WHEN I WAS in the seminary, it was stressed to us in the most definite terms that if you wanted to be able to function in the Diocese of Brooklyn as a priest in the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond, you had to learn another language. Classes would be given in Spanish and Italian, so take one, and this means you.
“OK,” I said to myself, “I’ll take Italian.” It ought to come easier to me with all that Mediterranean blood flowing through my veins, right?
Well, wrong! I found Italian very difficult to learn. I tried my best, and I was sent to SS. Simon and Jude parish as a deacon to practice my Italian, but no dice. I can read it now, and thus can offer Mass and say prayers in Italian, but it never quite clicked up there above my eyebrows.
Then when I was ordained a priest, the Diocese of Brooklyn, in its never-ending ability to amuse, sent me to St. Malachy Church in East New York, where Italian was unnecessary but Spanish was a must.
Back to the drawing board. I went to Spanish classes at Douglaston at night during my first year there and just hoped for the best. Ironically, although my Spanish isn’t perfect either, to put it mildly, it is a whole lot better than my Italian. Why? Let me be honest with you: I don’t know.
Ready Or Not
So every year when I read on Pentecost Sunday how quickly those Apostles were able to get across to all of those “foreign” people, it seems very mysterious to me, but I guess that’s the point: Something very mysterious was happening on that day, but for a reason that wasn’t so mysterious as the first option for the Gospel reading tells us today. While the wine from heaven that filled the cups that morning was mysterious, the fact that those 12 cups were ready to hold it was not.
The Apostles, as we often note, were anything but perfect. At the same time, they were everything the Lord had hoped for in goodness. On Easter Sunday, they needed forgiveness and they received it, along with the authority to share that forgiveness with others, as the first option for the Gospel reading tells us today.
It certainly turned out that, while Jesus seemed, on Holy Thursday evening, to have picked some real lemons for Apostles, they were actually nothing of the sort. He was right about them all along because they knew how to accept His love and to share that love with others. And the Love of God in their capable hands changed the world. When the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost those 12 cups were ready to hold the grace of God up to the brim and never run dry of it. The crowds were amazed, but today we are grateful to God, as the second option for the Gospel readings shows us, for that wine and for those 12 cups.
And now, we are those cups.
As St. Paul tells the Corinthians today in the first option for the second reading, not all of us have the same gifts. But all gifts come from the same Holy Spirit, and together as the family of God – baptized by one Spirit into one Body of Christ – all the world can drink of the Spirit. All we have to do is work together, trust one another, appreciate the goodness in one another and grow together as a family blessed by the Holy Spirit.
In other words, we mustn’t just talk about how great the Apostles were back then, but be apostles right now. As St. Paul tells the Romans in the second option for today’s second reading, we are children of God and therefore heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If we will carry our cross, we will not only rejoice in our own Resurrection, but also be able to share that Easter joy with all of our brothers and sisters in the world.
Fruits of The Spirit
Sometimes, to tell the truth, the task before us can seem difficult. When I was taking those Italian classes in the seminary and it just didn’t seem to penetrate, I began to think that I had taken on too much and it was hopeless. You know what helped me then? The other seminarians did, along with some priests who were taking the course. Almost everyone was looking kind of lost, but shared good humor – and humility – with one another and got through it together. In other words, the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the form of friendship, sharing, understanding and fraternal love did what our poor heads could not do.
Later, when I was sent to my first priestly assignment and didn’t need Italian at all but Lord have mercy on me, needed Spanish, it came easier to me. I realized that the Holy Spirit would be sitting beside me in that new language class and it was going to come out all right. The Holy Spirit that was powerful 2,000 years ago – and 40 years ago – is powerful today and will be powerful tomorrow. It may amaze the crowds how effective we unlikely Apostles can be, but it’s not us: It’s the Holy Spirit, as surely now as it has always been.
Pentecost miracles will still happen as some un-miraculous-looking cups get ready to share the Good News. Obviously, it worked yesterday, and we can rest assured that it will work today and tomorrow.
Readings for Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2: 1-11
Psalm 104: 1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34
1 Corinthians 12: 3b-7, 12-13 or Romans 8: 8-17
John 20: 19-23 or John 14: 15-16, 23b-26
Father Anthony F. Raso is the parochial vicar at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Dyker Heights.
