkling rite (the choir sang something in English), the Bible says the penalty for killing “a man within a man” ie abortion, is shedding blood, ie death. He paused and let that hang there. Yes he also talked about Pentecost, for instance the Holy Spirit is the spirit of unity, and there are some people today who disbelieve that, for instance they think the first 19 Ecumenical Councils were inspired by a different spirit than the Spirit of Vatican II, and those people are wrong. Also a man was formally accepted as a candidate for Holy Orders.
Both the above Masses that I attended were at the Cathedral Parish.
Superb sermon about the Indwelling of the Holy Trinity and the coming of the Holy Spirit into each one of our lives through the sacramental life of the Church. Also, a call to ask the Holy Spirit to direct one’s life more clearly and to pay attention to the movement of the Holy Spirit in one’s life, which we are all to do because of our baptism. I was at St. Joseph’s in Dorking.
The homily discussed the apostles as bishops and the excellent examples of Sts. Ambrose and Gregory in defending and reforming the Church, then went on the exhort the faithful to pray that our modern bishops be filled with the zeal and character of these saints as we pray for the defense and stregthening of the Church itself.
Pentecost, how the Church has been persecuted in the past, and a tie-in to the evils of the HHS mandate and why we cannot just ignore/comply with it. Very nice, succinct reasoning and homily :)
I attended a beautiful EF Missa Cantata at St. Mary, Mother of God Parish in Washington, DC. Our pastor, Fr. Alfred Harris, preached on the quartet of feasts that Pentecost completes, the other three being Christmas, Easter, and the Ascension. The feasts celebrate the stages in Christ’s work of salvation of mankind: being incarnated and born, conquering sin and death, ascending to His and our final state in heaven, and finally sending the Holy Spirit so that he continues to live and act in His Church.
In the last three weeks, while traveling, I have had to attend OF Masses in Germany and England: children’s ditty songs, vacuous homilies, happy-clappy atmosphere, just like the U.S. If anything could make the devil happy, it would be to know that the vast majority of Catholics have no idea what Catholicism is.
Since I have been singing in the schola for our local Mass in the Extraordinary Form, I haven’t been able to hear the sermon so well. Oh well, I like reading what others have heard each week and especially tuning in to Fr. Z’s reflections so that will carry me through…
@Elizabeth D: I didn’t attend the EF on Sunday due to my concerns with traffic and the half-marathon race event. I did attend the bishop’s Mass at 11 AM. I remember him talking about the Pope’s Sunday sermon, too, about the Tower of Babel and how God felt man was becoming proud by building that tower and so he confused our language in order to humble us.
My homily began by referring to the power of the Holy Spirit–as manifest in the 120 believers (Acts 1:14, i.i.r.c.) who first received the Holy Spirit and accomplished so much–we have so many more believers today, perhaps we are not tapping into that power as well?
Then I addressed our current travails, and I explained the bishops’ call for a “Fortnight for Freedom,” June 21-July 4, and said more was coming the following week. In fact, more is coming every week until July 4; I’ve prepared a plan of homilies, bulletin inserts, special Masses, slips in the pews asking everyone to commit to prayer, fasting or sacrifices etc. during the fortnight. This homily was the first step. I shared my homily with the retired priests, who in their own way covered the same ground. Along the way I referenced our Corpus Christi plans as well. I challenged everyone: what will each of us do as our part–young to old? Can all of us be of one heart and one mind in prayer and sacrifice? See the homily here.
I went with the “strong driving wind.” What drives us, the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of the World?
http://www.shawnthebaptist.org/2012/05/homily-212-pentecost/
We are visiting relatives this weekend and heard this during the the homily, ” Instead of saying ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Come’ we should be saying, ‘Go, Holy Spirit, Go’…” The explanation given was that we should be sending the Spirit out from us and onto the other people that need it, or something like that. It was all pretty hippy dippy sounding. I told my kids later that it’s probably not a good idea to tell the Holy Spirit to go!
