Good morning my dear brothers
and friends.
Today is Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost
is etymologically derived from two Greek words “Pente” and “Costes.” The
two words together mean “fifty days”. In this case, it refers to the fifty days
after the Passover – the celebration of the Jewish festival of wheat. It was on
this fiftieth day that it pleased God to fulfil his promise of sending down the
Holy Spirit on the apostles.
May I begin this reflection by
asking the question: what actually happened on the first Pentecost day? (Give
opportunity for responses and answers)
The disciples where initially
locked up in a room. Suddenly a remarkable occurrence took place. In John’s
gospel, suddenly Jesus appeared; he breathed on them, imparted the Holy Spirit
on them and gave them the super human power of forgiving sins. In the account
of the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (which is usually the locus classicus of narratives of the
coming of the Holy Spirit), there was a violent wind; an extra ordinary sign
was seen in terms of tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, they
started speaking in strange languages, nevertheless the people from different
areas still understood them in their own vernaculars, the disciples broke loose
from the house where they locked themselves up, the once timid and scarred
disciples became emboldened, they began to speak of their faith and communicate
it fearlessly.
I can therefore submit that
the main thing that took place on Pentecost day was transformation. The spirit
of God which the disciples experienced or encountered turned them around into
new creatures and new persons. It is not the sound of the mighty wind; it is
not the tongues of fire but the new creation which took place on this day that forms
the core of the Pentecost event. Unfortunately, many have reduced the Pentecost
event to noise. These people mistake the gifts of the spirit to some confusion
of sounds and external displays of abracadabra. While these may still be somehow
connected to it, it is however important to highlight that a sign that comes
from nowhere and points to nowhere is fake, smoke that has no fire is fake or
magic. Hence, let us concentrate on the fire before the smoke.
The central thing that took
place on Pentecost was the internal and complete transformation of the
disciples. The coming of the Holy Spirit was a force which re-created the
disciples anew, making them new persons. This re-creation made them to
understand more properly Jesus’ message and mission for them. It made them to change
their mind-set of fear and timidity. It triggered a new process of being and
thinking, relating and acting, confronting life and taking responsibilities.
With the Pentecost experience, the disciples did not remain the same again.
Something very fundamental changed in them. It was the beginning of a new life
– spiritual rebirth, freshness, new energy, new light and determination. This
is what Pentecost is all about.
Why then the violent wind?
This represents the process of change. No change comes easy. There is always
some ‘violence’ that accompanies any change. Violence here means the force of
turning a reluctant self to a direction it was initially unwilling to venture.
In this context we can understand the statement of Jesus that it is only the
violent that can enter the kingdom of God. Think of what it takes you to wake
from up from the bed in the middle of the night during harmattan or winter to
do some academic work. Think of what smokers go through to quit smoking. Think
of the battle to break from a bad habit. Think of how hard it is to break loose
from a bad friend or group. Think of what is involved to start learning
something new.
Being good is not easy. Doing
good is not easy. Changing ways of life from bad to good is not easy. If you
are not prepared to take on yourself, discomfort yourself, even be ruthless on
yourself, nothing new and nothing good can come out of it. I acknowledge that
some people are saints and geniuses from the womb but most of us are not. We
need to go through the tunnel of personal crucifixion or surgery in order get
the best out of ourselves.
In our prayer to the Holy
Spirit, we say: “Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your faithful and
kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be
re-created and you will renew the face of the earth.” In many of our parishes,
there have been week long Pentecost activities in preparation for today. Many
of these activities anchor people’s hopes on acquisition of extra ordinary
powers or receiving miracles and other heavenly gifts. However, what has not
received sufficient attention is this interior transformation of the person. Verses
7 and 8 of the Veni sancte Spiritus
read: “Lord wash our sinful stains away, bedew our dryness, our wounds and
bruises heal. Bend that which is stubborn in us. Warm with they love our hearts
of snow. Rule our wandering steps.”
When people talk of the
Pentecost experience, it is largely in the noise and others forms of
dramatisations. Little attention is paid to this inner change of the person and
this near violence to the self in order to change. It is precisely because of
this lack of interior change that has made some people sceptical of the
genuineness of those who claim gifts of the spirit.
Many who clamour for these
gifts are fixed on how to mesmerise other people. The encounter with the Holy
Spirit has meaning if it starts by changing me from within, turning me to see
those dark spots of my life and empowering me to upturn them. The change taking
place in me can then have the capacity to attract people to me who will
eventually be wondering (as in the first reading) what great new things are
happening in the life of this person.
What are the stains of my
life? What are those dry places of my life? What are those wounds (either those
I inflicted on myself or those inflicted by others on me) which make it
difficult for me to be a child of God? What are those stubborn traits in me?
How am I wandering away from God’s love and graces? What is my attitude to sin?
Do I really know the demarcation between good and evil? Do I know that there is
moral dirt? Do I still have a sense of shame? What do I use my time for? Am I
held captive by a very serious bad character? Am I chronically lazy? Am I so
envious that I am capable of doing anything? Am I ruled by the passion to kill
or inflict terrible harm on other people even on people who trust and respect
me? Am I prepared to cause injury on people, to push them out of the way to get
what I want? Am I so greedy that I am prepared to sacrifice human life? Does it
not matter for me if people are dying or crying? Am I like Brutus who strikes
my most trusted friend just to realise some ambition? Am I a priest who does
not pray?
My dear brothers, the Holy Spirit
comes to renew us from within. Without this interior renewal, everything we are
nothing is meaningless and only reducible to empty shows. That’s why there are
many fake people around in many ramifications.
The Holy spirit is real. His
activities and powers are real. You can be transformed from the life of
self-delusion, greed, craze for power, insatiability, searching for cheap
popularity, ‘inya isi na njo’,
arrogance, wickedness, and compromised sense of good and evil. You can be
transformed from the ground of despair, from the ground of ‘no positive
ambition in life’, from the ground of care-freeness, from the ground of
insensitivity to the needs of others and from the ground of the loss of the
sense of shame.
Albert Einstein moved from a persona non grata to being one who
revolutionised physics and tremendously reshaped human thought about the
natural world. Bill Gates moved from almost being a school drop out to one who
has made a deep impact on information technology. Wole Soyinka moved from being
a third class holder in his bachelor’s degree to a Nobel Prize holder. The
history of humanity is scattered with captivating stories of people who changed
the stories of their lives and through it significantly and positively affected
human civilisation. From the Scriptures, Jonah who ran away eventually became a
great preacher who converted Nineveh. Peter who denied Christ became the head
of the apostolic college. Saul the persecutor of the faith became Paul the
great apostle of the faith. The boyish Timothy became a Bishop.
You can be transformed. I can
be transformed. May the Holy Spirit which God released on the Church today,
enable us to be thoroughly renewed from within in order to renew the face of
the earth.
