June 9, 2025
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of Pentecost on June 8, 2025, at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago, IL. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23.
It’s the birthday of the Church and a magnificent celebration of the Holy Spirit!
How does the Spirit guide us? At this Mass, we will be bombarded with images of the Holy Spirit. Most remarkable is the great Pentecost sequence we’ll hear right before the Gospel Acclamation. The text was written about 900 years ago, and it offers many titles and images for the Holy Spirit that we rarely talk about today: Father of the Poor, the one who makes the rigid flexible, the one who warms the frozen, and the one who brings enthusiasm to our faith.
And speaking of enthusiasm, that’s the image that prevails in my understanding of the First Christian Pentecost described in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. I imagine that in the Upper Room in the days after the Ascension, the 120 or so disciples who had followed Jesus from Galilee 7 weeks earlier were praying, singing, and sharing about their individual experiences of Jesus for the first time. And as they become more and more excited, the Holy Spirit came upon them and blew the doors outward, sending the disciples forth to share the gospel throughout the entire world.
Let us be sprinkled once again with holy water, celebrating in what font we have been washed, by whose Blood we have been redeemed, and by whose Spirit we have been reborn!
Today is the third most important day of the Church year. But somehow, Pentecost fails to excite most Christians as much as Easter or Christmas. That’s a shame: the Holy Spirit is the glue that holds our faith together. It makes us the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit dwells within each of us. It guides us both as individuals and as a church community.
When we prepare people for confirmation, we usually speak about the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Since I currently have a “cheat sheet” in front of me, I’ll name them: wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. But that over-simplifies the power and the gifts of the Spirit. We have each been gifted – or graced – by the Spirit in multiple, unique ways. As a Paulist priest, I understand my mission as helping people to see how the Spirit is already working in their lives!
But the only way I can witness to the Spirit working in any of you is to have a one-on-one conversation with you. So today, in the interest of time, I’ll witness to you about three graces that I have received from the Holy Spirit.
The first one occurred at a low point in my life when I lived outside of New York City. My engineering job had become rather unfulfilling and quite stressful. Then, one Sunday in the fall of 1999, I learned that my parish would be holding a special service of the anointing of the sick that afternoon. On the spur of the moment, I decided to go. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life. As Fr. Gerry anointed my hands, parishioners I did not know surrounded me and touched my arms and shoulders. And in that moment, I felt the embrace of God in a new way. And the gift I received? Trust that God would always be with me. Since then, that grace, that gift, has never left me.
The next experience was in May of 2001. I was singing with the Diocesan Choir at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh for an ordination – the first one I had ever attended. I don’t know exactly why, but I had a “lightning bolt” experience – I suddenly sensed that God was inviting me to consider becoming a priest. I am convinced that that day, I received the gift of vocation – a sense of what God has called me to do with my life. I love being a priest and a Paulist, and I’m convinced that there are several young men in our parish who are called to this same vocation that fills me with joy, with radiance, and with an overwhelming sense of purpose!
But in the process of applying to the seminary, I discovered another grace that I had received. I was one of the many people who had had a pretty miserable time in junior high school. But things had begun to turn around for me as I gained a sense of understanding other people’s perspectives. And remarkably, I found that I could pinpoint when that began to happen in my life… and that it coincided almost exactly to when I was confirmed in November of 1987! I now view this gift of understanding, or perhaps, of empathy, as a grace of the Holy Spirit.
Three gifts of the Holy Spirit. Three unexpected moments. Connected with … three sacraments of the Catholic Church? Every time we receive a sacrament, we receive grace. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Sacraments are not a reward for a job well done; they are graces for the journey ahead!
What is grace? It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. Every time we receive a sacrament — including every time we receive the sacraments of the Eucharist, Reconciliation, and the Anointing of the Sick — we have the opportunity to ask God for a grace, for a gift of the Holy Spirit. Let’s take a moment to pray in silence: what is the gift I wish to receive today, Lord? [Silence for 15-30 seconds.] There are many gifts, but one same Spirit.
Why do we use red to depict the Holy Spirit? Because we often represent the Holy Spirit as fire. Fire has an important property in chemical reactions, including cooking. You can assemble all the ingredients for a meal or all the chemicals for an experiment, but it often takes the heat of fire to cause those elements to change. Each ingredient is more pliable, new flavors come to the fore, and together, the ingredients become a new creation.
When the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in the Upper Room, a chemical reaction happened. Suddenly, each disciple’s experience of Jesus was refined and forged into a new gospel. And that heat, that fire, that flexibility, that combination of flavors, that forging of the new gospel burst the doors open, compelling the disciples to stream into the streets to proclaim the mighty acts of God.
Let us pray: On this great feast of Pentecost, come once again, Holy Spirit. Give us the graces necessary to propel us forward in our journey of faith together. Amen!