The First Pentecost

The Greek traveler stood bewildered in the Jerusalem crowd. What was happening? All about him Jews from many nations milled excitedly and pointed to a group in the center of the square.

The traveler had heard that the Jerusalem holidays were exciting, but he was not prepared for this. The crowd was electrified. What was that group up to? He tried to weave his way closer.

"You are drunk!" someone shouted at the group.

The traveler heard one of them, the big man with the gray-streaked hair, respond: "We are not drunk. We are stunned with joy because we have had an experience like Israel had at Sinai."

The Greek traveler wondered what he meant by that.

"Why not own up?" heckled another. "You've been to the wine bottle once too often."

Then the big man raised his hand for silence. The crowd fell quiet.

"Do not judge by appearances," he began. "Listen to our words. At Sinai, God called Israel to be a community of faith. God called our ancestors there to be a holy nation. That meant they should form a community that would worship God and live a worthy life. God also summoned them to be the light of nations, that is, to be a missionary witness helping all people to know God."

"I think I can agree with your first point," ventured a Pharisee in the crowd, "but I don't really believe God wanted us to be missionaries."

"My friend, you have forgotten the meaning of the story of Jonah," the big man remarked. "He was a preacher told by God to go on a missionary trip to Nineveh. Recall that Jonah resisted the call at first until God overcame him. Jonah was an example of how Israel, too, resisted the call."

"Who is that man?" the traveler asked of no one in particular.

"His name is Peter," a tradesman replied.

"He is their leader," said a woman nearby.

A young woman in the crowd, moved by Peter's sincerity, asked, "How is it you were speaking in a language we all could understand when you burst upon us here in the square? How did you manage to unify all of us who speak so many different tongues?"

"Perhaps I can explain this best to you," Peter answered, "by comparing this to the old story of the Tower of Babel. That was a tower of human pride that resulted in a breakdown in communications. The people at Babel could not understand each other.

"Our Master, Jesus, asked us to spend time in prayer to await his Holy Spirit. We followed his word and meditated for nine days in the Upper Room. Into that tower of prayer this day came the Holy Spirit, whose greatest work is to bring all people to unity in Christ. At Babel, people babbled. Here we speak a message that will unify people in mind and heart."

"Is that why you said you've had an experience like that which Israel had at Sinai?" asked an elderly man.

"Exactly," replied Peter. "The difference is that what happened at Sinai was but a shadow of the promise and reality that has happened here today. It is because of Jesus, who died and rose for us, that it has happened. Because of him and his Spirit, we really can be a community of faith and a light for the nations."

"How can we have this experience?"

"Is there any hope for us?"

"Go on, tell us more."

"As I look out over the vast crowd in this square," answered Peter, "I think of a world full of dead bones. I know that my comrades and I must go into this valley of the dead and bring life. Don't you remember the story of Ezekiel and the dry bones?"

[God] said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "Lord GOD, you know."

Then he said to me: "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!…I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin,...and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD."

The traveler listened to Peter's voice as it carried over the square. It is like a wind, he thought, bearing good news to the world.

On that Pentecost day, Peter asked the people to repent, to change their way of life, to seek a new life in Christ. And they did respond. The Holy Spirit of Jesus moved into the valley of dry bones and brought three thousand to life.

A new Church began!

"Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams," Peter exclaimed.

That's what happened. The young let loose a flood of heart-expanding ideals across the earth. The old suddenly realized that their dreams of a happier tomorrow were no longer foolish thoughts, but a reality come true.

WRITTEN by Alfred McBride, O.Praem. and posted at AmericanCatholic.org on May 31st, 2009

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?

Like many Catholics of their generation, Daniel Harrington's family wasn't made up of Bible readers. Harrington recalls two Protestants coming to his house when he was a child. "We'd like to discuss the Bible,"they said, to which his mother replied, "We're Catholics. We don't read the Bible."

