Scripture Reflections for Pentecost Sunday

“Such reluctance to share salvation is rooted in a worry about meaninglessness; a concern not to lose what makes us distinct, or cherished. This fear produces the world’s divisions and hatreds – we push others down to build ourselves up.”

“In today’s world, where we see conflicts over language and cultural issues...we can learn from the experience of my deaf colleagues who saw the dignity of every human person and seemed to make it their mission to encounter each person in a meaningful way.”

“Pentecost then is the epiphany, the manifestation of the covenant community of the Church which is born from the side of Christ on Calvary”

“The Spirit is unexpected – yet one hundred percent reliable”

“what's that wonderful tensive place of balance where we find the love that the Holy Spirit is? That's what we ought to be focused upon and shooting for.”

“What sin has scattered the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breathe, the Holy Speech, precisely through the ministry of the Church is meant to gather”

“we acknowledge Christ now as ruler, Lord, governor, shepherd of the whole word and that risen and ascended Christ having sent his Holy Spirit into us his church now begins to reign. That, friends, is the power of this great feast Pentecost”

“The Holy Spirit, which is a spirit of love, unites the people but without suppressing their individuality, without suppressing what makes them unique.”

“when you let the wind and the flame of the Holy Spirit in your life, you have a gift in you and the idea now is to share that with all you got for the upbuilding of the body of Christ. That's the Spirit alive in you.”

“Why is the Holy Spirit compared to wind? Think of it as the inrushing of the divine life to establish or re-establish an equilibrium in the soul”

“First of all, the Spirit strengthens us in our relationship to Jesus. Secondly, in our capacity to defend the faith. And thirdly, in our capacity to spread the faith. Those three strengthening come from the Holy Spirit and that's been true from the ancient church to the present day”

“When circumstances happen, we often lock ourselves up and close others off, including God. The thing is, He can enter our heart and soul – even though the doors are locked. So why fight Him?”

“Isn’t that really what the Holy Spirit is for us? A simple answer to a life we make so complex?”

“This is a peace that flows from the reality of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, and who he is and will be forever...that can only come in the present moment of encounter with Jesus, and which stands or falls as we stand or fall before him.”

“the final words of Jesus on the cross 'it is finished' potentially connect with the first words of the risen Christ to the assembled disciples: 'Peace.' Two terms of phrase that completes Christ's death and resurrection.”

"I highly recommend reading the commentary I also posted on this site on the Readings for the Vigil in preparation for the Mass of Pentecost Day. The Readings for the..."

“the first Christian Pentecost was, in many ways, the first fruits of the new Passover of Christ’s Passion and entry into the expanded Promised Land of all the world open to the Good News of Salvation for all”

“We all have need to pray for the renewed giving of the Holy Spirit in our lives, for in various ways we come to dampen that divine fire within us”

“As Jesus breathed new life upon his disciples at Pentecost, he also infuses his Holy Spirit as a balm that heals and unites the human spirit with the Holy Trinity, to God”

“We each have something good to give to the world. It is a talent, a way of being, a spark of humor or art—something given to us that is the Holy Spirit sanctifying the world through each of us.”

“The feast of Pentecost offers us the chance to look at the role which forgiveness should play in our dealings with others. Thus, we are challenged to examine our sense of compassion, patience, tolerance, and magnanimity.”

“Forgiveness does not demand the erasure the past, for we may remember all that we have done and been, individually and as society, trusting in the fecundity of the Lord’s grace to triumph of every death dealing act”

“This outpouring of the Holy Spirit became a creation of a new world, the perfect completion of God’s creative, redemptive and sanctifying work”

“His Spirit meets us deep within us to connect us to the reality of his saving death for the forgiveness of sins, to connect us to the reality of his resurrection that promises us new life”

“In the story of Pentecost, difference is harmony; people didn’t all start talking the same language, but all the different languages started telling the same story – the story of the marvels of God; at Babel they tried to rival God; at Pentecost they joined together to praise God”

“And this is the one thing that I wish all people from around the world could experience and see and feel – the joy and love and power of the Holy Spirit when people come together in Christ”

“The transformation that comes along with forgiveness is not limited to only the individual or those “directly” affected by the act; on the contrary, forgiveness transforms the entire universe, the entire “body.””

“The gift of languages given at Pentecost turns what had been a sign of humanity’s mutual misunderstanding and division into a sign of the richness and the abundance of God’s Word, a Word which unites peoples and cultures without destroying their distinctiveness or particularity”

“if we do forgive, God opens up a new life of possibilities before us, and hope for a life with him that will never die”

“Our being made holy, sanctified, by the Spirit will bring us to blessedness before God, but this is not necessarily an easy option: the wind of the Spirit will scour and expose all that rejects the love lavished upon the world by a God who has sent his only Son.”

“Communities are united by their common values but a perfect community requires the presence of the Holy Spirit in each one of us, binding us together in perfect love”

“So Pentecost is literally a very ‘down-to-earth’ event, the display of the overcoming of death and sin. We marvel in the gift of the Holy Spirit, but accept the way it is given, to be worked out in history, in a ‘human way’.”

“Pentecost happened at meeting and it happened to a community, to a church congregation assembled for prayer, to a family of faith gathered to wait for God’s guidance...Our search for God should take us not just into private places of quiet and contemplation but, equally, into meeting rooms”

“What pentecost needs to pour into us today is the spirit of resiliency, the spirit of forgiveness, the spirit of patience, the spirit of long-suffering, the spirit of understanding, and the spirit to not go jogging or bowling alone.”

“You want the real thing, authentic power, surrender your life over to the Holy Spirit...you will find you will tap into this source of power to change things for good, change things for the better in your life, in your family, in your place of work”

“You've received the Holy Spirit. Now breathe it forth to your world.”

“if I say Jesus Christ is Lord of my life...it doesn't mean I pay attention to him for a few minutes once a week. It doesn't mean I pay him lip service...it means he has taken possession of me.”

“What's the Church's business? What's the Church's deepest identity? Simply this, to make people holy.”

“on this feast of Pentecost pray, pray. Invoke the Holy Spirit: 'Come, Holy Spirit, stir up in me that gift you want' and when you find that gift make it the absolute center of your life.”

“There is something, Christians, wonderfully untamable about the Spirit. Just when we think we have God corralled, we have the ways of God figured, the Spirit has a way of blowing over all of our structures, all of our assumptions.”