Teaching The Culture of Pentecost
John Paul II has spoken extensively about the culture of life and the
culture of death. He also has coined the phrase “culture of Pentecost”
“In
the final analysis, all your evangelizing activities tend to foster in the
People of God constant growth in holiness. Indeed, holiness is the
priority in every age, and therefore also in our own time. The Church and the
world need saints, and we ourselves become holier the more we allow the Holy
Spirit to configure us to Christ. This is the secret of the regenerating
experience of the "outpouring of the Spirit", a typical experience
that defines the process of growth proposed for the members of your groups and
communities. With all my heart I hope that Renewal in the Spirit may be a true
"gymnasium" in the Church for prayer, asceticism, virtue and
holiness.
"In a special way continue to love and spread love for the prayer of praise, the form of prayer that recognizes more immediately that God is God; praises him for his own sake, gives him glory for who he is, long before thinking of what he does (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2639).
"In
our time that is so hungry for hope, make the Holy Spirit known and
loved. Help bring to life that "culture of Pentecost", that
alone can make fruitful the civilization of love and friendly coexistence among
peoples. With fervent insistence, never tire of praying "Come Holy Spirit!
Come! Come!". (ADDRESS
OF JOHN PAUL II TO A DELEGATION OF MEMBERS OF THE RENEWAL IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
MOVEMENT Thursday, 14 March
2002
The dictionary identifies culture as “the customary beliefs, social
forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” or “the set
of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company
or corporation.” We may say it is the milieu or environment in which a person
lives which influences and forms the person.
So if a person grows up in an environment of negativity and pessimism,
we can expect that will be the mind set of the person. On the other hand, if a
person grows up in a culture of love, we can expect that person will reflect
that experience.
The culture of Pentecost flows from the culture of life.
What has God revealed to us concerning the culture of Pentecost? To
understand this we first must see the role of Pentecost in the total plan of
the history of salvation.
The ultimate plan of God is capsulated in Ephesians 1:3-6
God, as a reflection of his love, created all things, including the
creation of man and woman and said: It is very good. God, as a reflection of
his love, shared his divine life of intimacy with man and woman, who were free
to accept and respond to being one with God or reject and experience alienation
from God. We know what happened.
But God in his infinite mercy loved us and chose to become one like us
in all things but sin. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us for God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son that all who believe in him may not
die but have eternal life. The Son so loved us that he gave his life, he took
upon himself the sin of the world, so that we may be reconciled to God, sharing
the divine life as his sons and daughters.
But the plan of God was not limited to salvation through the death of
Jesus on the cross. God so loved us that he poured out his Holy Spirit upon us
to sanctify us and to empower us.
The Paschal mystery includes the incarnation, life, death, resurrection
and ascension of Jesus as well as the coming of the Spirit upon us. In the plan of God thus reflected upon what two words stand out? Love
and Life. What action is paramount in God’s plan? Mission.
The culture of Pentecost is defined by those three concepts and
realities: love, life and mission. As such the culture of Pentecost is rooted
in the trinitarian love, life and mission of God. It is the fulfillment of
God’s plan.
“God the Father is never ending love, the eternal gratuitousness of
Love. It is He who initiates in us all that we would be unable to initiate alone.
In this manner God has made us capable of love: He was the first to love us and
will never tire of loving us. When we are loved we begin to love. The Father is
He who Loves eternally, who started to love from the very beginning and who
provokes in us the history of love, contaminating us with His gratuitousness.
If the Father is He who Loves eternally, the Son is He who is Loved eternally.
He who has always allowed himself to be loved. The Son makes us understand that
not only love is divine: allowing oneself to be loved is also divine, as is
receiving love. It is not only gratuitousness that is divine, gratitude is also
divine. God knows how to say thank you! The Son, He who is Loved, represents
eternal reception, He is the one who has always answered yes to Love, the
living obedience of Love. The Holy Spirit renders the Son present in us every
time we are capable of saying thank you, meaning when we are capable of
welcoming the love of others. It is not
enough to begin to love, one must allow oneself to be loved, one must be humble
when faced with the love of others, leave space for life, welcome the other.
This is how we become an icon of the Son in welcoming love. There where the
other is not welcomed, especially those who are different, God is not welcomed,
one is not the image of the eternal Son. Finally, in the relationship between
He who Loves and He who is Loved there is also The Holy Spirit. In the
contemplation of the mystery of the Third Divine Person there are two great
theological traditions, the Eastern one and the Western one. In the Western
traditionBfrom Augustine onwardsBthe Holy Spirit is contemplated as the bond of eternal
Love, that unites He who Loves and He Who is Loved. The Holy Spirit is peace, unity, the
communion of divine Love. Therefore when the Holy Spirit enters us he unites us
within ourselves, reconciling us, and uniting us with God and with all
others. The Holy Spirit bestows the
language of communion, allows peace to exist, makes us capable of unity,
because there is their personal love between He who Loves and He who is Loved,
the bond of eternal charity, bestowed by One and received by the Other.
