Sunday, May 23, 2010AD
Pentecost Sunday
The Feast of the Holy Spirit
Giver of Life
Every week for over 1600 years, our Catholic ancestors and ourselves have prayed the Nicene Creed as our response to the Liturgy of the Word on Sunday mornings. Every week for over 1600 years, we have professed our faith in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. Inadvertently, familiarity breeds mindlessness. On this Pentecost Sunday, the day in which we celebrate the Gift of the Holy Spirit, we might reflect on the implication of these words in our Creed.
More and more, these days, contemporary Catholics are experience two paradoxes. First, when photos come back from outer space through the Hubble Telescope, savvy observers notice two things, viz.,the patterns of elliptical orbits present even in the outer rims of the cosmos and the beauty of the universe.
Localizing our thoughts on Earth, our global village, we can meditate on the beauty and wonder of it all. Imagine the most beautiful place that you have ever experienced personally. Frequently, three venues are commonplace for many. We wonder and are in awe on our ancestral homes, whence our families came. Italians say “La tierra chiama” .(The earth calls.) We are told that there is such a thing as “genetic memory”. Even if you have never been to your ancestral home, when you arrive there, you feel that you are at home. The place is already in your genes. Second, we are in awe of scenic mountain scenes or rugged landscape. Flying over the Rockies and/or the Alps (especially if they are snow-covered) can be a moment of wonder and awe for many. Third, scenes involving water capture the wonder or awe of many. Scientists think that the sea reminds us in a very primitive, primordial way that all life on earth somehow came from the sea. We say also, “La mar chiama”. (The sea calls.)
Catholic theologians speak these days of the Deep Incarnation, viz., if God is anywhere, the omnipresent God has to be everywhere. While we focus on the human person alone as created in the divine image and likeness, God is present throughout creation if God is God. The implications of this are mind-boggling, yet they are logical. That is why the Holy Spirit is the Dominum et Vivificantem, the Lord and the Giver of Life. Somehow, the Presence of God’s Spirit permeates all reality, not just some reality, as the life-giving Divine Breath. As St Paul said, “In God we live and move and have our being.”
However, there is a shadow reality that offsets the sense of wonder. It is the sad reality of wasting resources. (Did anyone ever wonder what would happen if an off-shore oilwell in the Gulf of Mexico were ever to spring a leak?) People speak of the fact that humans might be guilty of the sin of specieism. We forget the fact that we share the planet with thousand, if not millions, of other species. Decisions that we make (or think we make) have implications for other species in the planet as well. There is a new word, ecocide, that we add to our list of structural sins. In 1990, Pope John Paul II made the startling statement, “Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person extends also to the rest of creation.” While the human person alone is created in the image and likeness of God, Pope John Paul inferred that the living Earth is God’s beloved creation, deserving of care.
Catholics believe that God is both immanent (present in all reality) and transcendent (beyond reality) at the same time. One theologian asked recently what does “the command to love one’s neighbor” as oneself mean in all this. His response was the Samaritan, the outcast, the enemy? Yes, of course. (Not that we obey this command so well with our human family.) Yes, yes, of course, these are our neighbors. But it is also the whale, the dolphin, the rainforest. These days, we might add the Gulf of Mexico. Our neighbor is the entire community of life.”
Usually, on Pentecost Sunday, we reflect on the Gift of the Holy Spirit on the Jesus Movement, then and now. We have become recipients of the Spirit again and again and again, whenever we say yes to God in faith. As we remember liturgically the Coming of the Spirit, we recall that somehow, God ‘s Spirit is omnipresent.
The Spirit lives in Christians to let other humans know that somehow known only to God, that the Spirit dwells in them as well. All our sisters and brothers need to remember the Deep Incarnation in all creation. As Rabbi Joseph Heschell said many years ago, “Humans are the cantors of the universe, acknowledging and praising the Divine Presence in all things.”
Lest Catholics be guilty of the structural sin of specieism, in which humans exploit the Earth for our own self-aggrandizement now, we try, with God’s Help, to alert others to Pope John Paul’s words “Respect for life extends to the rest of creation.” If more heeded his prophetic words, we would not be confronting now the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. It is not about the Gulf of Mexico also, now, next it will be the Atlantic and so on.
We remind one another that God’s Spirit is in all of us. This Pentecost, we recall that the Lord and Giver of Life permeates all reality. Let us behave more appropriately to what that means in 2010AD. 052310AD jfq
