Father Richard's homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost
Unity
It was great to see Pope Francis today back at the window of
the Apostolic Palace to lead the weekly Regina Caeli prayer on this great Solemnity
of Pentecost. It was also wonderful to see members of the faithful back in St
Peter’s Square once again (while observing ‘social distancing’). This after weeks of
Vatican City being closed and papal addresses being broadcast from the Pope’s
library.
I’ve always considered St Peter’s Basilica and Square as the
“centre of the world” and also our spiritual home as Catholics. The colonnades
of the piazza symbolise the Church’s embrace of all the faithful across the
world, or the “maternal arms of Mother Church” as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the architect
of the Square, referred to them. When you step inside the Basilica, there’s a
feature which always catches your eye. We could say it is the very focal point
of St Peter’s, since it’s high up in the apse. It is, of course, the window:
the ‘Dove of the Holy Spirit’. The feature is a poignant reminder – that the
Holy Spirit “pervades and rules” over the entire Universal Church [Vatican II, Unitatis
Redintegratio, 2.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit bestowed by Christ on the whole
Church throughout the world is what we celebrate on this great Feast day. Jesus
breathes His Spirit upon the apostles and they begin to speak in different
languages. With these, they’re able to bring the message of God’s Kingdom to all
peoples, meaning the Church spreads to the four corners of the globe. Indeed,
the ‘birthday of the Church’ as this Feast is so-called, reminds us that the
Church could have and can only exist because of the sending forth of God’s
Spirit. What is more, we can only by in unity with our brothers and sisters across
the world; we can only be a part of the Body of Christ because of the Third
Person of the Trinity’s constant work of sanctification.
Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic
constitution on the Catholic Church, has a wonderful sentence which describes
the unity that the Spirit brings: “All the faithful, scattered though they be
throughout the world, are in communion with each other in the Holy Spirit, and
so, he who dwells in Rome knows that the people of India are his members.”
[Lumen Gentium, 13]
Such is the power of the Holy Spirit that a priest praying
the Divine Office hiding in the underground Church in China is united with the faithful
at Mass in a United States parish. The Spirit brings into communion the convent
of nuns singing the Prayer of the Church in Norway, with a parish group praying
the Rosary together in South Africa. Those participating in the Mass at Ss Peter
and Paul, Leyburn, are spiritually joined with those praying the Mass in St Joseph
and St Francis Xavier, Richmond (when we finally get back to public liturgies).
The Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of believers but is
also constantly at work in the Church, bringing all parts of the Body together
in love. As St John Paul II taught: “The Spirit guides the Church into the fullness
of truth (cf. Jn 16:13) and gives her a unity of fellowship and service.” [John
Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, 25] From St Paul, we hear in our Second
Reading that the Spirit gives particular gifts to particular members of the
Church. If we invest in these gifts, we serve each other in love and come into
ever-closer communion with God and with each other. The work of the Spirit
means members of the Church can carry out immense acts of charity for the
betterment of the entire world. We see these fruits of the Spirit in the
wonderful medical, educational, and missionary services that the Church carries
out in every nation, not to forget the work for justice for the vulnerable and
poor that Catholics are engaged in.
It’s a mistake to think of the Catholic Church as merely an ‘institution’.
Today’s Solemnity reminds us that the Church is also the “mystical body of
Christ”. She is sanctified by the mission of the Spirit Who unites all the baptised,
bringing them into the Church’s loving, motherly embrace.
We give thanks to Almighty God today for the One, Holy,
Catholic and Apostolic Church, which leads us on our journey towards her
heavenly homeland. We pray for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit into our hearts,
the hearts of our families and friends, upon the Church and upon the whole world
at this time.
“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and
kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be
created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.”
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