Pentecost
Life is interesting. Did you hear that Pope Leo has a personal trainer? Apparently, his trainer didn’t even know he was a cardinal. So, when he was made pope, I can just hear the trainer, “Hey, I know that guy!”
Life is interesting for us too. There are sweet moments. And then there are some not so sweet moments. I remember in high school not being selected for something that I thought I was sure to get. I was devastated. That was a not so sweet moment for me. Yep, life can be tough whatever age you are.
And of course, if we look at the Gospels, we’ll see it was the same for Jesus. There were those sweet moments like the time Jesus called the little kids, and they came running, throwing their arms around him like he was their dad.
And there were those not so sweet moments, like the day hecklers in his own hometown drove Jesus out of town because they didn’t like what he was saying. By the way, that’s essentially why Jesus ended up on a cross. He kept saying things that the people in power didn’t like.
Sweet moments and not so sweet moments, life is a bit of both. Fr. Ronald Rollheiser identifies five major moments in Jesus’ final days on earth that give us a taste of things sweet and not so sweet. There’s Good Friday, Jesus’ death, Easter Sunday, his resurrection, his post resurrection appearances, his ascension to heaven, and Pentecost, his sending of the Holy Spirit.
All these are incorporated into the liturgical life of the church. It’s the span of days that goes from the end of Lent through the fifty days of Easter. It culminates today as we celebrate Pentecost. Taken together, the feasts offer a model for how we are invited to handle those not so sweet moments where it feels like we’re dying, the disappointments, the heartaches, and the broken dreams of our lives.
If they’re all part of the journey that we’re all on, then how do we not let those not so sweet moments in life get to us? How do we not let the heartache in life turn us bitter? How do we not let the setbacks in life defeat us, like I felt the day in high school I was not selected for the thing I thought I was sure to get? What do we do in the face of these things?
Today is Pentecost. In a sense every day is Pentecost because the Spirit is there for us if we’re open to it. So, the invitation is to let the Holy Spirit comfort and empower us to keep going despite the many deaths, disappointments and broken dreams that life throws at us.
The Spirit that Jesus poured out on the disciples on the day of Pentecost is the same Holy Spirit he’ll pour out on us if we let him. So, open your heart and feel the new life that the Spirit can breathe into you just when you thought you had nothing left to give. That’s my experience. I bet it is yours too.
