The disciples not only linked the dots but were convinced without a doubt that ‘their mutual friend' was the Son of the Living God.

He was the Saviour their ancestor had pined for. Jesus' execution on the Cross at Calvary wasn't just a scandal.

His assent into Heaven at the Mount of Olives wasn't about abandonment, nor was His grave that Joseph of Arimathea had hacked out for himself, His permanent resting place.

God's entry into our human history began when Jesus was born in a barn in the dead of night.

All quite the opposite to the dramatic arrival of God's Holy Spirit, which was more ‘out-there'.

In broad daylight, with high winds and fire-shaped flames, speaking of different languages and the people gathered, being directed out.

Pentecost made sure God's enduring presence in the Church was undeletable and irreversible. It overturned any thoughts that God might become flesh for just 33 years.

What other reason could explain the Church's survival down through the centuries, particularly when grace and sin went head-to-head?

Consider the major split between East and West in 1054, fuelled more so by the stubborn Patriarch of Constantinople Cerularius and the hot-headed Cardinal Humbert, who excommunicated each other!

Then 300 years later when 3 popes each claimed to be the true leader. St Catherine of Siena diplomatically returned the papacy from Avignon to Rome.

When England's Queen Elizabeth 1st declared in 1558 Mass was unlawful, never deterred Catholics and priests from gathering to celebrate the Sacraments despite being barbarically tortured to death if caught.

Jewish teacher Gamaliel may have been accurate when he boldly stated.

If this enterprise, this movement of theirs, is of human origin, it will break up on its own accord: but if it does come from God, you will not only be unable to destroy them, but you might find yourself fighting against God. (Acts 5:38-39).

Pentecost is referred to as the birthday of the Church.

Like our own birthdays, it annually marks an entry point. Unique times of reflecting over one's life to recognise Jesus' spirit were there in the dark heartaches and joys all along. Seeing the big picture brings its own personal consolation.

I accompanied my mother for a decade as she declined from a neurological debilitating disease. Only when God called her home did I see that Jesus' spirit was most involved when I was tempted when I'd had enough and wanted her to die then and there.

Hindsight is a revelation.

My Pentecost experience wasn't a light bulb moment.

Rather it was a gradual maturing of simultaneously coming to ‘understand' and of ‘responding'.

This real or imagined story helped.

Two friends had spent a beautiful Holy Week at a nearby monastery.

Driving home, their hearts were still skipping after being soaked in the spirit.

Suddenly they saw a man lying on the roadside. They quickly decided to drive past, fearing it could be a trap.

Safely home, they had lost the spirit of that Holy Week and were feeling flat.

For 7 days, they had accompanied Jesus from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday yet failed to even alert the authorities to investigate as basic prudence would have dictated.

As Catholics in a faith community, we often neglect to figure out that gathering around the Altar to celebrate Sunday Eucharist isn't just for me - or you? There are responsibilities.

God's Holy Spirit enables us - authorizes us to become missionary disciples and to invite others to join us.

Just how am I to make disciples? Matthew 28:19-20

Not by indoctrinating another or using guilt, but as Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium suggests, by attraction.

It's a matter of keeping our antennae attentive when others around us may desire for themselves that same inner Gospel beauty they experience in us.

We don't have to become a rocket scientist or hold degrees in scripture or church history.

How do we go forth? Matthew 28:19-20

We all live in a secular society.

Going forth simply means giving ourselves permission to risk stretching ourselves from the safety of our comfort zones and engaging with simple, mutually respectful dialogue.

The power to do so is within us.

We just need to feel the fear, but do it.

Give it a go this Pentecost day!

• Sue Seconi - is a member of the Catholic Parish of Whanganui - Te Parihi Katorika Ki Whanganui

Afraid, Mary and the apostles were hiding, but in complete contrast, the Holy Spirit directs the 'door be opened' and redirect the initial Church's focus outward.

New energy dawned with the birth of the Church and the Holy Spirit charged the Apostles and Mary to the missionary task of showing, being and voicing Jesus among the world.

What might Matthew (28:19-20) mean today when he writes Go out to all nations?

Christian Baptism is not a Sacrament for us to be tucked away!

For some, Baptism means becoming a missionary in another country.

For most, it is to continually be alert to those ordinary moments of our day and the people we met in the activities in our day; these moments and activities are opportunities for witnessing a Christ-like attitude and maybe moments for direct evangelisation.

Some years back, an injustice, caused a couple to lose confidence in the Church.

Each time I banged into them when out and about, I would always give them a good hearing as they repeated again the incident. Then I saw them at Mass!

Talking myself up? - hope not! - but for sure, listening was God's Holy Spirit.

Authentic evangelization centres around mutual respectful dialogue.

The evangelist knows that God is already within each person.

