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Sunday Reading Connections and Life-Application
Sunday Reading Connections and Life-Application
Rescue Missions at Dunkirk and Pentecost
You could say the last two millennia, starting with Pentecost and continuing even to today, have been a continuous Dunkirk evacuation.
Why should this story remind us of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, celebrated this past Sunday? The spiritual life is a war, and Christ’s paschal mystery can be called a divine rescue plan for our souls. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit rescued the apostles from Satan’s power—and not just rescued them, but made them into rescuers. Likewise for us: We should know and experience salvation as a gift, and then we must recognize that we are called to save souls, just as the disciples at Pentecost were.
James Wetzstein
Valparaiso University
The Pentecost (After Maíno) by Michael Stevens
Commissioned especially for the Word on Fire Bible (Volume II): Acts, Letters, and Revelation,
Fr. Pat Browne and
Fr. Patrick van der Vorst
Please join Father Pat Browne and Patrick van der Vorst in this short film as they pray to the Holy Spirit using Art. The Holy Spirit is not a thing. The Holy Spirit is a Person. Someone we can relate to as one person to another. As human beings we use images to make the Holy Spirit understandable. We need to express the Infinite in a way for our finite minds to understand. These images are not just random. In sacred Scripture, the Holy Spirit gets described as water, breath, fire, a dove, a stream… each image telling us something about who the Holy Spirit is as a person.
Ann Osdieck
Acts 2:1-11
Blazing like wind-driven fire,
you flash through
all creation.
You are
far
and
near.
Not just in one place and time,
but everywhere.
We
welcome
your Spirit in us.
Set a fire in our hearts
every minute of every day!
Make us fierce in your love,
and send us to the
ends of the
earth.
SOURCE: Sunday Website
A Sequence is a liturgical poetry that is added to the Liturgy of the Word on special occasions during the church year. Pentecost, along with Christmas and Easter, constitutes the three great feasts celebrated by the Catholic Church.
Sequences were common in the early church. There were hundreds written and sung during the liturgies. Today only four continue to be used in the liturgical year and only two are required – on Easter and Pentecost. n the Sequence, the faithful repeatedly call on the Spirit to come into their lives, heal their wounds and wash away the stain of guilt. The Sequence can be recited or sung prior to the Gospel.
Pentecost, Pope Francis, and the Lightness of Being
Acts 1:1–11
It used to be that when the Pope
Would speak, he didn’t speak to me;
He’s always been the voice of judgment,
And too high authority;
Plus, as a pastor, I had seen
The damage done unto his flock,
When people to our doors appeared,
Cast from their church right down the block;
But this Pope speaks a different line,
SOURCE: LectionaryPoems.com
NBC Miniseries
2006
