Eucharistic Readings for the Day of Pentecost: Year A
Acts 2:1-21 or Numbers 11:24-30; 1 Corinthians 12:3-13; John 20:19-23 or John 7:37-39; Psalm 104:25-35, 37;
“Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21)
I’ve been noticing the prophecies from the Hebrew Testament; Jeremiah, Isaiah, and now Joel as made manifest in Peter’s proclamation. Peter speaks from Joel of the Hebrew Testament (That history is all he had in his day). He says;
“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” Such days are upon us now as we read this.
We have suffered, and in some cases are still suffering from the Coronavirus pandemic and on top of this we are suffering from out-of-control gun violence brought on by what I believe is our failure to see and care for mental illness. To this latter suffering there are, and have been, people among us whose words we should listen to.
“Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian. Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Each of us has a soul that is in conversation with God. Too many of us would rather listen to the rhetoric of others who are also not listening to their souls and thus we have soulless reactions to whatever happens to us. We need God involved and we don’t know how to ask for it.
I have tried to teach people over these last 17 years that you don’t need a priest to be in contact with God. Perhaps you do as a Celebrant in the Church, but God, as revealed through the prophets of the Hebrew and Christian Testament, has already written love on our hearts. And God wants to talk with you. Once, as a preacher, I have told you this, I have done my job as your preacher. Each of us needs to go to God for help; not as a mob, but as God’s loving child, perhaps even in a room alone.
This day we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is with us and speaks to us. We just need to call on the Lord for help. Joel, through Peter, repeats this wisdom as he says, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Please keep up your thoughts and prayers and hopes for Ukraine, Russia, and our schools.
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and serve, and to teach others to love and serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
onewhoponders 