Here Comes Pentecost!

Dear Friend,

Here comes Pentecost, like a mighty wind, and unlike most winds it seems not to scatter things but to gather. The Spirit as a unifying force is sweeping over the place “where the disciples were” like the wind over the waters in Genesis, touching a primordial chaos. The Spirit brings order, form, particularity. It differentiates, as well, light from darkness, water from land, earth from sky. In one place there are different tongues, which as we learn are native languages - at least “native” to some and for others needing translation.

My heart wants to respond in two different ways. One, I want to take cover, shut up, and let it happen. On the other hand, I feel empowered to proclaim - the point of Pentecost, to not be afraid to speak up. The original confounded listeners were astounded by a kind of song putting them in touch with “the mighty acts of God.”

This week the novices are in Sequoia National Park beholding the mighty trees, so many thousands of years old. They’ll touch the bark of these “mighty acts of God”.  I visited those groves myself as a novice. I was struck by a silence charged with energy.

Saint Paul says that each one of us is given a manifestation of the Spirit for some benefit, including a language - and languages - to name those gifts, to name the “mighty acts of God”. This “naming” draws us more deeply into the mystery of being a creature made in the image and likeness of God. Says Michael Himes: “Some things, we know, cannot be said adequately, but they are so important, so central to our lives, that we cannot possibly not try to talk about them.” These “things” include the loves of our lives as well as the injustices that threaten to destroy them.

Gratefully,

Father Dan