Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
Solemnity of Pentecost, May 30, 2004 Acts 2:1-11 Romans 8:8-17 John 20:19-23	Listen to Audio

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Jews, Romans, Greeks, Cretans, Arabs. People from Mesopotamia, which is present-day Iraq, and Cappadocia, which is present-day central Turkey. People from other places with exotic near-eastern names, Pontus, Phyrgia, Pamphylia. People from the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene.

All these people heard a motley band of country hicks from Galilee, who were generally regarded as low-class and uneducated, speak to them about the great power of God. And each one of these diverse people heard these country bumpkins speaking in their own language! But this variety of languages, impressive as it was, was not the greatest miracle.

To understand the greatest miracle of Pentecost, we first have to ask a question: What did all these people from these different lands and cultures have in common. Many were Jews, as is indicated in the account in Acts, but many obviously were not. Jerusalem was a center of trade as well. Some may have been on a religious pilgrimage, most were probably traveling for other reasons, probably commerce, that is, to make money off of one another. While religious observance or the desire for profit may have brought them together, what was the one characteristic they all shared in common? They hated one another!

That’s right. In those days people were not that much different from our own day. People of different languages, religions, cultures, values, habits, even ways of eating, sleeping, and working, have always viewed one another with suspicion and mistrust. They come together if something else forces them together, like business or outside oppression. But they still hate one another, and, left to themselves, will not live peaceably.

The miracle of Pentecost was not that they each heard the apostles speaking in their own language. The real miracle was that forty years later, when the story was written down by St. Luke, Christian communities had been established in each of those areas. They were the ones who kept alive the memory of the event, and shared that memory with others in a way that had power. The miracle was that forty years later, those who heard and believed, and themselves received the gift of the Holy Spirit, were still loving one another. And that miracle continued, by the time of the third generation of Christians – that is, those who received their faith “third-hand” from those who had received their faith from the original Apostles – say about 120 AD, there wasn’t a spot in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world that did not have a community of Christians, showing the truth of their faith more by the quality of their love than by any eloquence of preaching.

The history of those times, the first few generations after Jesus, is absolutely fascinating – and virtually unknown to most Catholics. It’s very necessary to have some sense of that history in order to put the New Testament in perspective. There will be some helpful links for exploring this early history on our website home page later today. Without an understanding of those times, we are going to have a distorted view of the Gospels and the other writings of the New Testament. One example will help clarify what I mean. We are accustomed to think that the Gospels, which narrate the various events of life of Jesus, were written first because they are placed first in the Bible, and then the other writings, like the letters of St. Paul, came later as kind of secondary teachings based on the Gospels. Actually, it’s just the opposite. The letters of St. Paul are our oldest and earliest Christian records. If you want to know how the earliest Christian communities believed in Jesus and how they lived that faith, look first at the letters of St. Paul. By the time the Gospel accounts were written, Paul’s letters were probably fairly familiar in many communities in various parts of the Near East and the Mediterranean world. So the Gospels show a faith in Jesus based on memories that had already become part of the everyday storytelling and teaching of people in the small but vibrant Christian communities.

Why is this important for us? If you read the letters of Paul first, and if you recognize that nearly two generations passed before John’s Gospel was written, you suddenly realize that the words we heard in today’s Gospel were important to the people for whom John was writing because they were already living them. In fact, the community existed because of those words. They knew from their own experience the importance of the work of the Holy Spirit in making forgiveness possible and bringing about reconciliation among people who otherwise would be hating and killing one another. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit that draws people together and enables them to overcome the differences that would otherwise keep them apart. By the same token, they realized that the worst sin, perhaps the ultimate sin against the Holy Spirit, was to cause division, alienation, mistrust, and hatred among those whom the Spirit had brought together and who professed to be Christ’s disciples.

And this miracle of Pentecost is one that we today must continue to allow the Holy Spirit to work in our midst. Our present-day supposed enlightenment and progress have only served to increase hatred and mistrust among people, with people on all sides doing what they have always done – justifying themselves and blaming others for all the wrongs and violence they experience. Can we trust the power of the Holy Spirit to show us that forgiving others is more important than “straightening them out”? Last year, in his message for the World Day for Peace, Pope John Paul II, at that time on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, uttered the prophetic words that remain ignored and unheeded throughout the world: there can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice without forgiveness. [I was in error on the timing, it was actually the year before, January 1, 2002 -- shortly after the tragedy of September 11. Here is the 2002 Message, as well as the 2003 Message and 2004 Message.]

The lesson of Pentecost for us, as we heard so simply in the Gospel, is that there can be no forgiveness without the power of the Holy Spirit. Can we trust in the Spirit’s power? Or must we continue to trust in our own?

© Thomas Welbers 2004

Here are some useful links, which provide material for the study of these liturgical readings, and reflections on their message:

The Text This Week, Pentecost.

Daily Word of Life

The Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University

Lectionary Resource for Catholics