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Appleton, WI

Homily Connect May 21: No Wind Phobias Here

Pentecost Sunday

Scripture: ACTS 2:1-11, 1COR 12:3B-7, 12-13, JN 20:19-23

The Feast of Pentecost

  • Completes the Paschal Mystery of Jesus
  • Forever links us to our Jewish sisters and brothers
  • Makes new the Passover back then from slavery from Egypt
  • Jesus is our Christian Passover make new our victory over sin and death

Rev. Malcom Guite’s Sonnets from Holy Thursday to Today

Is it the end or the beginning?

Today we feel the wind beneath our wings,
Today the hidden fountain flows and plays,
Today the church draws breath at last and sings,
As every flame becomes a tongue of praise.
This is the feast of Fire, Air, and Water,
Poured out and breathed and kindled on Earth.
The Earth herself awakens to her maker,
Translated out of death and into birth.
The right words come today in their right order
and every word spells freedom and release.
Today the gospel crosses every border,
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace.
Today the lost are found in his translation,
Whose mother-tongue is love, in every nation.

The Authors of Milledgeville, GA

  • African American Author-Alice Walker – Pulitzer Prize Winner – The Color Purple
  • Renowned Catholic Author, Flannery O’Connor
  • The O’Connor house is meticulously kept
  • The Walker house has been allowed to fall to near ruin

Miss Walker’s Famous Essay “Beyond The Peacock”

  • Offers thoughts for reflection on Pentecost
  • In response to her mother’s question, “When you make these trips back south, what are you looking for?”
  • Her response “A wholeness…because everything around us is split up.”
  • History, literature, people
  • Being split makes people do ignorant things
  • The truth comes when all the sides of the story are put together
  • All their different meanings make a new one
  • Each writer writes the missing parts to the other writer’s story

Rev. Guite and Ms. Walker

  • Put into words what is the power of the Holy Spirit
  • Holy Spirit carries across borders in a fashion that destroys borders
  • The Holy Spirit yearns to repair divisions – Her mother tongue is love
  • Only love has the power to put all the sides together to create the whole story

In This Age of the Holy Spirit

  • How can we ever forget the Holy Spirit?
  • Is about only two things – love and unity
  • Is ready to help bring about reconciliation – families and friends
  • Is ready to make us other Christs – more loving, joyful, tender, accepting, peaceful, generous, grateful
  • Reminds us every person is a temple of the Holy Spirit-has a God-Given role to play
  • Reminds us that unity does not mean uniformity – Sense of unity is celebrated in diversity
  • Invigorates us like grass pushing through the sidewalk
  • Is the wind beneath our wings, our inner fountain that flows and plays, and the flame that mimics our many tongues of praise

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

Questions for Reflection

  • What impacted you from today’s Readings and/or homily?
  • Have you ever longed for a wholeness in some way?
  • How does being whole affect families, our country, our world?
  • How can each of us become unifiers through the Holy Spirit?”

Live Connected

Call upon the Holy Spirit this week to assist you in becoming a unifier in some way.