Alongside this tradition there is the Eastern one, in which the Paraclete is
called the Aecstasy of God@: according to the concept the Holy Spirit is He who breaks the circle
of Love, and creates in God the truth that Alove does not mean gazing into each other=s eyes, but
looking together towards the same goal@ (A. de Saint-Exupery). This is the way the Spirit
works in God: Not only does He unite He who Loves and He who is Loved, but he
enables God to Aexit@ from him, because this gift is a divine one, the Aecstasy@, the Aexisting
outside@ God, Love=s exodus with no return.
"Each time God leaves himself, He does it in the Holy Spirit. It is so
in the creation (The Spirit of God moved over the waters...@ Gene 1:2). It
is so in the prophecies. It is so in the
Incarnation (Athe power of the Most High shall overshadow you@ Lk 1:35). It is so in the Church, upon which the Holy
Spirit is effused at Pentecost (Act 2:1-13). The Spirit is therefore the
freedom of divine Love, the exodus and the gift of Love.
AWhen we will have allowed the Holy Spirit to reach out
and transform us, we shall be unable to remain gazing into each other=s eyes, we will
need to go out and take to others the gift of that love with which we have been
loved. It is only there where there is this urgency to love that the fire of
the Holy Spirit burns. A believer or a community that has welcomed the gift of
the Holy Spirit, but that does not live this ecstacy of love, this
uncontrollable need to bestow on others the gift of God in the testimony of
words and the service of charity, would not have reached the fullness of love. The Church would not be an Aicon of the
Trinity." (Bruno Forte, God the Trinity)
Let’s look at those three realities: Love, life and mission. They are
not separated from one another but interrelated and interdependent.
The undeniable fact and truth of revelation and experience is that God
loves us unconditionally. He is the first initiator of love and the Other who
is loved. He calls us into being without us knowing anything. We are made in
his own image and likeness. Therefore, there is a self-goodness and self-worthiness
and lovableness already inherent within us from the moment of our conception.
For most of us, we were born into a family of some faith in God, even
if it was only minimal. This family, unbeknown to us, brought us to the font of
baptism so that we may share God’s divine life as his son or daughter. God in
his love immersed us in the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We became
a new creation, the dwelling place of the Spirit.
Even though at some time or other we may have followed the path of alienation
from God, God pursued us in love. At some point in our journey the reality of
God’s love for us and his call to grow in holiness became so evident that we
could no longer resist. This compelling love of God stirred a deep desire
within us to respond. God was truly our Abba to whom we sought to be obedient.
What we may have professed on our lips became a burning conviction in our
hearts. Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of our lives. Our yes to him became a
growing desire to Yield everything to the Savior. The Spirit was no longer the
unknown person in the Trinity but the personal, anointing and empowering
presence within us, giving our life new meaning and purpose.
God’s word, though heard and read audibly many times before, became
truly the internalized revelation of God to me personally. There was a new
hunger in my heart. The celebration of the Eucharist was not an obligation to
be fulfilled but a time to worship in spirit and truth the living God, who is
both transcendent and immanent.
The gifts of the Spirit which I heard about at the time of Confirmation
was no longer limited to the gifts of Sanctification: Wisdom, Knowledge,
Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord. Rather, I became
aware of and open to the multitude of charismatic gifts for the up building of
the Body of Christ. Signs and wonders were no longer for the times of the past
or for a few canonized saints to experience and manifest, but for anyone being
led by the Spirit to exercise.
Prayer became not limited to formalized and memorized words and
petitions but spontaneous and joyous expressions of praise, thanksgiving,
adoration and worship before the Holy One.
Sharing with others what God had done in my life became a strong desire
of my heart. Sharing with others who had similar experiences and desires to
grow in their relationship with God became a way of life.
Maybe it is best to let the Word of God express this culture of
Pentecost to us.
After being baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire in which they
experienced the different spiritual manifestations, the apostles on the Day of Pentecost did what
Jesus commanded them to do. They witnessed to others the plan and promise of
God–the very plan and promise that they were now experiencing. Their witnessed
centered on the person of Jesus Christ who was both Lord and Messiah, crucified
and risen.
The pre-culture of Pentecost begins with a basic question: “What must I
to do to experience this plan and promise in my life? This pre-culture has left
a void in my life and a hunger for something more.”
The culture of Pentecost begins when we affirm our baptismal
graced-life by consciously and freely accepting and welcoming Jesus more fully
into our lives; when we consciously and freely choose to turn away from sin and
turn our lives over to the way of the Lord; when we desire and pray for the
fuller release of the gifts of the Spirit with expectancy.
