Dear friends,
At Pentecost, we celebrate the Great Commissioning. In our diocese, this celebration is always an echo of the vision and the call to Courageously Live the Gospel. We all remember the acronym P.I.E.: Proclaim, Invite, and Encounter. Pentecost is a call to intentional discipleship.
Likewise, in our parish family Pentecost is a revelation of the WHY of our existence as Church. We exist to proclaim the Good News and to make disciples. The Holy Spirit we are given invites us to embark on a new journey of discipleship. To do so, we are called to embrace and receive the gift of fortitude or courage. Like the disciples who locked themselves in the upper room for fear of the Jews after the ascension, we are locked in our fear to proclaim nurtured by the idea of not being well trained or not knowing what to say.
The Holy Spirit whose coming we celebrate today is here to free you from that fear of not knowing what to say. The Lord commanded us not to worry about what we should say but only to rely on the Holy spirit who teach us everything and who will speak through us. The Holy Spirit comes to unleash the potential that is dormant within you. The disciples did likewise. Everything they learned from the Lord was like put on hold out of fear. But with the coming of the Spirit, they unleashed their potential and the Church was born. From their preaching many repented and were baptized; they were saved.
Today it is our turn to be open to the Holy Spirit to let her lead on the path of discipleship. It is only in so far as we embrace the Spirit that we can really shine as S.T.A.R.S. here at our Parish family. As S.T.A.R.S. we are meant to serve, to transform the hearts through prayers and learning, to accept each other for who we are – seeing our diversity as opportunity - , to reach out to those outside of our Church, and to share our faith, time and talents. This is the way we can make Pentecost meaningful for us and for the Church. For we received a Spirit not of fear and the Spirit of Courage, that makes us call God Abba, Father as we strive to build his Church of living stones in every step of our life.
And let us continue to pray for one another and for our parish family.
Fr. Emery