Greetings! How are you today? Hope you are doing well. During my missionary adventures in Venezuela I was pleasantly surprised one day by a parishioner with some observations that she had made about us as Catholics.
She said that we as Catholics could be called Christians because we believe in Jesus as the Christ and we do our best with His Grace to live like him in the world. She explained that we as Catholics could also be called Baptists because we believe in the power of the sacrament of Baptism that washes away the stain of Original Sin and makes us beloved sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.
The parishioner declared that we as Catholics could also be called Evangelicals because we live as evangelists in the world, proclaiming the Good News of Christ crucified and raised from the dead for the sake of our salvation. Finally, the parishioner noted that Catholics could rightly be referred to as Pentecostal because we experience the Holy Spirit at work within our hearts and lives.
Each of those statements is theologically true and quite profound. Because this coming Sunday is the liturgical celebration of Pentecost I would like to expound on the idea of us Catholic Christians being Pentecostal. The word “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word “
pentecoste
“ which means “fifty.” For the Jewish people Pentecost was originally “a harvest festival, signifying the end of the grain harvest” (
ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/8-things-to-know-and-share-about-pentecost
)
.
We as Catholic Christians celebrate Pentecost fifty days after the resurrection of Christ from the dead. It is a time in which we remember the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit with the disciples in Jerusalem. We are also blessed on Pentecost to ponder the tremendous mystery that we ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). We have come in contact with the Third Person of the Trinity in a sacramental way through baptism and confirmation. Others might have experienced His enlivening presence through charismatic prayer or through passages of Sacred Scripture.
All of us, by virtue of our baptism, are Pentecostal Christians who have been called to evangelize - that is to say, share the saving message of Jesus Christ - through our words and deeds. May God bless us in this noble effort for His greater Glory and for the building up of the Kingdom here on earth.
