Homily for Pentecost Sunday, Year B
Vigil: Ex. 19.3-8a, 16-20b Ps. 104 Rom. 8.22-27 John 7.37-39
Day: Acts 2.1-11 Ps. 104 1 Cor. 12.3b-7, 12-13 John 15.26-27; 16.12-15
If you can remember all the way back to Easter – on April 12 this year, seven weeks ago – if you can remember back to Easter, you’ll remember that we have been on a journey here in our parish, a journey through the homilies of the Easter Season toward helping us better understand the meaning of the Mass, the importance of the Eucharist. Over the past fifty days, we have talked about why we come to church each week and what it means to say that we believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We have looked at Scripture, the Word of God, and it’s role in the Mass, and we have asked why we pray and what we pray for. We have remembered that we are a broken people, broken just like Christ in the Eucharist, striving each day to love not just the people who love us, but especially the people we have a hard time loving. And we have talked about how the three human beings mentioned at every Mass – Mary, Pontius Pilate, and the Pope – help us understand what is unique about the Catholic liturgy. Really, this whole journey has been about figuring out what it means to live in the presence of the risen Christ, what it means to allow Jesus Christ to continue to live and work through us. Which brings us to today’s feast, to Pentecost, the end of the Easter Season and the celebration of the Holy Spirit.
It is often said that the first Pentecost was the birth of the Church – from the moment the disciples received the Holy Spirit, they became in a very real sense Christ’s Body on earth, the community of the faithful gathered together in Christ and sent forth with the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel. It certainly takes a community, a group of people to be the Church – we meet God not just in private prayer and meditation, but in the midst of a community, wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name. And the same thing is true for the Eucharist. In giving us the gift of his Body and Blood, Jesus ensured that it would be a communal gift. Christ does not enter into a vacuum – to celebrate the Eucharist, we need a community, the Church, gathered together. With a priest standing in the person of Christ, together we ask the Holy Spirit to come among us, to make the gifts of bread and wine the Body and Blood of Christ. The Eucharist makes no sense if it is celebrated privately. The Eucharist makes no sense if there is no one to receive it. It takes a whole community to worship well. We need lectors to proclaim God’s word and cantors and musicians to lead us in song. We need servers to assist at the altar and Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion to distribute Christ’s Body and Blood. We need ushers to guide us, greeters to welcome us, art and environment ministers to make this a worthy place to celebrate the liturgy, and sacristans to coordinate it all. We need each and every person here to pray, to sing, to respond, to open their hearts to receive God’s grace. It takes a whole community to worship well, to celebrate the Eucharist well – no one can do it on their own.
For many of us, this weekend also marks the beginning of summer. The next two months are typically a down time for many of our parish ministries, the parish schedule thins out significantly as schools and families take their summer vacations. But we never stop celebrating the Mass – we can never stop worshiping our God – we can never go for more than a week without needing the grace of the Eucharist. Perhaps these summer months can be a time for us all to reflect on how we participate in the Eucharist, as members of the assembly or as ministers called to fulfill one of the many liturgical ministries. But, without a doubt, everything we do as a Church, as a people of God, is centered on what we do here, gathered as a community around the table of Christ’s Body and Blood. If we really understand what the Mass is all about, we can never take a vacation from the Eucharist.
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