Friday, June 7, 2019

Thoughts on Pentecost

Pentecost
 
Pentecost is about witnessing. Jesus promises that the Spirit will come to testify, be a witness on his behalf. Jesus also commissions the disciples to be witnesses: are you and I also ready to testify? Pentecost is about being witnessed to, and also about being witnesses. How do we become Christian witnesses?
 
We do this by attending to how the Spirit witnesses to us, for example through The Spiritual Exercises.  Like those early witnesses to Jesus, the Spirit can awaken our spirit to respond to Jesus. This comes from intimacy with Jesus: in private moments of intimacy, such as the privacy of a quiet White House retreat and in communal moments like participation in the liturgy, where two are three are gathered in Jesus name -- we know that he is present here among us. 
 
Pentecost challenges us to make space and time for the Spirit in our noisy lives. In this way the Spirit can witnesses to us with many gifts, but we have open ourselves to receive these gifts, discern our gifts in community, gifts of the spirit such as: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Generosity, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self control.
 
How are you called to be a witness here and now? Today, let us once again invite the Pentecost Spirit into our lives, the Spirit who draws us inward to discernment, the Spirit who compels us outward to be witnesses to Jesus

-Fr. Ted Arroyo, SJ

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