"Come, Holy Spirit" - Pentecost Sunday Homily

Come Holy Spirit.

Three words that can change the world.

Three words that have changed the world.

I have three examples, maybe four, of the coming spirit changing the world in dramatic ways, beautiful ways.

First, about 40 years ago, plus or minus when Pope John Paul II visited Poland.

There's uh a documentary called Nine Days to Change the World that really captures the power of his trip.

to Poland, it be like Pope Leo coming back to the United States.

And at that time in history, was so crucial, his visit, and kind of unexpected because Poland was communist.

And the experience with the Holy Father was that of freedom that came to a high point at a mass, outdoor mass, with a million people.

Now being a communist, the communist tried to control his trip.

That didn't work.

Nine days of people bursting to see him and longing to be free because communism controlled religion, especially publicly.

So the coverage, the media coverage of that outdoor mass, the documentary said, like literally tried to scale it down to like hundreds, maybe a few thousand people, but they

panned the crowd and it was a million people plus.

And the Holy Father in his homily, it seemed like he went off script because he said, come Holy Spirit.

He had a sense that people are longing for this

experience of freedom with the Spirit, actually worshipping God as we have the freedom to do in the Church in the United States.

So he said, Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth.

And I think it was right after that, the million plus crowd started chanting in unison, we want God.

We want God.

It just sends you chills just watching it, thinking about it, hearing that.

And now is the start, the beginning of the end of communism in Eastern Europe.

That's really where it started, or that was the catalyst.

And what's happening is like the group of kids were starting to stand up to the bully.

And just the sheer numbers ended the bullying.

People from that trip, the coming of the spirit, what it looks like, brought the end of communism.

The premier event of the coming of the Spirit is what we celebrate today in Pentecost.

Another dramatic, most dramatic scene of the Spirit coming to the Apostles as tongues of fire.

They said that the Spirit set the apostles on fire for Christ and go out and proclaim

In languages they never studied before.

A lot of them were fishermen, simple men, and now they're speaking fluently in different languages, preaching Jesus Christ risen from the dead, to the point where the Jews from

all these nations, hearing their languages, saying, what is this?

And the apostles said, this is the spirit of Christ.

3,000 Jews were baptized that day.

Birthday and the founding of the Catholic Church.

Happy birthday, Church.

That's where we start.

This dramatic descent of the Holy Spirit.

This dramatic coming of the Spirit.

If that didn't happen, there is no Church.

We're not Catholic.

There's no parish.

We probably don't know each other.

We certainly don't know each other in this context.

We've never heard of Jesus Christ.

Imagine life without this.

Where would we be?

So the Spirit can change the world, can change our world.

Thank God for Pentecost and the start of the Church.

Thank God for our parish.

We've all been witnesses to the Spirit in our parish in recent times.

It's the Holy Spirit, If you're wondering how does all this come about in terms of growth and quantity and quality,

and the experience we have regularly of peace and joy and love, that's the Holy Spirit.

We can't see the Spirit.

We can't see the wind.

But we feel the wind.

We look at tree leaves and see them blowing.

We know the wind is there.

So when we see the leaves of our parish and all the fruits of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit flying around, that's the Holy Spirit.

Amen?

That's the Holy Spirit.

Come Holy Spirit.

You see it around you.

And you can also have the Spirit

within you.

When we exchange the Lord be with you with your spirit, it's acknowledging the spirit within you from baptism, from my priesthood ordination So the spirit can change the world,

the spirit can change our hearts, it can even change our prayer.

At Bible study the other night, one of our men said, going to the chapel has started a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

He said before adoration he knew the Father and the Son, but not the Spirit.

Now he's getting to know the Spirit.

How cool is that?

To get to know this Holy Spirit, this invisible, how do you picture a Spirit?

We can picture the Father with a long white beard and Jesus looks like us, but the Spirit is this anomaly, this invisible person.

But again, all the peace and joy and love and goodness and kindness that is around you or in you, that's the Holy Spirit.

There's three words I say before every homily, come Holy Spirit.

It's what we should say throughout our day, especially when things are getting tough and you're losing strength, you're losing hope, come Holy Spirit.

Join me in saying these three words now, come Holy Spirit.