Homily for Tuesday, 30 June 2015‒ Mass of the Holy Spirit

Tuesday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

This homily was given during a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit celebrated with faith formation and youth ministry leaders of the Diocese of Rochester at St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry, Rochester, NY.

Readings of the day: Isaiah 11:1-3a; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; Luke 4:16-21

My sisters and brothers, I feel humbled to celebrate with you, faith formation and youth ministry leaders of this Diocese of Rochester, this Mass of the Holy Spirit. Have any of us ever experienced how the Holy Spirit is beyond our words; concepts; images? We are in danger of limiting the Holy Spirit; limiting God if we try to describe the Holy Spirit by our words, concepts, and images.

And yet we are teachers; we are engaged in faith formation of our young people; sacramental preparation for confirmation. We work and live in a world of words; concepts; images. And so where do we begin in understanding something of the Holy Spirit? Or is not the Holy Spirit somebody, not something, not primarily to be understood but first a personal relationship with God that we experience?

How, then, do we experience the Holy Spirit? How are the youth we form in our parishes; the youth we form for the sacrament of confirmation experience the Holy Spirit? During my years in seminary in Toronto I ministered in children’s sacramental preparation. One of my favorite activities, when speaking of our experience of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was to give the children three blank sheets of paper. On one sheet, I would ask them to write or draw the first word or image in their minds when they thought of God the Father, then the same for the Son, and then the same for the Holy Spirit. Each year I received many drawings of an old, wise, and kind-looking man in the clouds to represent God the Father; a young, handsome, bearded man on land to represent the Son (the hippie Jesus?); and doves, wind lines, or occasionally fire to represent the Spirit. One year, when we were discussing our images of the Holy Spirit, one child handed me his still-blank page. “I don’t get it,” the child sighed, frustrated. To this day this child’s blank page is the best response to this activity I have ever seen!

Where do we begin with the Holy Spirit? Our readings today do not help us much. Isaiah speaks of “the Spirit of the LORD” as a series of gifts received by the prophet: Gifts “of wisdom and of understanding… of counsel and of strength… of knowledge and fear of the LORD.” These are the seven spiritual gifts listed in the Rite of Confirmation; the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit received or, perhaps better yet, intensified in us when we receive the sacrament of confirmation.

Like Isaiah, St. Paul understands the Holy Spirit as many “spiritual gifts but the same Spirit.” This is analogous to Paul’s description of our Church, Christ’s Body, as one body “though it has many parts,” or his emphasis on God as one yet inspiring in us “different forms of service”; “different workings,” all given to us “for some benefit”; for our unity as a community of faith. Unlike Isaiah, St. Paul does not even presume to list off individual gifts of God’s Spirit. Again, Paul’s emphasis is on the unity among us wrought by the Holy Spirit: “We were all baptized into one body… and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

The Psalmist conceives of God’s Spirit as a force for our renewal. We pray, “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.” And the high point of God’s renewal of “the face of the earth” is reached in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. In Luke’s Gospel we hear Jesus, standing before the synagogue crowd in his hometown of Nazareth, and proclaiming anew the words of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the LORD.”

Who is in need of the Spirit’s renewal today? Of course all of us are. But who are those especially in need of God’s Spirit: “The poor… the blind… the oppressed” among us today? It is no secret that our city; our diocese includes some of the poorest people in our nation. Even in the richest parishes, do we not encounter the materially poor; the unemployed and underemployed; the migrant; the refugee child and family? Have we not already encountered those “oppressed” by the breakdown of marriages and families; children who can become “blind” to God’s love for them by suffering; by experiences we would wish on no child; no person?

These are the people to whom the Lord sends us especially “to proclaim the Good News”: “Today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Today God’s Holy Spirit is present among us. Today God’s Holy Spirit calls us to unity in Christ: “Many spiritual gifts” but “one body, one spirit in Christ.”

How do we proclaim this message today to those who are well-off; to those who are in stable households; to those who already have a strong faith; a strong relationship with God, and to those who do not; who are among “the poor,” the “oppressed,” and the “blind”? Today we are this living message. Today we are “the Scripture… fulfilled” in one another’s hearing; one another’s experience. Today we are sent to bear the Holy Spirit to all we meet; all we teach; all whom we form in our faith.

We may from time to time be like the child with a blank sheet of paper: “I don’t get it”! But is the Holy Spirit not less about “getting it” than living it? “The Holy Spirit is upon me.” How deeply do we believe and act by these words of Isaiah; words echoed by our Lord Jesus? If we live by kindness toward those we serve, even in the smallest ways; if we live in a way that seeks out those in special need and seeks to satisfy those needs as we are able; if we are humble enough to learn from those we teach; catechize; form; to place ourselves where they are in their experience of our faith, then we will know the Spirit more deeply than we could ever express in words or images.

We will then be able to say after our Lord: “The Spirit of the LORD” is upon me… Today this Scripture… is fulfilled in [our] hearing.” Today we are in relationship with our God of loving service as faith formators. Today God’s Holy Spirit dwells among us and is at work through us in the renewal of “the face of the earth.”