May 19--Pentecost

 

El Greco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Happy Birthday to our dear Mother Church! It was on Pentecost thousands of years ago when the Church was born to continue Jesus’ mission in the world; to help bring about forgiveness and offer salvation to humanity through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples so they could share the love of God with everyone they met. They were bestowed the gifts of the Holy Spirit so those gifts could enable others to come to God’s love.

Jesus commissioned them to spread the Good News: "Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn. 20: 21). But first he said to wait for the Advocate, the Holy Spirit who would come upon them: “‘When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning’” (Jn. 15:26-27).

So now we have been commissioned and anointed. We have been given the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. We use them when we are called to testify to our faith. We have been given the fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We live lives that demonstrate our commitment to Christ and his bride, the Church.

We trust in God to love us, to guide us, and to grace us so that we may be his witnesses and ambassadors to the world:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

Saturday following the Second Sunday after Pentecost--Immaculate Heart of Mary

 

https://www.discerninghearts.com/catholic-podcasts/prayer-immaculate-heart-mary/

Prayer to Immaculate Heart of Mary

O Most Blessed Mother, heart of love, heart of mercy, ever listening, caring, consoling, hear our prayer. As your children, we implore your intercession with Jesus your Son. Receive with understanding and compassion the petitions we place before you today, especially those so deep in our heart.

We are comforted in knowing your heart is ever open to those who ask for your prayer. We trust to your gentle care and intercession, those whom we love and who are sick or lonely or hurting. Help all of us, Holy Mother, to bear our burdens in this life until we may share eternal life and peace with God forever.
Amen.

This prayer, found at the Discerning Hearts website, reminds us of the love God has for us; he gives us a mother so loving and pure, that we can go to him through her.  Mary leads us to Jesus, who shows us the Father.  Mary was with Jesus throughout his life.  She prompted his first miracle, the changing of water to wine at Cana for the benefit of the couple.  She was at his feet when he was crucified, suffering as only a mother can for a beloved son.  She was in the Upper Room with the disciples at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them.  She was the first and best disciple of Christ.  

She is our mother and she wants us to know and love her beloved Son that he may make us beloved sons and daughters of the Father, his true friends and holy disciples, and worthy temples of the Holy Spirit.  We ask for her intercession, especially through her Immaculate Heart, so we may be drawn up in love for God and for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

First Sunday after Pentecost--Trinity Sunday

Photo of Prayer Card of the Holy Trinity licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Pentecost signals the end of the Easter Season. But there are more solemnities that occur throughout Ordinary Time; the first of these is Trinity Sunday. The Trinity is the most fundamental dogma of the Church because it is about God. The Church in the fourth-seventh centuries dealt with the Arian Heresy, which stated that Jesus was not the same substance as the Father, in other words, Jesus was not God. This resulted in much tribulation in the Church. St. Jerome once wrote: “The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.” The Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 and the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 brought forth the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is recited at every Sunday Mass. This contained the key word, homoousios, which is translated into English as “consubstantial.” God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three persons in one God, a “triunity.”

The great defender of orthodoxy, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, taught: “We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved.”

At every Mass we have the great doxology before the Great Amen: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours almighty Father, forever and ever Amen.” We are united in our faith in God, who created us and saves us.

 

Monday after Pentecost--Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church

Last spring, Pope Francis decreed that “the ancient devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of Mother of the Church, be inserted into the Roman Calendar” on the Monday after Pentecost. Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, said “the Pope’s decision took account of the tradition surrounding the devotion to Mary as Mother of the Church.” The Holy Father “wishes to promote this devotion in order to ‘encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety.’”

The Scriptures for the day include either Gn. 3:9-15, 20, which is the promise to Adam and Eve that God will save them through the New Adam, son of the New Eve, Mary, or Acts 1:12-14, which mentions Mary as the mother of Jesus after the Ascension and before the Pentecost. The Gospel is from Jn 19:25-34, where Jesus gives his mother to the beloved disciple: “‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother.’”

The Tradition that Mary is the Mother of the Church goes all the way back to Jesus and has been developed more fully through the ages. In 1964, “Pope Paul VI ‘declared the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of the Church, that is to say of all Christian people, the faithful as well as the pastors, who call her the most loving Mother” and established that “the Mother of God should be further honoured and invoked by the entire Christian people by this tenderest of titles”’”. As our mother, Mary intercedes on our behalf to her Son, Jesus Christ. We are blessed with such a gracious, loving mother! Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.