Acts 2:1-11; Ps 104:1, 24, 29-31, 34; 1 Cor. 12:3b-7, 12-13; Jn. 20:19-23
“Jesus is Lord!” Can we say it? This is a confirmation that the Holy Spirit is active in us. This is the time when the Church is celebrating the sacrament of Confirmation for many of our youth. It confirms the gift of the Holy Spirit but the gift comes with a mandate. The mandate is our call to go forth and proclaim what we believe. We believe that Jesus is Lord of our life, he suffered and died for us and rose on the third day. We believe that he ascended into heaven and will come again. Until then he leaves us with the Holy Spirit to be our light and lead us to salvation.
This is also the time of year when many are graduating from High School, college and higher degrees to bring closure to one phase of life and begin a new mandate. It is a mandate to go forth into the world and serve your purpose. The baptized and confirmed Christian knows that when we serve God first the doors will be opened to us. The world is wanting to be served first waiting for the sacrificial blood of the willing to meet its needs. The world is not our enemy but it is not a friend, it simply needs to be served. Jesus is our friend.
Sacrifice underlies both our service to God and to the world. With God the sacrifice brings eternal rewards. With the world the sacrifice is temporal and ends with mortal death. Thus, we are in the world but not of the world. We are called to a greater purpose than profit, prestige, or power. In the world there is despair when we hear of all the suffering, crime, war, and disease. We are not a people of despair but of hope.
The disciples felt despair after Jesus died because their hope was that he would transform the world and bring a new world order by governance. Jesus’ resurrection was a confirmation that he came to transform the world from within the life of each person. He governs our souls and sends us the Holy Spirit to be that light to lead us that we may transform the world by our witness of faith. It is the fire to be all that God created us to be. The world crucified Jesus and has never stopped searching for ways to separate itself from him by rejecting that there is one truth, one God, and one way to salvation.
The Holy Spirit come to lift us up in the battle of life with gifts of prudence to have right judgement, justice to act in fairness, fortitude to have courage to act, temperance to seek right balance and many more. The Holy Spirit is our ally, our advocate, our comforter, and our rescuer. It is always good to pray, “Come Holy Spirit, take possession of my heart, strengthen me by your grace”.
The confirmation of Jesus is Lord came to the disciples through the Holy Spirit in a visible image of “tongues as of fire”. The disciples were proclaiming in different languages “the mighty acts of God” in the person of Jesus. They were being given their priesthood to speak and fulfill all that Jesus had commanded them to do. Thus, by doing what Jesus commanded with power and authority there could be no doubt of the proclamation that Jesus is Lord.
This Spirit given to the disciples though one Spirit came with different gifts that each may fulfill one part of the body of Christ yet each gift reveals the same truth “Jesus is Lord”. Today we each have each received our gifts to serve a divine purpose. In fulfilling our gifts, we come closer to God and to his divine will.
Today we continue to receive our inheritance of the Holy Spirit’s gifts through the sacramental life of the Church though many gifts, one Church, one faith, one Lord. “The manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit”. The benefit is a reciprocal blessing whereby placing the gift at the service of the Lord we become the blessing of the Lord and are blessed with even more graces to grow in holiness. This is the law of reciprocity, we cannot outgive the giver of all that we are and offer of ourselves to our Lord and to our neighbor.
Jesus breathes on the disciples the power of his love and desire for mercy raising them to his priesthood to “forgive and to retain sins”. It is a tremendous gift and responsibility for them and a great opportunity for us to receive God’s mercy but it requires an act of humility to admit our sins. When Jesus washes the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, he is reminding them that they are clean but not completely. The stain of sin remains but as he raises them to the priesthood he provides for them a church and a sacramental life to wash us clean.
Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I sent you” and he breathed on them the Holy Spirit. Let us go forth with courage and trust to be all that God is calling us to be. Fear not because Jesus is Lord and faithful to his promise to be with us until the end of time and into eternity.
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