Is there someone missing?
There may be someone missing from our community, and I hope the information I’m giving you today will help to ensure that that person is restored to our community. Actually, this person has done nothing wrong. Indeed, he is a pillar of the community and his absence affects not only his close relations but all of us. The strange thing is that we have spotted this person from time to time and we have heard his name very regularly. I hope you can help in the search.
If I tell you that this person is very important to the Church, you may understand why I am writing about him in the newsletter. If I told you all that this person has done for the parish, you would not believe it. A lot of what he does is done quietly and unobtrusively, as he works away gradually, and that may be why his absence can go unnoticed. But we really miss him when is not there and if he really is missing we have to do something about it.
The name of the person is .......The Holy Spirit! Admit it, I had you wondering! But the Holy Spirit can become a missing person in much of our awareness, our thought, our prayer and our work for the church, not to mention our personal lives. In the Primary Seven Catechism class in St Bride’s last Tuesday the young people were urged to pray regularly to the Holy Spirit for a fresh outpouring of his gifts. It made me think how much I rely on the Spirit for energy, inspiration, staying-power, not to mention all his other gifts and fruits. The feast of Pentecost today heightens our awareness that the presence of the Holy Spirit is always with us, its not that he is really missing, but that we maybe forget his powerful presence in our midst. Pentecost is a celebration, but also a gentle reminder: we cannot go it alone, we cannot find the truth alone, we cannot find the way alone. The Holy Spirit is the secret behind the work of Jesus, for Jesus was filled with the Spirit who came on him as he began his work and sustained him through it.
In a world often dominated by lies and half-truths, in a world where sin (the deception of the devil) seems to have the most powerful word, trying to convince us that something other than God can satisfy our longing, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. We need the truth; we are called to witness to the truth so Jesus sends us the Spirit of truth.
This feastday of Pentecost is also often called the Birthday of the Church, because the Church was created by the power of the Holy Spirit. To mark the church's birthday I would like to conclude this article with a thought that is not my own! Thin is an extract from the book Listen Pilgrim! by Christopher William Jones. I hope you like it:
“Two men were walking along the road to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem, stumbling now and then, conversing, arguing about the latest happenings in Jerusalem. The met a third man and then they go on to a small house and sit and break bread. Once there, into that community of welcome and care of the Other, they meet face to face with their God.
You and I walk this road. We are still seven miles from Jerusalem. God grant that we will recognise him as we meet him again and again and share bread and conversation and silence and hopes and troubles. God grant that we have the faith to see what is really there. God grant that we do not foolishly deny the most real of reality.
If there are the thoughts of one pilgrim, weak and proud, they are a shallow mirror of the pilgrimage of God's Church. May she never cease her pilgrimage. May she cast off any baggage that holds her on one hill or in one place or in one valley, or in one confined space. May she grow free to walk, or even dance along the road. May she be ever on the move, ever the traveller with the news of love.”
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