Reflection by Deacon Russ for the Feast of Pentecost

For the past 18 months, we have all suffered through the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic cut us away from our families, from jobs, from work and from Church. For the past year, I have been blessed to share with you a weekly reflection on the Sunday readings. I have tried to make the message of the readings applicable to our every-day lives. Now that the feast of Pentecost is with us again and more of us have been able to return to Mass, the Spirit tells me that it is time to take a break. Thank you for your interest, your encouragement, and your willingness to share your own reflections. May the Lord continue to speak to all of us. God bless you.

The feast of Pentecost is often called the birthday of the Church. And while that’s true, when we say that we unconsciously think of the church as we know it today. But, when Pentecost happened and the church was born, there was no church as we know it today. There was no papacy – at least not like today. There was no Vatican or St. Peter’s Square (16th century). There were no encyclicals (1730); there were no cardinals (11th century); there were no church buildings or cathedrals or basilicas until the 4th century. But there still was church. All or much of the organizational growth of the succeeding centuries may have been necessary, but it had the unfortunate effect of making people identify the church with its real estate, bureaucracy, titles, offices and laws instead of with themselves. Remember, the Holy Spirit fell on people that first Pentecost and the church – composed of those inspirited people – was born.

The Spirit didn’t fall on the structure or the externals, for, as we have seen, there were none. The Spirit fell on unwashed fisherman, peasant carpenters, ordinary housewives, suspect tax collectors, and seedy marginal folk, and glued them together by three things: baptism into Jesus, the breaking of the bread, and witness by ordinary people. These were the basics of being church. The presumption was that each one upon whom the Spirit fell had gifts to use to spread the Gospel. When you come right down to it, the miracle of Pentecost was not that people could understand what the disciples said in different languages. The miracle was that they could say it in the first place. The miracle was that ordinary people who recently had been hiding and full of fear suddenly were church and were making bold proclamations as the Spirit prompted them.

And the same is true today. What makes us church? We have been baptized. We celebrate the Eucharist. And when we witness – at work, in our neighborhood, at school – that makes us church. Baptism, Eucharist and witness are still our defining identities as they were on that first Pentecost when the church was born. Everything else - the Vatican, canon law, the structure, our church buildings – are all very helpful, but basically peripheral and incidental to this primal identity of the people as the church of Jesus Christ.

This Pentecost solemnity brings to a climax the fifty-day celebration of Easter. But we must be careful not to put way our Easter joy too quickly. Pentecost may be the end of the Easter season, but it is also the celebration of the beginning of our new life in Christ. Rather than our Alleluias being over, they are just beginning! They bear fruit in the practical ways in our life that we renew the face of the earth.

Here at Holy Spirit, we have traditionally said that Pentecost is the birthday of our parish as well. If someone should ask you, what is Holy Spirit Church like, the answer is not found in the building and grounds. The proper response is, “Holy Spirit is a family, finding its center in Christ and His Body, the parish, and in turn reflecting that Love of Christ to the community and beyond.” Birthdays call for gifts. Today we want to celebrate those gifts. We celebrate the gift of a new office and education center. We celebrate our many friends who have come back to Church. We celebrate our ability to feed others through Fish. We celebrate our service and prayers with the migrants who join us every summer. We give witness to those we meet on the mission trips. And as all of us, as a parish community, strive to live out the gifts we have been given, then Hartville and Uniontown and North Canton will know what Holy Spirit Church is really like. Happy Birthday!

If you have a brief faith reflection on today’s reading that you would like to share, please send it to me at deaconruss@holyspiritunoh.org.