This initial response to grace creates a desire for the more that God
has for us. This more is reflected in Acts and other parts of the New
Testament. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ instruction and the
communal life, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. A reverent fear
overtook them all, for many wonders and signs were performed.” They went to the
temple area together every day to worship. They witnessed and evangelized
others. “Day by day the Lord added to
their number those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47) “The community of believers
were of one heart and one mind.”(Acts 4:32)
The most frequent phrase used in the scriptures expressing this culture
of Pentecost is a person was “filled with the Holy Spirit.” What does that look
like?
There is a new desire to grow in holiness, not just to avoid serious
sin, but to uproot habitual sins as fully as possible from one’s life. The
words of Paul become a conviction: “lay aside your former way of life and the
old self which deteriorates through illusion and desire and acquire a fresh, spiritual
way of thinking. You must put on that new man created in God’s image, whose
justice and holiness are born of truth.”(Eph 4:22-24)
As this desire grows to be purified of anything displeasing to God in
our lives and to put on the attitude of Christ, we experience the transforming
power of God. In the words of Paul, “All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory with
unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image
by the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:18)
This transformation is reflected by the fact that love is the
foundation of all that is done and the “way which surpasses all others.” (1 Cor
12: 31) For we become convicted that love is the only debt we owe each other.
Where at one time fear and concern what others may think of us blocked
us from speaking about the marvels of God in our life, there is a new
self-assurance that is based on the words of Peter. “Judge for yourselves
whether it is right in God’s sight for us to obey you rather than God. Surely
we cannot help speaking of what we have heard and seen.” (Acts 3:19-20) Even
when they were persecuted for their boldness in speaking the word of truth,
they were “full of joy that they had been judged worthy of ill-treatment for
the sake of the Name.” (Acts 5:41)
When the community was threatened internally with disagreements, what
did they do? They prayed and discerned what was God’s plan and then proclaimed
the truth: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and ours too.”(Acts 15:28)
Prophetic words were discerned and acted on when confirmed to be of the Lord.
The culture of Pentecost involves not only growing in love and living
in the Spirit and not in the flesh. But it also involves mission, living out
the mission of Jesus in our time and place. Jesus came in the power of the
Spirit to proclaim the good news of God’s love with “miracles, wonders, and
signs as his credentials.” (Acts 2:22). Having fulfilled the plan of the Father
for him, on the day of Easter Jesus gave the Church it’s mission. “As the
Father has sent me, so I send you.” Then he breathed on them and said: “Receive
the Holy Spirit.” (Jn 20, 21-22) What did Jesus send them to do? “Go and make
disciples...baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know
that I am with you always, until the end of the world.” (Mt 28:19-20)
The culture of Pentecost has as its mission witnessing and evangelizing
in the power of the Spirit. This is what Peter and the twelve did on the day of
Pentecost and 3,000 were baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. This is what
Peter and John did after the cure of the crippled man at the gate of the
Temple. They witnessed and evangelized the crowd that were amazed at the
healing. They witnessed with self-assurance to the Sanhedrin when called before
them to testify by what power did they heal.
When threatened with punishment if they continued to witness about
Jesus as Lord and Messiah, the Apostles rejoiced in the fact they suffered for
the sake of the Name of Jesus. They gathered with the community of believers
and prayed for a greater outpouring of the power of the Spirit in their lives.
They continued to speak God’s word with confidence in the power of the Holy
Spirit.
The call of evangelization is at the heart of the life in the
Spirit. You are to be my witnesses, you
are to receive power from the Holy Spirit, you are to be my witnesses—these
were the last words of Jesus to the apostles before the Day of Pentecost.
