by Fr. Tommy Lane
I would like to read to you a short description by Fr Pat Collins of a charismatic prayer meeting he attended.
“I attended an extraordinary prayer meeting on a Thursday evening. From the outset a special anointing of the Spirit was upon it. At one point early in the proceedings a woman gave a powerful utterance in tongues. Subsequently we were told by Cardinal Ó Fiach’s secretary, a nun who had once ministered in Africa, that the woman had recited parts of the litany of Loreto in Swahili. Apparently, she had repeated the phrase, ‘Mary is Queen of Peace’ a number of times. ”
From Prayer in
Practice: a biblical approach by Fr Pat Collins CM and published by Columba Press, page 173 and used
here with permission.
It is a modern day example of speaking
in tongues similar to the apostles speaking in tongues on Pentecost. When I was studying in Rome there was a
very powerful charismatic prayer meeting in the English language on Sunday
afternoons. I was told that one
Sunday afternoon someone from another country who didn’t know Irish (in Ireland Gaelic
is called Irish) spoke in
tongues in Irish (Gaelic). It
is another modern day example of speaking in tongues similar to the apostles on
Pentecost. Both of these incidents
are examples of what Paul meant in our second reading (Vigil Mass),
“The Spirit too comes
to help us in our weakness. For
when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself
expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who
knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means…” They are examples of how the Holy Spirit can move us when we
are open to the touch of the Holy Spirit.
I am sure you have all heard people say
that we use only 1% of our brains and that we could achieve so much more if we
put our brains to better use. I
think we could say the same about our reliance on the Holy Spirit. Maybe we rely only 1% on the Holy
Spirit. The two examples of people
praying in tongues led by the Holy Spirit are just a tiny glimpse of what could
happen if the entire Church were vibrant with the Holy Spirit. A Lutheran minister, Soren Kierkegaard,
once compared Christians to geese. Those
geese are always talking about flying; “We have wings but we don’t use them,
we should use our wings and fly!” But nobody ever does fly. On Sundays a big
gander stands in a lectern higher than the geese, and encourages the geese to
fly, using most beautiful words. But nobody flies, and if one did, the preacher
would be the first to shout: “Get down at once!”
What would the Church be like if it
were vibrant with the Holy Spirit? In
his letters, Paul writes about the gifts given to the early Church by the Holy
Spirit as if such gifts are commonplace in the Church. In his first letter to the Corinthians
12:7-11 Paul wrote,
“The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each
person is for a good purpose. One
may have the gift of preaching with wisdom given him by the Spirit; another may
have the gift of preaching instruction given him by the same Spirit; and another
the gift of faith given by the same Spirit; another again the gift of healing,
through this one Spirit; one, the power of miracles; another, prophecy; another
the gift of recognizing spirits; another the gift of tongues and another the
ability to interpret them. All
these are the work of one and the same Spirit who distributes different gifts to
different people just as he chooses.”
To
use the words of Soren Kierkegaard, if the Church were vibrant with the Holy
Spirit it would be flying!!! But we
must not idealize the early Church. As
we read Paul’s letters we realize that the early Church had as many problems
as the Church now, and the Church in Corinth, to whom Paul wrote that beautiful
passage about the gifts of the Spirit had more problems than any other church
Paul founded.
So I ask you to pray that the Church
may receive a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I have heard missionaries on holidays
in Ireland from Africa say “the Church in this country is dead and lifeless compared to
Africa. There is great spirit in the Church in Africa.” Maybe we are relying only 1% on the Holy
Spirit. During the Season of
Easter, which concludes today, our first reading at each weekday and Sunday Mass
was taken from the Acts of the Apostles. It
is a beautiful account of the early Church being led by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless we also see in that account
that the Church had problems to overcome. The
Acts of the Apostles says that after Jesus’ ascension he took his seat at the
right hand side of his Father and from there he poured out the Holy Spirit on
the Church. I ask you to pray to
Jesus asking him to continue to pour the Holy Spirit out on the Church so that
the Church may fly!
This homily was delivered when I was engaged in parish ministry in Ireland
before joining the faculty of
Mount St. Mary’s Seminary,
Emmitsburg, Maryland. More homilies for Pentecost
Sunday Renewed by the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost - Sr Emmanuel’s experience Living as authentic
followers of Jesus will help many to come to follow Jesus (Year B) Related Homilies:
How can we receive the Holy
Spirit to raise us up? my meditation on Pentecost in
Let’s Talk to Jesus