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Five Images of the Holy Spirit from Scripture Msgr. Charles Pope • May 16, 2016 • One of the quirks of the post-conciliar liturgy is that the octave of Pentecost was dropped. Generally, the post-conciliar age has tried to emphasize the gifts and works of the Holy Spirit, so eliminating the octave of Pentecost is quite paradoxical. The Feast of Pentecost ranks right up there with Easter and the Nativity, both of which have an octave, yet the octave of Pentecost fell away. And thus on the Monday after Pentecost we are back to ordinary time and green vestments.However,...

May 15, 2016 Pentecost SundayMass during the Day Reading 1 Acts 2:1-11 When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,they were all in one place together.And suddenly there came from the skya noise like a strong driving wind,and it filled the entire house in which they were.Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,which parted and came to rest on each one of them.And they were all filled with the Holy Spiritand began to speak in different tongues,as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heavenstaying in Jerusalem.At this sound, they...

“Pentecost: A Firstfruits Harvest Festival” (Acts 2:1-41) What do you know about the Feast of Pentecost? If you’re like most people in the church today, I’m guessing not too much. Oh, maybe you know it has something to do with the coming of the Holy Spirit. And you would be right. But there’s more to it than that. OK, let’s see. Maybe you’ve heard that Pentecost is called “the birthday of the church.” Well, alright, there’s something to that. Maybe somewhere along the line you heard that people can wear red to church on Pentecost Sunday. And that does match...

Sequence for the Solemnity of Pentecost From A Catholic Prayer Book Veni, Sancte Spiritus From A Catholic Prayer Book Ascribed to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury (+ 1228) Holy Spirit, Lord of Light, From the clear celestial height. Thy pure beaming radiance give. Come, thou Father of the poor, Come, with treasures which endure; Come, thou Light of all that live! Thou, of all consolers best, Thou, the soul's delightful guest, Dost refreshing peace bestow. Thou in toil art comfort sweet; Pleasant coolness in the heat; Solace in the midst of woe. Light immortal, Light divine, Visit thou these hearts...

“The Helper: The Paraclete of Pentecost” (John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15)“To You, O Paraclete, we raise / Unending songs of thanks and praise.” Did you catch that last line of the hymn we just sang? And did you wonder who or what this “Paraclete” was? Well, it seems to be a reference to the Holy Spirit, because earlier in that stanza we’ve been praising the Father and the Son, so this must be the Holy Spirit. But why call the Holy Spirit “Paraclete”? Is that because the Spirit came down in the form of a parakeet at Jesus’ baptism? No, wait, that...

The Fire Next Time – A Homily for Pentecost By: Msgr. Charles PopeWhat a wondrous and challenging feast we celebrate at Pentecost! A feast like this challenges us, because it puts to the lie a lazy, sleepy, hidden, and tepid Christian life. The Lord Jesus said to the Apostles and still says to us, “I have come to cast a fire on the earth!” (Luke 12:49). This is a feast about fire—about a transformative, refining, and purifying fire that the Lord wants to kindle in us and in this world. It is about a necessary fire, for as the...

Arriving in Ephesus, in what now is Turkey, Saint Paul encountered some twelve men who had news of the Resurrection, but had not followed through on its consequences. So he asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit, to which they replied, “No, we were never even told that there was such a thing as a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:2). The fact that that they spoke of “a Holy Spirit” instead of “the Holy Spirit” let Saint Paul know that he had his work cut out for him. Those Ephesians were ignorant, which is not necessarily an insult. Unlike...

May 24, 2015Pentecost Sunday, Mass during the Day Reading 1 Acts 2:1-11 When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,they were all in one place together.And suddenly there came from the skya noise like a strong driving wind,and it filled the entire house in which they were.Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,which parted and came to rest on each one of them.And they were all filled with the Holy Spiritand began to speak in different tongues,as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.At this sound,...

May 24, 2015Pentecost Sunday, Vigil Mass    Reading 1 Gn 11:1-9 The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.While the people were migrating in the east,they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.They said to one another,“Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire.”They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar.Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a cityand a tower with its top in the sky,and so make a name for ourselves;otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.” The LORD came down to see...

A new wind of "ADD " Venture is coming to you , Prepare for the wind that is blowing through , For what is coming is The One and The Three , All in agreement " The All Of Me " , The gates of hell shall not prevail , For what is coming is a HOLY GALE ! Isaiah 43:18-20 18 “ Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in...

