Homily on Pentecost Sunday 24th May 2015

                    

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.

“Send forth your spirit O Lord that the face of the earth be renewed”. Amen. 

VIEW MY MESSAGE ON ASCENSION THURSDAY 
VIEW MY EASTER MESSAGE

My Message on Ascension Thursday to my Seminarians

                            

My dear friends, today the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Ascension of Christ into heaven. The Church believes and teaches that within forty days after the resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ continued to appear to his disciples, to strengthen them and to prove to them that he is truly risen from the dead. On this fortieth day, he was taken up into heaven in their sight. It marks the end of Christ’s visible presence among his disciples. He returns to the Father from where he came. As today’s psalm captures it, the Lord Jesus “goes up with shouts of joy; the Lord goes up with trumpet blast.”

Ascension is the highest point of the resurrection. It signifies God’s glorification of Jesus in the sight of his apostles. This celebration is a sign of hope for us – where he the head of the Church has ascended to, we the body eagerly look forward.

My reflection here circulates around the words of St Paul to the Ephesians “When it says ‘he ascended’, what can it mean if not that he descended right down to the lower regions of the earth? The one who rose higher than all the heavens to fill all things is none other than the one who descended.” (Eph. 4: 9-10)

These words simply declare to us that in order to appreciate the weight of the elevation of Jesus through his ascension, one must grasp that the man whose ascension into heaven we celebrate today, is the same person who was humiliated through his passion and death.  “The one who rose higher than all the heavens...is none other than the one who descended.”

“He descended” could be used as a metaphor of Jesus’ humiliation through the shameful death, the dishonour and ingloriousness he had to endure. The first reading of Good Friday describes him as a man of sorrow and familiar with suffering. “So disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human. Without beauty, without majesty (we saw him) no looks to attract our eyes; a thing despised and rejected by men, ...a man to make people screen their faces; he was despised and we took no account of him....But we thought of him as someone punished, struck by God, and brought low.” (Is 52:13 – 53:12).

God raised him from the death and has today raised him even higher. He ascended into heaven. Alleluia! My dear friends, this man who ascended to the heights of heaven today, is the same man who experienced the worst part of humanity, who descended to the lowest region of the earth. He who ascended today to the heights of majesty is the same person who was “so disfigured that he no longer seemed human, without beauty to attract our eyes”. He is the same person despised and rejected by the people. He is the same person whom we thought was punished by God. He is the same person who was an object of mockery and hilarity. This stone rejected by the builders, has now become the cornerstone. He moved from the depths of hell to the heights of heaven. Alleluia. This is what makes the ascension very spectacular – that “he who ascended above all is none other than he who descended to the lowest region of the earth.” 

My dear friends, what does this mean for us within the context of training and formation? We have personal stories and life experiences. You may be experiencing financial hardship. You may be undergoing a bitter struggle with your studies. You may be confused with life or unsure about the best vocation to follow. You may be experiencing family problems. You may be an object of amusement to your friends and neighbours. You may think you are a failure in one way or the other. You may have made terrible mistakes in life or even involved yourself in a mess. You may think there are no more possibilities for you in life. You may think that your life has come to a state of death, i.e. a state of hopelessness, when no more remedy is feasible. You may have been struck to the ground by events, persons or your own miscalculation.

My dear friends, the story of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ simply declares the infinitude of hope. There can be no end for one who believes. Your bitter life experiences are only moments in the agonies of Christ. Whatever you are passing through (disappointments, pains, agonies, failures, frustrations, etc) can be likened to the passions of Christ. Today, we celebrate his glorification. He who ascended is the same who descended into hell.”

My dear friends, can this celebration challenge you to wake up and say, I must rise from my present ugly situation; I must not be defined by my past but must defile my past. You can move from making a third class in your bachelor’s degree in philosophy to graduating with a summa cum laude in your theology. You can move from making a 30% in your first semester examinations to making a 70% in the forthcoming second semester examinations. You may have nearly escaped expulsion during last year’s reunion with your bishop but you can merit his praises this year and in subsequent years. You can move from being ‘a nobody’ to being ‘a somebody’.

Can this celebration encourage you to look to Jesus who moved from the depths of hell to the heights of heaven? Jesus has set you an example. You can move from the depths of hell to the heights of heaven. “Onye kwe chi ya ekwe.” You can change your history and you can change your story. You can rise from the ground of self-delusion, greed, craze for power, insatiability, searching for cheap popularity, arrogance, wickedness, and compromised sense of good and evil. You can arise 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. Yes! You can change your story!

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. Yes you can do it!

Just as the apostles looked up as Jesus ascended into heaven, may we look up to him who rose from the lowest region of the earth to the heights of heavenly majesty. May looking up to him inspire us to imitate him and may he imbue us with the graces to enable us to go with him and to rise with him from “the lowest region of the earth” to the peak of heavenly glory where he is Lord forever and ever.


VIEW MY EASTER MESSAGE