Red Alert!
Whooosh! Red Alert! We celebrate Pentecost this coming Sunday! After the bodily Resurrection of Christ--this is the most exciting event in the history of the Church!
What is it?
Well, as Christians we celebrate it as the Birthday of the Church- the day the Holy Spirit came down from heaven as flaming tongues of fire and filled the twelve Apostles, the Blessed Mother and others all seated together praying in the upper room (Acts 1- 2). It happened fifty days after Easter--Jesus’ triumph over death and sin. But originally it was a Jewish feast—"The Feast of Weeks” celebrating the “first fruits” of the harvest and then later after the destruction of the Temple, the giving of the law-- the Ten Commandments.
Amazingly, in the New Testament, fifty days after Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead the Holy Spirit was given to the “New Israel” (the “first fruits” of the Church) and the “new Law of Love” was written on the “tablets of their hearts.”
“See, days are coming—oracle of the LORD—when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke my covenant, though I was their master—oracle of the LORD. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days—oracle of the LORD. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jeremiah 31:31-33.
This happened so that the “law” would no longer be external, but internal. God so loved us that He did not leave us as orphans after Christ rose and went back into heaven, but He sent us HIMSELF - yes- a piece of God’s own Soul*, to come and live within us and enable us to share in God’s own amazing life.
Are you experiencing this? Are you sharing in God’s own life? The Holy Spirit empowers us to live each and every day, not in our own strength-- but in and through the POWER OF GOD!
Happy Birthday Church!
"And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim." Acts 2:2-4
Come Holy Spirit! Come! Fill and empower us--Your Church— NOW! TODAY! We pray!
I ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! Amen!
Want to hear more? WATCH Fr. John Paul Duran* teach on the Holy Spirit
ON the ALL NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL!
