June 9, 2019: Pentecost C
June 9, 2019: Pentecost C
Audio Homily: https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=10105821
I would like for you to think about a period of nine years of your life that made a big difference in your life. Perhaps it was the first nine years after you graduated and entered the workforce, the first nine years of your marriage, the first nine years of your life as a parent, or the first nine years after the loss of a loved one. What joys, sorrows, triumphs, and setbacks do you recall? A lot of things can happen in a period of nine years of a person’s life that can change and transform the person for the better or for worse.
Well over a hundred years ago on a Sunday afternoon, Therese Martin, a 14-year-old teenager, asked her dad if they could have a talk. It was the Feast of Pentecost Sunday, May 29, 1887. Therese begged her father to grant permission for her to enter the Discalced Carmelite Order to become a cloistered nun. The same Holy Spirit that inspired the young teenager with the desire to serve God through a religious order also inspired her elderly father with courage and trust to allow his daughter to leave his side and enter a convent. Therese was accepted by the Carmel Order in Lisieux near Normandy and she stayed there until she died nine years later, at the age of 24. Although she lived and worked behind the cloistered walls of the convent, and from a secular view did nothing outstanding, she was eventually declared a saint, universal patron of the missions, and a Doctor of the Church. What happened to her in those short nine years that transformed her into a saint? Can that kind of transformation happen to us?
For St. Therese the length of time or her own effort is not what transformed her into a saint. She was transformed by the breath of God’s Holy Spirit. She, like many of us, may not have been aware of the work of the Holy Spirit. In order to understand how an ordinary person is transformed by the Holy Spirit, we must go back to the very beginning--back to the Book of Genesis.
In the Book of Genesis Chapter 2, we read that God prepared a Garden of Eden to place in it the crowning jewel of his creation, a man and a woman. In verse 7 we read, “The Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Each of us received the “Breath” of God’s Spirit from the very beginning of our life. We not only need the Breath of God to exist, but we also need the Spirit of God to recreate us into sons and daughters of God, preparing us to spend eternity with Heavenly Father. For this purpose, Jesus became one of us to transform and elevate our fallen human nature to the divine temple of God capable of being filled with the Holy Spirit. After Jesus rose from the dead, he came among his disciples in the Upper Room and “breathed” on them saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." Once the disciples were filled with the living Spirit of God in the Upper Room, they were no longer to stay and wait. Jesus sent them out to the world as he said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
Just as the apostles were sent out on the greatest mission ever, we too are sent out in the world, commissioned by Jesus and filled with the “Living Breath” of God. Our transformation starts with a simple desire—a desire to love and serve God with our whole being. While we may think that we can’t accomplish great spiritual feats that saints such as St. Therese, Mother Teresa, John Paul, and Padre Pio accomplished, God who breathed His Spirit in the Apostles and saints also breathed His Spirit into us. We may never be recognized as canonized saints in the Church, but we will be saints in the way we live our lives and carry on the mission of Jesus. We have not received a spirit of fear, but the mighty Breath of God who transformed little souls who accomplished great things for God by their love for God. While Jesus waits for us in Heaven, at the same time he remains with each of us through the indwelling Holy Spirit that we received at our baptism and confirmation. Each of us, through the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, are instruments of Jesus’ presence--his kindness, patience, compassion, and mercy. We pray this day - and every day - that the fire of the Holy Spirit continues to transform us so that this earthly kingdom will be a kingdom of God’s mercy and charity.
Audio Homily: https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=10105821
I would like for you to think about a period of nine years of your life that made a big difference in your life. Perhaps it was the first nine years after you graduated and entered the workforce, the first nine years of your marriage, the first nine years of your life as a parent, or the first nine years after the loss of a loved one. What joys, sorrows, triumphs, and setbacks do you recall? A lot of things can happen in a period of nine years of a person’s life that can change and transform the person for the better or for worse.
Well over a hundred years ago on a Sunday afternoon, Therese Martin, a 14-year-old teenager, asked her dad if they could have a talk. It was the Feast of Pentecost Sunday, May 29, 1887. Therese begged her father to grant permission for her to enter the Discalced Carmelite Order to become a cloistered nun. The same Holy Spirit that inspired the young teenager with the desire to serve God through a religious order also inspired her elderly father with courage and trust to allow his daughter to leave his side and enter a convent. Therese was accepted by the Carmel Order in Lisieux near Normandy and she stayed there until she died nine years later, at the age of 24. Although she lived and worked behind the cloistered walls of the convent, and from a secular view did nothing outstanding, she was eventually declared a saint, universal patron of the missions, and a Doctor of the Church. What happened to her in those short nine years that transformed her into a saint? Can that kind of transformation happen to us?
For St. Therese the length of time or her own effort is not what transformed her into a saint. She was transformed by the breath of God’s Holy Spirit. She, like many of us, may not have been aware of the work of the Holy Spirit. In order to understand how an ordinary person is transformed by the Holy Spirit, we must go back to the very beginning--back to the Book of Genesis.
