Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Today the Church celebrates the Feast of Pentecost, sometimes called the
“birthday” of the Church because of the boldness and outreach demonstrated
by the Apostles after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them. The
Holy Spirit, promised to the Apostles by Jesus, empowered the early Church
to carry out the mission entrusted to it by Our Lord.
Before Pentecost was a Christian holy day, it was a Jewish festival. In Greek,
the word “Pentecost” means “fiftieth”, and is celebrated by Christians fifty
days after Easter. In the Acts of the Apostles, we hear the account from St.
Luke about how Jesus had told the disciples to wait for “the promise of the
Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with the holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4-5).
As the apostles and other disciples went to Jerusalem for the Jewish festival,
they gathered in the upper room where Jesus had celebrated the last supper.
“And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to
them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different
tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim” (Acts 2:2-4).
Thanks to the witness of those first disciples, enabled by the Holy Spirit,
many people came to believe in Jesus and the Church began to grow and
spread throughout the world. That same Spirit animates the Church and all
believers today. Come Holy Spirit, enflame our hearts again with the joy of
the Gospel!
June is also recognized by the Church as the month of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, a devotion made popular by Jesus’ apparitions to St. Margaret Mary
Alacoque, a French nun and mystic of the 17th century. In one of the apparitions
Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary,
“Behold this Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing,
even to consuming itself to witness its love. And in return, I
receive from most of them only ingratitude from their irreverences
and their sacrileges and by the coldness and contempt that they
have for Me in this sacrament of love…” (Our Lord to Sr. Margaret
Mary).
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Inflame our hearts to imitate
your sacrificial love.
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