Harrington, however, has spent his professional life helping Catholics do just that, not only by teaching scripture for decades but by preaching Sunday after Sunday in the same two parishes for many years. "One of the pastors used to stand at the entrance of the church and tell people they got three college credits for the liturgy," Harrington says of his preaching style.

For Harrington, though, reading the Bible is not just intellectual but spiritual as well. "Immersing oneself in scripture won't necessarily make this or that decision easier for you," he says. "But it does help answer big questions such as: Who am I? What is my goal in life? And how do I get there?"

Harrington admits that Catholics have yet to fully embrace the Bible as their own. "I think religious education perhaps hasn't emphasized the Bible enough," he says. "But the Sunday readings are a great tool for people to learn the Bible. People sometimes don't realize how much Bible they're exposed to."

Harrington sees facilitating that encounter as part of his job. "A preacher has to help people get familiar with the scriptures-and not be afraid of them."

Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth (Ignatius) makes a very strong point that the gospels present Jesus as not simply a human figure but a divine figure as well. And if you read the gospels with sympathy and not fight against them, I think you have to acknowledge that the pope has made a very important theological point.

Can you introduce Jesus through the lens of each one of the four gospels?
They all share a common stock of titles: Son of Man, Son of God, Son of David, Lord, Messiah. Those are foundational. But they each take a distinctive approach to the figure of Jesus.

For Matthew Jesus is a teacher, and so he has Jesus giving five great speeches, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount in Chapters 5 through 7. While Mark wants to show that Jesus is a wise teacher and a powerful healer, in that gospel Jesus is also the suffering Messiah.

For Luke Jesus is the great example. In other words he practices what he preaches. This comes up especially in Luke's narrative of the death of Jesus, in which Luke highlights three things that Jesus taught throughout his career: forgiveness of enemies; giving hope to marginal people, such as the so-called good thief; and trust in God, as in Jesus' last words, "Into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46).

In John, Jesus is the revealer and the revelation of God. He's the Word of God in the sense that he reveals what's on God's mind, but also he's the revelation of God in the sense that if you want to know what God is like, look to the person of Jesus.

What about Paul? How does he present Jesus?
Paul emphasizes almost entirely Jesus' death and Resurrection and their significance. He's interested in the saving effects of Jesus' paschal mystery. Only a few times does he ever quote a teaching of Jesus. And in one case-the teaching about marriage and divorce-Paul seems to give an exception to Jesus' absolute rejection of divorce.

Paul didn't meet Jesus personally. His experience was with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Obviously it was such an overwhelming experience that it changed everything in his life.

What if you only had five passages to introduce Jesus to people - your five favorites from across the gospels?
I'd start with the prologue to John's gospel (1:1-18). It provides the New Testament context for the divinity of Jesus and echoes back to Genesis, which also starts, "In the beginning." I think it's a very important text.

The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7, outlines what the disciple of Jesus should strive for and includes the Beatitudes.

Another would be Mark 8, the confession of Peter. That's a great turning point in Mark's gospel, as it is in all the other gospels.

The prodigal son, only in Luke (15:11-32), would be a representative parable because it emphasizes God's mercy and raises the question of what happened to the older son. We never find out whether he decided to change his mind and go to the party, or whether he just ran away.

And obviously the fifth and final would be the Passion narrative. I like all of the death scenes, but especially the hearing of Jesus before the high priest in Mark 14:62. All through Mark's gospel, when people would give Jesus titles such as Messiah or Son of Man, he would say, "No, no, keep this silent." He only publicly accepts the titles of Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man at his lowest possible moment-that is, when he's been condemned by his own people. The truth is that he can only be understood on the cross.

If you could have been present for any of the gospel stories, which one would it be?
The first chapter of Mark's gospel beginning with verse 21. Mark presents it as a typical day in the ministry of Jesus with teaching, healing, and all sorts of interesting things. It takes place in Capernaum, one of the most beautiful places on earth, beside the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful setting, unspoiled still. Every time I visit there I read the first chapter of Mark.