Paul
VI “We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all people
constitutes the essential mission of the Church."[36] It is a task and
mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the
more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the
Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize, that is to
say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to
reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ's sacrifice in the Mass,
which is the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection.” (Evangelii
Nuntiandi, 14)
“The work of
evangelization is not over. Indeed, so
much remains to be done that we can not forget, in the words of the Second
Vatican Council, that missionary activity "for the Church is a supremely
great and sacred task"(Ad Gentes, 29). the duty of carrying forward this
work rests on the whole Church, and on every member of the Church.” (P.John
Paul II, Sept. 14, 1987)
“Proclaiming Christ
means above all giving witness to him with one's own life. It is the simplest form of preaching the
Gospel and the most effective way available to you....The world today has
special need of believable witnesses.” (John Paul II 1991)
“New evangelization demands a witness of life which can lead to a renewal of charismatic fervor. It requires a profound renewal in proclamation and works, done in perfect ecclesial communion, in such a way as to make the new evangelization really ‘new’. The new evangelization today also urges adoption of that ‘enterprising apostolic character’ common to an authentic apostolic creativity and based precisely on the charisms of the Spirit, so that new methods might be brought about as well. In the first place, it calls for a commitment to live the Gospel which is preached and to incarnate it in one’s personal life and in the life of the comunity in such a way that the proclamations of the good news might be sustained by the very strength of a life of witness to the Gospel. The more (the evangelisers are such) by means of the dynamic and irresistible energy of the light and heat coming from the truth and charity of Christ, so much more will their lives witness to the Gospel they profess.” (John Paul II, On Consecrated life, # 42)
Living in the Spirit does not mean living in a perfect world. There is
still persecution from others, both in the family, in the church and from
outside. There is still misunderstanding and differences of approaches. There
is still the human weaknesses and imperfections and sins. But now because of
the gift of the Spirit we have been given a new way of dealing with these
difficulties. Using the gifts of discernment and understanding, exercising the
gift of praying in tongues, seeking the face of the Lord, surrendering ourselves
totally to the will of God, we seek what God wants us to do. The apostles when
confronted with the first major rift in the community over the difference of
care of the widows of the Gentile converts and those of the Jewish believers,
discerned that they were to pray and preach the word. They raised up the order
of deacons to do the ministry of service to the community. When Paul was
challenged over his insistence that Gentile converts were to be baptized not
first be circumcised and were not subjected to the Mosaic dietary laws, the
matter was brought to the elders of the community. These listened and
discerned: “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and ourselves.”
The culture of Pentecost involves submission to the authority of the
Church and to discern the will of God.
I believe that the pastoral initiatives which the late John Paul II challenged the Church with at the beginning of this new millennium are consistent with the culture of Pentecost. The ten areas he focused on were: holiness, prayer, Sunday Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the primacy of grace, listening to the Word of God, Proclaiming the Word, witnesses of love, the spirituality of communion, ecumenical commitments.
What does this mean to us who seek to inculcate a culture of Pentecost
as the norm for all who are baptized and confirmed? Not only are we to grow
personally in holiness but we must train others in the ways of holiness. In
regards to prayer, the pope said: “our Christian communities must become genuine
‘schools’ of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in
imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation,
listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly ‘falls in love’...It is
therefore essential that education in prayer should become in some way a
key-point of all pastoral planning.”
In a culture of Pentecost, one shares fully in the Sunday Eucharist and
sets aside Sunday itself “as a special day of faith, the day of the
Risen Lord and of the gift of the Spirit, the true weekly Easter.”
Regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation becomes important
as people are called to a more radical turning away from sin and a deeper life
of holiness.
In all things, those living in the culture of Pentecost recognize that
our works are useless unless they are done in and through Christ. It is the
primacy of grace which motivates and completes all initiatives. The works of
Christ are clear: “With me you can do all things, apart from me you can do
nothing.”
The culture of Pentecost sharpens one to listen to the Word of God with
new antennas. In the words of John Paul II: “It is especially necessary that
listening to the word of God should become a life-giving encounter, in the
ancient and ever valid tradition of lectio divina, which draws from the
biblical text the living word which questions, directs and shapes our lives.”
Teaching this tradition is part of the on-going formation we should be
providing those hungry for the Word of God.
Listening to the Word of God must also lead to proclaiming that message
of life and love to others. In the words
of John Paul II “This passion will not fail to stir in the Church a new sense
of mission, which cannot be left to a group of "specialists" but must
involve the responsibility of all the members of the People of God. Those who
have come into genuine contact with Christ cannot keep him for themselves, they
must proclaim him.” This pastoral initiative also involves training people in
the basic techniques of witnessing and evangelizing which respects the other
who is evangelized.
The greatest witness we can give is the witness of love lived in the
conscious awareness of our unity with the Triune persons of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit and with one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
The culture of Pentecost is summed up in a paragraph from the document
“Fanning the Flame” which I will adapt and expand slightly. The culture of
Pentecost involves persons living in a faith community that worships in vibrant
liturgy, is bonded together by the Holy Spirit, serves one another, is
committed to ongoing conversion and growth, reaches out to the inactive, the
unchurched and to the poor. Such Spirit-filled communities confront us with the
gospel and evangelize our culture. In these communities, as in the Acts of the
Apostles and the early church, the charisms of the Holy Spirit are identified,
welcomed and exercised. In this way “the community of believers are of one
heart and mind” while dealing with the daily personal and communal struggles in
faith, hope and love of the Christ who saved them and in the power of the Holy
Spirit who sanctifies, empowers and missions them.
To conclude
let me return to the words of John Paul II: “In our time that is so hungry for
hope, make the Holy Spirit known and loved. Help bring to life that ‘culture
of Pentecost’, that alone can make fruitful the civilization of love and
friendly coexistence among peoples. With fervent insistence, never tire of
praying ‘Come Holy Spirit! Come! Come!’".
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