Pentecost (2006): Tongues of Fire
Acts 2: 1-11
A Christianity only of words would be useless – interesting,
but useless. If Christ were to have left us a mere litany of parables and proverbs, he might just be as relevant today as
Plato or Tacitus.
But he did not.
The power of his teaching was not rooted simply
in a superior mind. The reason why his teaching is definitive and life-giving is because Jesus himself definitively destroyed
death and rose triumphant from the grave.
Not a body of doctrine alone, but the loving gift
of his physical body in death, in resurrection and in sacrament is what gives us life.
Jesus did not come to indoctrinate us, but to
give us his own life.
It is his victory over death which confers upon
his teaching infallibility. It is his resurrection which empowers his word with life-giving force.
What Jesus spoke, he himself did by suffering,
dying and rising. Indeed, not one of his words is properly understood if it is not seen in the light of these deeds, which
we call the paschal mystery.
In Jesus, word and deed are one and the same.
The life of his resurrection now invests and penetrates the words he spoke.
That is why his Gospel is the Word of Life. That
is why whoever listens to his Word and, like Jesus, acts upon it, will be filled with the life of the Risen Christ.
That life is none other than the Holy Spirit in
person, the One of whom we say in the creed that he is the Lord and Giver of Life.
While the giving of life is certainly the work
of the entire Blessed Trinity, it is attributed in a special way to the Holy Spirit. Jesus is raised by the Father in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit who had conceived Jesus in the
womb of Mary raised him from the dead in such a way that his entire humanity now lived and breathed with the life of God.
Through Jesus our humanity lives with God and
in God. And also through Jesus, as through a doorway or a channel, the Holy Spirit is poured out on those who believe in Jesus.
The public statement of that outpouring is Pentecost.
Pentecost is the fulfillment and the completion of the mighty work which Jesus performed for humanity.
Indeed, Jesus did what he did so that the day
of Pentecost might take place, so that scattered and divided humanity might be reunited, so that sinful humanity might receive
the purifying grace of the Spirit, so that mortal humanity might be rendered immortal.
Pentecost is like the “official opening”
of the church as the communion of reconciliation and life in God. The church is not a closed circle, but an “open semi-circle”,
with its maternal arms open to embrace everyone, saint and sinner.
And how does the Spirit of Pentecost do all of
this?
Think of the symbolic form he takes on that first
Pentecost: tongues of fire.
The Spirit who gave the definitive and unfailing
or infallible life of the resurrection to Jesus, now invests the apostles of Jesus with the infallible tongues of unfailing
fire.
The apostles are filled with the Spirit and, beyond
all the differences of human tongues, proclaim the mighty works of God. And what are those mighty works, if not the suffering,
death and resurrection of Jesus for the eternal life of humanity?
So again, the power of Pentecost comes from the
deeds of Jesus and that same power now invests the apostles to speak the Gospel
of Jesus, not with forked tongues, not with ideology or indoctrination, but with tongues of fire!
The fire which burned in the bush before Moses;
the fire which carried Elijah up into heaven; the pillar of fire which accompanied the Jews; the fire on Mount Sinai as Yahweh
made his covenant with Israel. The fire of God, which is the life, the passion and the love of God; the fire of the Holy Spirit!
That is why we who are privileged to hear the
Gospel, to read and meditate on the Gospel, must realize that we are, not playing, but working with fire.
The Gospel has set countless saints and martyrs
on fire with the love and truth of Christ. Not because of the dead words on a page, but because they realized, through effort
and perseverance, that those words mediated to them the fire of the resurrection.
The Word of God is never just a bunch of syllables
on a page. For the heart which approaches it with faith and desire, the Word is always alive and active, cutting finely between
the secret emotions of the heart.
The Word reads us more than we read it:
- it judges us, challenges us, rebukes us, enlightens
and consoles us;
- it gives us hope and energy and life;
- it forms our way of thinking and purifies our memories
and imagination; it changes and reforms lives;
- it makes us realize how small-minded we are and how
magnificent is the patience, the purpose and the plans of our loving God for us.
When we read the Gospel, we are staring Jesus
in the face; our hearts exult, often unbeknown to us, that we are approaching the source of their existence and life.
Pentecost is waiting to happen again and again
in the pages of our bibles, if we would but stir ourselves and shake off our torpor, pick them up with faith and desire
and read them with open hearts.
But let us be careful.
The Gospel is not up for grabs. It is not our
personal property.
In it lies the mystery of the Trinity itself.
The Gospel is therefore a “holy place.”
And the Holy Spirit himself, at the behest of
Jesus, has entrusted the Gospel to the church, and more especially to the apostles, to care for it.
If we read or interpret the Gospel in a way that
is contrary to the apostolic church, then we read and interpret contrary to Christ and his Spirit.
If to know the Gospel is to know Christ, then
to twist the Gospel is to twist Christ. We can no more manipulate the Gospel than we can manipulate the Lord.
And so, we must listen with faithful and loving
hearts to those who have the tongues of fire today, to the successors of the apostles, if we are to understand aright the
implications of the Gospel for the big questions of our time.
And if they establish limits on any interpretation
of the Word of God, then we must not complain, but rejoice that they are showing us where the Spirit leads us.
We must trust them as we would trust Christ himself,
for in matters attaining to our salvation, they cannot err by virtue of the promise and the power of Christ himself.
Let Pentecost this year be a grace to seek and
to know once more “fire in our bellies” because of the Gospel we carry within!
Our personal witness can set so many others on
fire, can give so much life and hope to those in pain, solitude or brokenness.
Let us not be fire-fighters, but fire-lighters for Christ.
Come, O Spirit of divine fire, and let our hearts
and lives burn with the wisdom in Christ’s words and with the love in his deeds!
Let not Christianity today be seen as useless
because the fire has gone out of us!
Msgr. Peter Magee
Sunday, June 4th, 2006
Annunciation, DC: 7.00 am