WRITTEN by the editors of U.S. Catholic as an interview with Daniel Harrington, S.J. and published on May 26th, 2009. The above is an edited version. For the full version, as always, the title is a link to the original article.

TV Watch: The Journey Home

There is a regular weekly television program on EWTN called 'The Journey Home', and during this program various individuals are highlighted who each have made that 'journey home' to the Catholic Church from some other religious denomination.

The program is inspirational both for Catholics and for those of other Christian faiths, as well as for complete non-Christians. It is an evangelical program in that the guests speak to their own individual, personal experiences in coming to the Church, or back to the Church after being away.

The regular host is Marcus Grodi, a former Protestant minister who himself returned to the Church a number of years ago. Grodi is the founder and head of the Coming Home Network, which is a group that helps folks on this journey towards a fuller, more complete relationship with Jesus Christ.

It is so very important to remember that Christ Himself founded just one Church, not many. He did not make Peter the head of His Church, and then tell his followers that if something came up while Peter and his successors were spreading and refining the Word, they should take a walk and start their own church. Taking that kind of action to its logical conclusion would, in fact, result in church after church branching off because some individual or group did not like some particular church law or decision.

It was the vanity and ego of Henry VIII that began the Protestant movement to begin with: how do you expect to start a system of belief based itself on human vanity and pride and have it be sustained in perpetuity? That statement is not meant as an insult, it is meant as a challenge.

Today's Protestants really need to ask themselves two very important questions. First, the Gospels that you correctly follow, but that you go no further than in your system of faith - where did they come from? Secondly, what exactly is it that your are 'protesting' as a Protestant? The answer to both questions is the same: the very 'one' Church (this is what Catholic means - one) founded by Jesus Christ.

Often we are simply a product of our upbringing. Our family may have historically attended a particular church, held a particular belief system, and we simply incorporated that into our own lives without looking too closely at the reasons.

Also, there is a great deal of selfishness in today's world. We don't want to be told what to do, we don't want to follow rules. We want to 'decide for ourselves' and not be forced into compromising our own personal positions on certain issues such as abortion, homosexuality, family, and more. So we gravitate towards a church that allows us to keep our position, or at least more easily, one that does not challenge us to something more.

The Roman Catholic Church is not the enemy. It is not some 'beast', it is not full of pedophiles, it is not hypocritical. Is it perfect? Absolutely, in that it was founded by Christ and ultimately is guided by and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Are the men and women who lead particular ministries or programs or schools sometimes a challenge? You bet they are, after all, they are human.

The challenge for individuals is not to leave the Church, or stay away, but to challenge yourself to stay or return. The problems of the world are with people, not with the Church, and good people with good hearts can only help improve Christ's Church from within.

You can continue to coast along outside of the world of the Church, and even sling barbs and accusations and obscenities at it from out there. But I challenge you to examine yourself and your life, and your current belief system. Really do some looking, searching, praying.

I often simplistically equate the struggle within to a statement made by Tom Hanks in the film "A League of Their Own." In the film, his head coaching character of Jimmy Dugan tells his star player this about baseball: "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great." I put it to you that it is the same with the Church. It is not easy, but it's that very hard that makes it great, that challenges you to think, to do, to be something more.

The title of this entry, as all posts here at my blog are, is a link to further information. In this case it is a link to the Coming Home Network, a good place to start your own journey home. Another would be that very EWTN program of the same name, airing each Monday at 8pm. No bells and whistles, no fire and brimstone here, just a simple conversation among returnees.

My own prayers go out to anyone who might read this and be inspired to take a closer look at returning to the Catholic Church. We are always ready, willing, waiting to open our arms to you when you open the eyes of your heart to the Lord's original Church, the only one that He established. God bless you.

NOTE: this is a continuation of the regular "TV Watch" and "Sunday Sermon" series, all entries of both can be viewed by clicking on either 'label' below this article