Readings: Acts 2:1-11; 1Cor. 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23
The Sins of Whom You Forgive are Forgiven Them!
1. Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the church. Today the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles like flames of fire. Being filled with the Holy Spirit they began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.” (Acts 2:1-4). According to the Constitution of the Second Vatican Council on the Church, “When the work which the Father had given the Son to do on earth was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost that he might forever sanctify the Church. In this way all believers would have access to the Father through Christ in the one Spirit. He is the Spirit of life, a fountain of water springing up to eternal life. Through him the Father gives life to men who are dead from sin, till at last he revives in Christ even their mortal bodies.” The Holy Spirit filled the apostles with zeal and courage so that they became Christ’s witnesses beyond the frontiers of Jerusalem, “Throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8). That was how Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, reported the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. John, however, reported the same incident, which apparently took place on the same day of the resurrection thus: “On the evening of that first day of the week when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” (Gospel reading). Christ wished his disciples peace before He gave them the Holy Spirit; and then He sent them on the mission of forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is directly associated with the forgiveness of sins.
2. There is story told of a man who was suffering from acute back pain for years. He had undergone all types of treatment – allopathic, ayurvedic, etc. During one of his visits, his doctor prescribed a lot of medicine but told him that he would have the pain all his life and that it was his purgatory. With resignation he purchased the medicine. While on his way back he met a Sister, who had the gift of healing. Sister asked him to forgive everyone and she prayed for about an hour. The patient felt great relief and took all the medicine back to the pharmacy. Till now he has not experienced back pain again. It is true that most of our ailments are due to unfinished business relating to unforgiveness. Therefore, if we are to be witnesses of Christ, we must forgive hurts done to us. The Holy Spirit will assist us with the gift of forgiveness.
3. We first received the Holy Spirit on the day of our Baptism. This Spirit was confirmed on the day of confirmation. The Penny Catechism defines Confirmation as “A Sacrament by which we receive the Holy Spirit, in order to make us strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ.” I recall that on the day of my confirmation, the practice was that the bishop will give those confirmed a gentle slap on the check. The explanation was that the slap was a demonstration that the person was ready to suffer for Christ, even to the point of dying a martyr’s death. If the apostles needed the fire of the Holy Spirit to shake them up and transform them into warriors for the faith, so do we. Christ is present in his apostles through his spirit.
4. We must demonstrate that we have the Holy Spirit by allowing the Spirit to work in us and through us. When Jesus received the Spirit he exclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he as anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” (Lk. 4:18-19). We are called to do no less than Christ. We are faced today with so many cases of injustice, abuse of human rights, violence, police brutality and indiscriminate taking of human lives on our streets. There is total disregard for the rule of law in our society, and yet many of us Christians, born again in the water of rebirth and the Holy Spirit, stand quietly by and watch as our brothers and sisters are being killed on our streets. How did we feel as we watched three police officers pinning George Floyd down with the fourth resting his knee and his weight on George Floyd’s neck as he shouted, “I can’t breathe” until he finally stopped breathing? Oh yes, there were many people watching, feeling helpless, and another police officer standing by to prevent anyone from approaching to help George. What is the Spirit sending us out to do today in a situation like this? Jesus calls the Holy Spirit another Advocate. What type of advocate is the Spirit calling us to be? It is my opinion that the Spirit is calling us to be advocates of justice, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. It may be too late for the likes of Freddie Gray of Baltimore, Eric Garner of New York, George Floyd of Minneapolis, and many others whose lives were taken by man’s inhumanity to man or to put it plaining, police brutality; but we can speak out for the Freddies, Erics and Georges of tomorrow. It is very easy to judge and condemn the protests, the burning and the looting going on in Minneapolis this week. Much as I do not condone these practices under the disguise of protests, it should also be noted that this may be a way of calling attention of those in authority to look at the root cause of these protests - racism. Yes, The Holy Spirit calls us to forgive hurts done to us, but it is difficult to forgive repeated acts of injustice with no solution in sight. So as people of faith, we ask Christ to send into our hearts the Spirit of tolerance to fight our indifference and build a community of love and peace.
5. Finally let us ask the Holy Spirit to come with his gifts of “Wisdom and understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge and fear of the Lord.” (Is. 11: 2-3). We pray the Spirit to plant in our hearts his fruit of “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal.5:22-23). Come and conquer the indifference in our world, and help us fight the battles of our hearts and the internal battles of the flesh such as: “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies and the like.” (Gal. 5:19-21). But most of all, we pray that the Holy Spirit may help us to forgive those who hurt us so that we may be holy as God our heavenly Father is holy. Let us pray that we may be filled with the fire of the Spirit and be transformed into a people of faith; courageous preachers, lovers of God and his people. Amen. God bless you!
Rev. Augustine Etemma Inwang, MSP.
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