PENTECOST WEEKEND.... COME HOLY SPIRIT FILL THE HEARTS OF YOUR FAITHFUL!

 Open your Heart

                                      to the Healing

                                     Graces 

      of  the  

            Holy Spirit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0COhHYlymI

PENTECOST SUNDAY

Acts 2:1-11, 1Cor. 12-7,12-13, Gospel John 20:19-23

Today we celebrate the birthday of the Church. The church was born at the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came down to give new life to all and transform us into a new creation. As a sign of new beginning to the church, Pope Francis is putting great emphasis on what we as individuals can do in order to bring the presence of God and make a difference in our world. He has not talked much about programs and he has not talked much about doctrine. Rather he has concentrated on us as individuals simply because transformation and new life has to begin in a personal level before it makes a great impact in the community.

But the case of the apostles, it was a unique way of a communal transformation.  We heard that Jesus breathes on his disciples and gives them the Spirit who changes their lives for God. Upon receiving the Spirit, in the first reading, we heard about the about them spoken in different tongues in the most powerful way. St Paul, in the second reading also spoke of the Holy Spirit as giver of gifts. He sees a diversity of gifts under the Holy Spirit. In the Church, we experience this diversity of gifts in the various ministries and organizations. These ministries contribute to the unity of the parish community and unity in diversity as a universal church on earth. 

However, the Holy Spirit is more than just diversity of gifts in the church. In the Nicene Creed, we profess that the Spirit is Lord and giver of life. Let us also reflect on this. The Spirit is giver of life. In fact, it is the Spirit who makes the present Church alive and it is the Spirit who gives life. The active participation of the laity in the Church, the flourishing of Church organizations and Charismatic communities is also an index of the presence of the Spirit. Speaking form my own experience, the Holy Spirit is really giver of new life. I became a new person after receiving the sacrament of confirmation when I was in my second high school. All my teachers in schools were amazed to see me becoming a new person. I was so naughty fighting in school to the point of receiving a serious warning to be suspended. But I believe God works in the right time to make me new with the zeal of the Holy Spirit.

Today, as we celebrate the birthday of the church, I believe the best gift we can give to our church is to allow Holy Spirit to take control over our lives so that we can be renewed and transformed into the new voices, hands, feet and faces of Christ to the world of 21st century. Amen!

Pope on Pentecost Preaching: The Holy Spirit Enlivens the Church (1121)

The Holy Spirit is the ‘interior Teacher,’ guiding us ‘along the right path, throughout the situations of life.’

by CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY 06/09/2014  

Pope Francis gives a homily in St. Peter’s Basilica on Pentecost Sunday.

– CNA/Daniel Ibáñez

VATICAN CITY — On the feast of Pentecost, Pope Francis focused his homily and Angelus address on the work of the Holy Spirit in guiding and giving life to the Church.

The first Pentecost “does not remain only limited to that moment, but is an event that is renewed and renews itself again. Christ, glorified at the right [hand] of the Father, continues to realize his promise, sending the Holy Spirit to enliven the Church, who teaches us, reminds us and makes us speak,” the Pope preached to the congregation at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 8.

The Holy Spirit is the “interior Teacher,” explained the Holy Father, guiding us “along the right path, throughout the situations of life.”

“In the early days of the Church, Christianity was called ‘the way,’ and Jesus himself is the way. The Holy Spirit teaches us to follow him, to walk in his footsteps. More than a teacher of doctrine, the Spirit is a teacher of life.”

Pope Francis noted that the work of the Spirit is something “we have all experienced” — for example, in reading Scripture, when we are drawn to one passage after another and feel Christ speaking to us.

“The Spirit of truth and charity reminds us of all that Christ has said, makes us enter more fully into the sense of his words.”

This reminding helps Christians remain fully in the Church, for “a Christian without memory is not a true Christian,” he stressed. Rather, he or she is a “prisoner of the moment, who doesn’t know the treasures of his history, doesn't know to read it and live it like the story of salvation.”

The Holy Spirit gives us “the wisdom of memory,” which grows in us through prayer, another gift of the Spirit that allows us “to call God father — and this is not just a ‘figure of speech,’ but is the reality,” Pope Francis emphasized.

It is not only the speech of prayer that the Holy Spirit gives us, however, but also “fraternal dialogue” and “prophecy,” helping us to “speak with friendship, with tenderness,” as “humble and docile ‘channels,’ for the word of God.”

It was this power of the Holy Spirit that allowed the apostles to be heard in many different languages on that first Pentecost, explained Pope Francis later in his Angelus remarks.

“The Book of Acts describes the signs and fruits of that extraordinary outpouring: the strong wind and the flames of fire; the fear disappears and gives way courage; tongues are loosened, and everyone understands the announcement,” he recounted to the crowds filling St. Peter’s Square at noon on Sunday.

Pentecost marks the “birth of the Church,” the Pope noted, which has two aspects: “a Church that surprises and that makes a mess.”

“Our God is a God of surprises, we know this,” he exclaimed.

The descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost “inspires awe because, with the strength that comes from God, [the disciples] announce a new message — the resurrection of Christ — with a new language: universal love.”

Although Jesus’ disciples had been gathered together in fear, at the Holy Spirit’s coming, they are empowered to “speak with courage ... and frankness, with the freedom of the Holy Spirit.”

Pope Francis then emphasized that the Holy Spirit leads Christians “into the world” to proclaim the Gospel, even if at times it can be an uncomfortable truth for people to hear.

“The Church of Pentecost is a Church that is not resigned to being innocuous” or just a “decorative element” in the world, he insisted.

Rather, “the Church does not hesitate to come out, meet the people, to proclaim the message that has been entrusted to it, even if that message disturbs and worries consciences.”

The message, however, is a message of love, which “embraces the world,” not to “capture” it, but, rather, to “receive” it.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-on-pentecost-preaching-the-holy-spirit-enlivens-the-church/#ixzz34GQsVF3C

Bishop Fulton Sheen - Life is Worth Living...  Angels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaa7I44gkgc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgQ_YQCZRFM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_57fD6Ado

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgFndZIH568

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6O7MVrtHq0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yFzCBIK-PY

St. John Paul II & Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WtMvsDHpaU