Are you ready to receive your gift?

Feast of Pentecost John 14, 16-16, 23b-26 Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Those who do not love me do not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. “I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” Today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost means 50 days, 50 days ago we celebrated the Feast of Easter. But Pentecost is not simply the end of the Easter Season; it doesn’t mean that know we get to wear green and enter into Ordinary Time. No, Pentecost is the culmination of Easter, today we celebrate Easter in its fullness. Today we celebrate the Birth of the Church. We celebrate that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Disciples and the disciples began their mission. That is what it means to be a Church after all. Many times, we think about Church as a building, sort of like taking care of the things that we have, building structures, rules, and regulations. That couldn’t be further from the truth. To be Church means the opposite. It isn’t about looking in; it is about looking out. It is about taking care of what we have; but being concerned about those outside. It is about building structures and buildings; it is about being missionaries. For the last 50 days we have been reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles is the story of the Church. We began the story with weak Peter and fearful disciples all hidden in the upper room. They were afraid to go out. But filled with Holy Spirit weak Peter became a strong leader, our first Pope. The Fearful disciples became witness to the Resurrection. They had received the gift of the Spirit. How appropriate it is that we celebrate sacraments today. Those who will be baptized, those who will receive the Eucharist for the first time and most especially those who will be confirmed. You will all receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is not a gift for yourself, but it is gift that is meant to be shared. All of you who will receive a sacrament today are being given a gift. In fact, all of us who are the Church are being given gifts today. But the gift we are receiving are not like some crystal statue that needs to be put on a high shelf somewhere, so it doesn’t break. No, the gifts we are giving our ones that need to be taken down from the shelf and shared with the world. So let us continue with the celebration of these sacraments today so that we can be blest with the Holy Spirit and then go out and continue to build the Church.