Speaking my language
Podcast
Scripture references
Reflection
The scripture passages today present a very strange sight indeed. The apostles had been told that this day would come, that the Father would send the Advocate as his special gift, but there are some experiences that no amount of explanation can prepare us for, and this certainly was one of those.John’s account of Pentecost speaks of a rather quiet encounter. Jesus came to spend some time with the apostles, like he had before. I can almost hear his greeting, ‘Peace be with you’ (Jn 20:19) spoken with tenderness and love. His voice is serene yet there is a note of joyful expectation as he comes to spend some time with his friends. He knew that the moment had come when he would give them the gift of the Spirit (Jn 20:22), a special gift to accompany them and us through life.
This was the moment when the Church as we know it was born. As he breathed this new life upon the apostles (Jn 20:23), he gave them the power to forgive sins, to be ministers of his grace for the life of the world.
The day of Pentecost was so important to the early Church that there is a second account of this occurrence recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, but this telling of the story is different. The writer of the Acts says that there was the sound of a violent wind (Acts 2:2) and that something that looked like tongues of fire rested on the heads of all those who were there (Acts 2:3). This is a very different portrayal from the quiet account of the gospel.
Whether the moment of the Church’s birth was quiet or not, the truth is that the apostles and their successors, and indeed all the baptised have been given extraordinary responsibilities because we have been entrusted with the task of communicating God’s life and love to the world in which we live.
To do this, we have been given a variety of gifts (1 Cor 12:3) and if we accept the invitation to cooperate with God in passing on the message, we each form a different part of the body (1 Cor 12:12), having specific tasks to do in order to share the good news.
Some of us are entrusted with the task of teaching our children by word and example about the value of faith, and about the power it has to help us overcome adversity. Some are given the responsibility to remind us of the place of faith in our lives, and about the fact that Jesus is always with us, guiding us with his word and nourishing us with holy food. Some of us are called to demonstrate our faith in the midst of infirmity, pain and suffering, uniting ourselves ever closer to the suffering of the Lord while others of us are called to be signs of hope and strength through our prayer for the Church and for her members, the living stones which make up the body of Christ.
The gifts of God are truly awe-inspiring. We receive them each day with thankful hearts, and we do our best to use them wisely so that through our witness of faith, made manifest in the words we speak about Christ’s love and the gestures of welcome and acceptance we extend to others, we may begin to speak a very special language of the heart which has the power to call all people to a deeper understanding of the One who lives with us, laughs and cries with us, feeds us, consoles us and offers us the gift of his peace.
