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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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