Pentecost Sunday
I love this feast of
Pentecost. One of the reasons is because
I get to wear red. Don’t I look good in
red?
But aside from that these
are such powerful readings. You know as
I said earlier, the Spirit is poured out upon the apostles almost 2000 years
ago but again that same Spirit, Jesus pours out upon you and me today. And even though the doors of the church are
not locked, we don’t have any fears of why we are here and what we are going to
do the rest of the day hopefully, yet that Spirit wants to come into our lives,
into our hearts to empower us to be very courageous, very generous in
proclaiming and living and being the word of God.
Pentecost isn’t just
something that happened 2000 years ago.
I believe Pentecost is happening right here, today, in St. Alphonsus
Parish. The way that I believe that and
see that is I believe there are four, what I would call signs of the presence
of the Spirit in our parish community.
And the first one would be
what I call melding. Not melting, we are
not a melting pot, we’re a melding. We
are a coming together of so many different cultures, ethnic groups and peoples,
and generations, and people different ways of life. You go into that first reading and here there
were people from all over different parts of the world, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene,
Persia, Asia, Pomphylia, Capidocia and they all heard the apostles speaking in
their own tongues of the mighty acts of God.
We are a parish community whose descendents are Irish, don’t you hear me
speaking de Irish now don’t ya know? We
are Germans, Polish, Italian, Latinos, Vietnamese, people of Africa,
Pentecost is alive and well
here at St. Alphonsus Parish.
The second sign I see
happening is what I would call ministry.
You name and it’s taking place here at St. Al’s. There are some nights you cannot even get a
room for your organization or activity.
Every space is taken up. And
isn’t it amazing. You go back to the
1970’s, early 80’s. We had probably 4000
family units. We now have approximately
2600 family units, maybe close to 3000 depending, and we doubled the space, and
at times you still can’t find a room.
Do you realize we have AA
groups that meet three nights a week over in the Faith Formation building? Do you realize that there is a ministry in
this parish called Ministry of Praise?
These are men and women, in the privacy of their homes. Most of them are senior citizens. They have made a commitment that every day,
for 30 minutes, they will pray for the needs of St. Alphonsus Parish. There are no meetings involved. They don’t pay any dues. They don’t gather together as a group. But every quarter I send them a letter
thanking them for their ministry and asking them to pray for specific needs of
St. Alphonsus Parish. If you’d like to
join that contact the office and we will get you on the list and send you your
prayer kit.
Do you realize that there is
a prayer called the um—I forgot the name now—the, I got it here written down—on
Tuesday nights—help me out Margaret—Fountains of Living Praise. Springing forth. It’s another prayer group that meets here on
the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month and they pray and
they praise and worship God. Our
Adoration Chapel, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, somebody’s in there praying
for you and me, the people of St. Alphonsus Parish.
I think of all the
organizations and the other groups. You
know the commissions and the committees, all the different groups. You know you’ve got Parish Life Commission,
Worship Commission, Finance, Parish Council, Home and School, School Board,
Athletic Commission coming off the school.
You have a marketing committee, you have a
You understand too that we
are the only parish in the Archdiocese that has a program for special education
that Barb Walhood has been doing for what? 25 years. Fantastic.
Do you realize that we have
people who cut the grass, volunteers.
People who take care of the flower gardens, who wash the windows and the
doors. You name it, it’s going on. What are people doing? They are using their gifts and their talents
to bring forth the mission of Christ.
Our youth are going on a
mission trip this coming summer. Our
seniors, golly a group of them went down to Sharing and Caring Hands last
Memorial Day Weekend and cooked hot dogs and beans and made salads and
everything for hundreds of people. They
have been doing that for years.
Powerful. You name it, it’s going
on.
Pentecost is alive in the
ministries that take place in this parish community.
I think a fourth sign are
the presence of the Spirit at St. Al’s would be what I call mirth, a sense of
humor. We love parties don’t we? You know we always have Cana Dinner every
year. We have our St. Patrick’s
dance. We have Cinco de Mayo dance. This year we are going to have the Get Together
on August 1st and 2nd.
We are calling it the Fun Fair Revival Weekend. We’ll have our tent outside, a live
band. We’ll have music. We will have the beer booth from years
ago. We are going to have a fun
weekend. We always have different groups
and organizations always gathering together to have little meals and
fellowship. Gathering around food and
drink is a powerful beautiful way of sharing the stories and being with one
another, encouraging and thanking, and celebrating who we are.
You know we needs a sense of
humor, right? We can’t take ourselves so
seriously. If we do that we get in
trouble don’t we? I remember several years
ago, I was in a different parish community, not here at St. Al’s. And I was outside in front of church, you know,
greeting people and shaking hands right and left. When this one woman came up and I said, “Oh,
good morning Mary. How are you doing
today? Where’s that darling husband of
yours?” And she looked at me kind of
partly and she said, “Right where you buried him a week ago.” I said, “Oh, sorry. How could I have forgotten?” Mercifully so she did forgive me for my faux
pax.