The sermon that I heard yesterday from my parish’s parochial vicar was nice, but I would like to share the Pentecost sermon that I heard last year on Pentecost from a wonderful Jesuit who frequently says Mass at my church.
The priest, in talking about the graces given us by the Holy Spirit, shared a personal story from his earlier years as a young priest doing some hospital ministry. Late one night, he was called to the bedside of a dying man who wanted to receive the Last Rites. The patient only spoke Spanish and the Jesuit, a native English speaker, had only studied Latin and French in school. A translator was brought in so that the priest and the patient could communicate. The translator was a native English speaker, and he was not a religious man, so when the priest said the word “prayer,” the translator did not know the Spanish equivalent. He paused for a moment and then asked the priest – who, you must remember, had never studied a single word of Spanish – if he knew the Spanish word for “prayer.” The priest told us that without giving it even a moment’s thought, he replied to the translator, “oración.” Just as the Holy Spirit at Pentecost had allowed the Apostles to communicate multilingually, the Holy Spirit had given the priest the grace to communicate with this patient in his hour of need in order that the patient might know the comfort and spiritual aid being given him by God through the words and sacramental actions of the priest.
It was quite a sermon, which is why it has stuck with me a year later.
We have a priest from Poland assigned to our parish for at least a year. He described John Paul II”s visit to his country 30 years ago and how before thousands upon thousands of Poles gathered for Mass, the Pope shouted out, “Holy Spirit, renew our nation, renew our families, renew our marriages, renew each of us!” Within a few years Poland was relieved of heavy Communist oppression, and Christians knew it was the work of the Holy Spirit working through their pope, their “favorite American president Ronald Reagan” and even Gorbachev. Father developed this witness of the Holy Spirit being able to change things by asking if any of us had ever encountered someone who had the spark of the divine and then asked if any of us has manifested divinity to others? He said the Holy Spirit is just waiting for us to ask Him –with that same fervor and intensity– to change our country, our families, and ourselves.
I thought of the prayer you asked us to pray a while ago, when, before the sermon, we prayed the ‘ Veni, Sancte Spiritus ‘.
Based on John 20: 19 – 23. Jesus standing among His disciples, saying, ” Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Breathing on them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Fr. began contrasting the number of people giving personal information all over in places like facebook etc. with the number of people availing themselves of Confession and the peace of forgiveness. Closed with a welcome to do so.
Great sermon about the parallels, good and bad, between Eden and Babel, Sinai and the Mass, with emphasis on the similarities between the OT sanctuary/ practice and the Mass. Wish I could share more, but Fr.’s sermons are always detail-heavy. He can pack more into a 25 minute homily than most priests can cover in an hour lecture.
Our priest gave a beautiful homily on how much we need the Holy Spirit’s guidance and what it means to live life “in the Spirit”. He then talked about how Pentecost was when the sacrament of confession was first “initiated”. He related every confession to Pentecost, saying that each time you go to confession the Priest calls down the Holy Spirit to guide you and provide the graces you need to live a life in Christ. My favorite part was how he related regularly practicing the sacrament of confession to flossing your teeth. The dentist gives you strict advice on flossing regularly and for the first few days you do, then you slowly start flossing only once a month (if that), but the 2 weeks before you go back to the dentist your start flossing again. He said it’s the same with confession. The more we go to confession the more we try to stay away from sin because we are essentially “going to the doctor” more often therefore we see our sin and areas of improvement in our life. But the longer we stay away from confession our sin becomes less and less important to us until we think that we are fine without the sacrament of confession.
Unfortunately I cannot do his homily justice, but Praise God for our priests beautiful gift to preach!
Father suggested that the word advocate can be taken to mean lawyer or defender,
that Cicero defended the population from government abuses,
that Moses defended the golden-calf-worshipers from God’s wrath,
and as the Lord gave his disciples The Advocate for their preaching strength,
so too must we be an advocate for our faith, and not be afraid to speak up today
for what’s right. This was a nice lead-in to a reminder of how bad the HHS mandate is, and
everyone should seriously reflect on who we plan to vote for this fall.