What happened on Pentecost? What are the implications of what took place on Pentecost for the church today? What expectations ought Christians to have for the work of the Holy Spirit in their own lives and the lives of others? Christians today continue to be divided, sometimes deeply, over the answers to these questions. During the 2015 B.B. Warfield Memorial Lecture Series we will examine the Bible for the sound and reliable answers it alone provides.

“St. Peter and St. Paul: Losing Their Lives for Jesus’ Sake” (Matthew 10:38-39)Today is the Third Sunday after Pentecost, but it is also June 29. And June 29 is the day in the church year for observing the Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles. So that is what we are doing today. We just sang the hymn “By All Your Saints in Warfare” with the stanza for St. Peter and St. Paul. We heard lessons from Acts, 2 Timothy, and the Gospel of John that prominently feature Peter and Paul. We used those readings in place of the...

In 2014, how can grown men write this with a straight face? International Theological Commission of the Catholic Church The Church had one Pentecost. One. The Church does not need new foundations, she is not a country in search of new constitutional orders. Enough is enough: 50 years of collapse of the sensus catholicus, collapse of Catholic life in all countries where the Church was firmly established in Europe and the Americas, near-disappearance of all Catholic communities across the Middle East (in this case, mostly through no fault of the hierarchy, but still indicating that speaking of a "new Pentecost"...

That’s what everyone wanted to know about the notorious 18½-minute gap in Richard Nixon’s Watergate tape, for which Rosemary Woods eventually took the fall. Now it appears that something similar happened with the Vatican’s tape of the interfaith prayers-for-peace from last Sunday, giving us even more reason to dub this controversy “Imamgate”. As we reported in last night’s post about the imam’s prayer at the Vatican, there seems to be nothing controversial in the chanted Arabic in the prayer and that spoken in his subsequent remarks. However, a reader and commenter named ritamalik — who is a former Muslim and...

‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. [Jeremiah 6:14] There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. [Lord Acton] The papacy is swaddled in sycophancy in the best of times. Add to that the exultant adulation induced by celebrity culture. It is a heady mix that can beguile a decent man into a grandiose conception of himself that blinds him to the limits of his office. And encourages conceit in his own sympathies. Francis’ excursion into Middle East politics illustrated the danger of a pope assuming office as a saint-in-waiting. His incautious...

“The Front Porch of Peter’s Pentecost Sermon” (Acts 2:1-21)The purpose of a front porch is to get people into the house. The front porch may be small, the front porch may be large, but it does its job if it gets people into the building. The front porch is not the place where you want people to stay, but it should provide a good entryway into the house. And ideally, it should match, and be suitable for, the rest of the building. That’s the way it is with the front porch of a house. That’s the way it is with...

June 8, 2014Pentecost Sunday, Vigil Mass    Reading 1 Gn 11:1-9 The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.While the people were migrating in the east,they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar and settled there.They said to one another,“Come, let us mold bricks and harden them with fire.”They used bricks for stone, and bitumen for mortar.Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a cityand a tower with its top in the sky,and so make a name for ourselves;otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.” The LORD came down to see...

Clarifying Certain Misunderstandings About ConfirmationBy: Msgr. Charles Pope Yesterday we discussed a bit about baptism and some of the pastoral practices surrounding it. Today in a kind of companion piece I’d like to address some of the distortions and confusion that often surround the Sacrament of Confirmation.Some one once said that Confirmation is the Sacrament in search of a theology. While not true, the statement does capture that there is a lot of incorrect and sometimes silly teaching about this sacrament to young people. And since it is the season for Confirmations, it may be helpful to explore what...

In this post I am trying to continue our celebration of the lost “Octave” of Pentecost. Today I want to consider three gifts of the Holy Spirit.As you may recall, there are seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude and Fear of the Lord. Most Catholics cannot define them well in any sort of articulate way. This is due to poor catechesis but also to the fact that modern English has tended to use several of these terms interchangeably, almost as synonyms, though they are distinct theologically.There are also secular usages of these terms that...

The feast of Pentecost is the celebration of one of the most important moments in church history. It commemorates the day when, after the Resurrection of the Lord, the Holy Spirit gave the Faithful a special ability to speak to crowds of different nationalities in their own languages. Now, we don’t know exactly what happened that day – whether the Apostles instantly learned other languages, or their audiences instantly learned to hear them in their heads as if they had. All we know is that the leaders of the Church were suddenly, miraculously, able to reach people, and this was...