Pentecost Sunday
May 19, 2013
For Pentecost there will be a vigil Mass and a Mass during the day. For both Masses there are options for the readings. Check with your liturgy director for the readings to be used at your parish.
Reflection on Lectoring
Think about how you feel when you wave to a friend on the
street and say, “Hello.” In that brief
greeting, there is an opportunity to share a feeling of warmth and friendship.
Think about how you feel at Mass during the few seconds
it takes to say, “Peace be with you,” and shake the hand of the person next to
you. For a very brief moment, you focus solely
on just one person, while the rest of the world seems to recede into the
background.
At the beginning of Mass, when the priest blesses the
assembly with the words, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit,” he also makes a direct connection with people. The more genuine and sincere his connection,
the more meaningful is his blessing.
As a lector, you also connect with people. With a few verses of Scripture, you have the
opportunity to talk directly to every person at Mass. The more genuine and sincere your connection with
them, the more meaningful will be your proclamation.
Whether on the street or in church, it takes only a gesture
or a few words for someone to show his or her genuine concern for another
person.
In the same way that a
friendly “hello” or a sincere handshake can demonstrate real caring, your
proclamation from the ambo can do the same.
When you reach out to those around you with genuine feeling, they, in
turn, will reach out to you. They will
say in reply, “Thanks be to God.”
_________________________________
Pentecost Vigil Mass
First Reading - Exodus 19:3-8a, 16-20b
The Original Pentecost
Today’s first reading recounts the story of the original
Pentecost - the Jewish Feast of Weeks.
It happened in the Sinai desert fifty days after the Passover and the liberation
from Egyptian bondage. The event marks
the beginning of the Jewish nation, the time when God presented the law and
made a covenant with his chosen people.
Several centuries later, Pentecost still brought Jewish
pilgrims from around the world to Jerusalem.
It also served as the occasion on which the Christian church first publicly
celebrated its beginning.
The descriptions of the two events are quite similar. In Exodus, Mount Sinai “was all wrapped in smoke, for the Lord came down upon it in fire.” The mountain itself “trembled violently.” These
were the signs of God’s presence at a very important event.
Fifty days after the Jesus’ death and resurrection, the
Holy Spirit came upon the apostles in a similar, noisy way filling the whole
house with wind, appearing “to them as
tongues as of fire” (Acts: ch.2, v.3).
“Everything the Lord has said, we will do,” was the response
from the Israelites signaling their acceptance of their role in God’s
plan. Centuries later, the apostles said
the same thing, and three-thousand people in the streets heard the message.
______________________________
Pentecost Vigil Mass
Second Reading - Romans 8:22-27
Groanings
How can a flesh and blood human being aspire to a
spiritual existence? Especially since
most of our experiences are grounded in material objects - things that we
perceive with our five senses. Our
ultimate salvation simply is not the kind of thing that we can subject to
scientific verification.
Consequently, we and all of creation “groan” in
anticipation. We hope for more than just
what we can see, hear or touch. We hope
there is a redemption that takes us beyond earthly reality. We “wait
with endurance” for those spiritual things we cannot see with our limited
vision.
In today’s reading Paul says that the Holy Spirit
provides some much needed help to aid our weakness and keep us steadfast in our
hope. And when our own prayers prove to
be inadequate, the Holy Spirit offers his own “inexpressible groanings” - the kind of groanings that are beyond
our human ability to put into human words.
At Pentecost, God knew what the apostles
needed to fulfill his commandment to be his witnesses to the ends of the
earth. Today, God knows equally well
what lectors need in order to witness effectively through their words, and what
their hearers need in order to find hope in those words.
___________________________
Pentecost Mass During the Day
First Reading - Acts 2:1-11
What Should We Do?
Fifty days was not a lot of time to come to grips with
all that had happened. Less than two
months prior to the events of today’s first reading, the apostles saw their
friend and teacher suffer an horrific death - an execution engineered by the
chief priests of their own faith, and carried out by the representatives of the
most powerful nation on earth.
Then, forty days after his miraculous resurrection from
the dead, Jesus tells his apostles, “You
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Immediately
after he says these incredible things, a cloud takes Jesus away from them. He is gone.
How can anyone make sense out of all this upheaval? The events of those days must have seemed utterly
incomprehensible. What should the
apostles do as they experienced this rollercoaster of emotions?
The miracle that would reveal the way ahead involved the
reversal of an old Biblical story. In
chapter 11 of Exodus we are told that at one time, “The whole world had the same language and the same words”
(v.1). Unfortunately, the people of
Babel got a notion that they should, “make
a name for ourselves” (v.4). But God
had other ideas, and decided to “confuse
their language, so that no one will understand the speech of another”
(v.7).
That is how things stood on that Pentecost nearly 2,000
years ago, until the Holy Spirit intervened, and people from all parts of the
Roman Empire were able to “hear them
speaking in our own tongues.”
On Pentecost the
apostles came to understand what they were to do. Perhaps that same understanding may help
lectors better understand what they should do when the Holy Spirit prompts them.
_____________________________
Pentecost Mass During the Day
Second Reading - Romans 8:8-17
Body and Soul, Flesh and Spirit
Just ask Adam and Eve.
It is not easy to be beings with both a body and a soul, to have a
nature that is both flesh and spirit. It
is a complex combination that creates the kind of tension and struggle that
continues throughout a lifetime.
Being both body and soul is a challenge that is part of
each person’s storyline as he or she matures into an adult Christian. We fix our eyes on a transcendent God, as we
strive to become the kind of creature he wants us to be. We recognize our sinfulness and fallen nature,
as we humbly acknowledge our limitations and weaknesses.
In today’s passage from Romans, Paul answers the question
he asked in an earlier chapter: “Miserable
one that I am! Who will deliver me from
this mortal body?” (ch.7, v.24). The
answer is found in today’s reading: “The
One who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his Spirit dwelling in you.”
This reading contains
a dire and certain warning: “If you live
according to the flesh, you will die.”
However, it ends with an equally certain promise that “those who are led by the Spirit of God are
sons of God.” In keeping with that
promise, lectors have the happy job of proclaiming to the entire assembly two
beautiful words at the very end of the reading: “Abba, Father!”
© George Fournier 2013
