Day Nine                                  Pentecost

READ

Acts 1:12-14 - 2:1-43

The day of Pentecost, the harvest festival is here!

Witness (using his name with grateful thanks)

We know perfectly well that if the Holy Spirit comes, he cannot leave everything in our existence as he finds it. He could even make us do "strange" things that we are not ready to accept. He has never left those upon whom he has come sitting idle. Whoever the Holy Spirit touches, the Holy Spirit changes! Thus, our prayer for having the Spirit sometimes resembles the prayer Augustine addressed to God before his conversion: "Grant me chastity and self-control, but please not yet." We are tempted to say, "Come, Holy Spirit, come . . . , but not right now and especially not if it is going to involve me in strangeness and singularity! Isn't God order, decorum, composure and equilibrium?” If the apostles could have chosen and decided for themselves the way the Spirit should have manifested himself, they would never, ever have chosen to begin to speak in unknown tongues, exposing themselves to the ridicule of the people who said "They have had too much new wine" (Acts 2:13). And yet it was in this way that what happened, happened. Therefore, in the first place let us ask the Holy Spirit to take away our fear of him. Let us say, "Come, come, Holy Spirit! Come now, come as you wish. Bend, warm, cure, water, burn, renew.".......

Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap

1. We have gathered with Mary in prayer.
2. We are all together in one place.
3. We experience being filled.
4. We begin to speak about God in a way people can really understand
5. People who hear us are cut to the heart; they want to know what to do.
6. The message is, repent, be baptised, turn from what is dead in your life and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
7. Devote yourselves to the Word of God, to communion and community, to the breaking of bread in the Eucharist and to prayer.

Nothing has changed in this agenda: this is the life of the Church.

Witness  -  our Father Benedict XVI
I invite you to observe how the Holy Spirit is the highest gift of God to humankind, and therefore the supreme testimony of his love for us, a love that is specifically expressed as the “yes to life” that God wills for each of his creatures. This “yes to life” finds its fullness in Jesus of Nazareth and in his victory over evil by means of the redemption. In this regard, let us never forget that the Gospel of Jesus, precisely because of the Spirit, cannot be reduced to a mere statement of fact, for it is intended to be “good news for the poor, release for captives, sight for the blind ...”. With what great vitality this was seen on the day of Pentecost, as it became the grace and the task of the Church towards the world, her primary mission!

Message for WYD 2008

 

Let us Pray

Father of light, from whom every good gift comes.
send your Spirit into our lives
with the power of a mighty wind,
and by the flame of your wisdom
open the horizons of our minds.
Loosen our tongues to sing your praise
in words beyond the power of speech,
for without your Spirit
man could never raise his voice in words of peace
or announce the truth that Jesus is Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen

From the Liturgy of the Hours for Pentecost