But don’t take ourselves too seriously. We all have gifts and talents. We are all here for special things that we
can offer and do. You know when we are
able to laugh at ourselves there is something really beautiful about that isn’t
there. Because it gives other people the
power and encouragement, yes you can be yourself as well.
There is nobody that’s more
important or more equal in this parish community. I think of the story about George Bush when
he was president and he went into a nursing home to visit a lot of the people
there. And he was going up and down the
corridors and going into the rooms and shaking hands with the residents
there. And he came upon one little woman
and she was sitting there in her room in her wheelchair. And He came up to
shake her hand and he said, “Ma’m do you know who I am?” She looked up and him and said, “No, I
don’t. But if you ask one of the nurses
I’m sure they can help you.” So even the
President needs to laugh. And there was
a little girl who had come home from her 3rd grade. She had an assignment. The teacher said, “I want you to write about
your heroes and who’s one of your favorite people, your personal hero.” This little girl came back and she had her
paper and she had written about her dad and her dad was just so, wow. He said, “Honey, how come you chose me and
your personal hero?” And she looked at
him very simply, “It’s because I didn’t know how to spell Schwartzenager.” Laughter is good isn’t it? It keeps us simple. It keeps us down to the basic things of who
we are.
Notice in the gospel, where
do we get laughter from? The disciples
rejoiced because they had seen the Lord.
So rejoicing is good to do, and laughter and a sense of mirth. The Spirit is alive at St. Alphonsus
Parish.
And the last, I think sign
of the presence of God’s Spirit in our midst is that sense of mission. We are here in the words of Galatians, to
make the fruits of the Spirit, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness,
Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness be present in St. Alphonsus Parish. We do that in as many ways as there are
people in this church right now. Each of
you and I live it and be it in the way that God wants us. We are the eyes, the ears, the hands, the
feet of the presence of Jesus in this parish community and beyond it. We don’t keep what is given to us just with
us here. I know that you go forth from
this church throughout the day and throughout the week, to your works, to your
school, wherever you go and you bring something of who you are. And I know that you bring something very
good, very powerful, very beautiful, you bring the presence of the Lord.
You know mission, it ain’t
over till it’s over. You and I will keep
doing this and being the people of God until the day that God calls us home to
eternity. I’d like to share a simple
little story. One of my favorite authors
is Paula D’Arci. A beautiful little book
called Sacred Thresholds, she’s a great spiritual writer if you’re
looking for something good, you can’t go wrong with any of her books. And she tells the story about herself where
she was making a move from Texas, where she was living, going out to the West
Coast. And she had her house up for
sale, and this was before the economic turn-down now, probably would have taken
longer, but it was almost a year and there were no nibbles on her house. So she said one day she had gone to her
acupuncturist. He was a Vietnamese
doctor, Dr. Ho was his name. And she
said after the session Dr. Ho said, “Paula have you sold your house yet?” And she said, “No.” And he said, “I would like to buy your house.
How much are you asking?” And she said,
“Well you know Dr. Ho, it doesn’t work that way. You contact my real estate agent and she will
tell you what I’m asking and then you make a counter-bid and we go through all
this stuff.” He said, “No Paula, you’re
not listening. What amount of money do
you need in order to move, in order to create this new start? That’s what I’m offering.” She said, “I was astounded. Here was this man who had been my
acupuncturist for 5, 6, 7 years and he was offering to buy my house at the
price I needed so I could move.” She
said, “Well, what about your wife?” He
said, “Oh yeah, that. Yup, my wife and I
will come over Saturday and look at the house.”
So they did. In the course of the
conversation that Saturday morning Dr. Ho’s wife Michelle said to Paula, “You
know this will be our third property.”
She said, “Well, what do you mean?
Aren’t you going to sell your other house?” She said, “Oh no. We just know we need to do this for
you.” She said, “Why are you buying a
third piece of property?” Dr. Ho said it
this way, “It’s my philosophy. We
support one another in life, that’s the main point isn’t it? So I thought maybe I can help make this
happen. We are after all here for one
another.” So Dr. Ho and his wife bought
Paula’s house and she was able to make the move and start a new career on the
West Coast. She said later on, “As I was
trying to put it and really nail it down, what would make somebody like this do
something like that?” She said, “The
word that came to me was kindness. But
it was the quality of the kindness, pure kindness, a force and with that force
a glimpse of how we might live.” That’s
the force, that’s the power, that’s the kindness of the Holy Spirit.
And that same Spirit is
poured out upon you and me each and every day, that you and I can do reckless,
terrible, wonderful things to make the Kingdom of God a little more visible and
real in our world.
So Holy Spirit, renew the
face of the earth, meld us, minister to us, give us mirth and renew our mission
each and every day, that we, the people of St. Alphonsus Parish will be Your
living presence wherever we go today and throughout this week. Spirit of God, renew the face of the
earth. Spirit of God renew St. Alphonsus
Parish. Amen.