Evangelisation is never about winning an argument to convert another to our beliefs as if we are right and they are wrong.

Nor is evangelisation expecting instant results.

Evangelisation is a process of the Holy Spirit, it is without a time frame, model or programme to follow.

Further, Christian witness means we are a letter from Christ to others, "Not written with ink, but with the Spirit of a living God". (2 Corinthians 3:3)

Recently, a friend told me that radiation and chemotherapy have ceased to have any effect. She's decided to live fully with her husband and family until she dies.

"I don't want to die," she tells me leaving me speechless in my powerlessness.

Out of the blue, I begin singing ‘Come Holy Spirit, I need you' and she falls into my arms weeping uncontrollably. I assure her of her goodness and of God's passionate love for her.

Talking myself up? - hope not! - but for sure ‘out of the blue' was God's Holy Spirit.

Joy and encouragement are a constant theme in Pope Francis' document called The Joy of the Gospel - Evangelii Gaudium.

"There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter... I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress." (Evangelii Gaudium No 6)

Then again in No 10: "An evangeliser must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!"

We're not to live lives that seem like Lent without Easter Pope Francis says in article 6 or as if we have just come back from a funeral in article 10.

And to priests he writes: A missionary heart... never closes itself off, never retreats into its own security, never opts for rigidity and defensiveness. It realizes that it has to grow in its own understanding of the Gospel and in discerning the paths of the Spirit, and so it always does what good it can, even if in the process, its shoes get soiled by the mud of the street." (Evangelii Gaudium No 45)

For Pope Francis, the Church grows by attraction.

In the book 'How to Read the New Testament' Etienne Charpentier writes: "If a non-believer, utterly ignorant of Christianity, went into a place where Christians were worshipping, he would see from their attitude that something was happening: if he asked them what it was like, they would reply, 'The Lord Jesus is present among us, he invites us to his table, we eat with him, we listen to him and speak to him.'"

• Sue Seconi is a parishioner in the Catholic parish of Whanganui.

Any such stress carries with it twin dangers.

First, that we then assume that somehow that is all the Spirit does, the Spirit is there - almost functionally - to produce unity and the bonds of peace (Eph 4:3).

Second, that we then further simplify this action of bringing unity to it being the sort of unity that we produce: uniformity, rigidity, and blandness.

So it is useful to remember that the Spirit is simultaneously the giver of diversity - and that in a divine economy that unity and diversity are not in contradiction. It is this richness that can be the richness of a synodal Church.

The notion of synodality scares many in the Church - they see it only as messiness and chaos. They never see this the other way: diversity is richness.

The Spirit's gifts

The Spirit unites, heals, and any true unity is the fruit of the divine presence.

When we recall our unity in the Christ, our unity in baptism, and in discipleship we are not recalling our common commitment, nor shared acceptance of a system of ideas, nor collective adherence to a structure; rather it is the Spirit's presence that makes us one royal priesthood, a chosen people, and a holy nation.

It is through our sharing in the Spirit that we become what we are.

And it is through the Spirit's power that we are able to know and declare the wonderful deeds of the Father who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light (cf. 1 Pet 2:9).

This unity that is formed by the Spirit is manifold: it unites us with the Christ, it reverses the human tendency to fragmentation, challenged us to reject asserting differences to bolster our sense of identity, it helps us towards a true catholicism which is the overcoming of sectionalism, and confronts our pride and jealously.

The gift of unity is a positive addition to our human state, it is not to be imagined along the lines of human unification which thinks in terms of mergers, alliances, pacts, and the destruction of differences so that all looks the same, works together, and behave with the sort of unity that is essential in a clock, a computer, or a regiment.

In the unity of the Holy Spirit, the whole is more than the sum of the parts, but each element's distinctiveness and individuality as a creature is preserved. When we think of the Spirit's unifying and reconciling presence we are hard-pressed to find parallels in human experience.

So rather than search out 'parallels', it is more useful to think of the Spirit as the source for what we imagine as the opposite of unification: the act of diversification.

Diversity is a mark of the Spirit's work

The Spirit is present in all creation, yet everywhere we see its diversity.

• How many types of life are there?
• How many species of plants and animals?
• How many human beings are there: each clinging to their individuality, distinctiveness, and identity.

Diversity is everywhere.

Diversity is richness and the source of beauty.

Diversity is what makes life worth living.

The Spirit is the giver of life, and life is filled with difference, interest and wonder. This is the diversifying Spirit at work.

Paul rejoiced in the diversity of the human body as part of the creation so that he could recall the diversity of the Church in the Spirit.

Before any talk about the Spirit in the Church, it is a good idea to read 1 Cor 12:4-30.

A Church sharing in the same Spirit is full of diversity and is not short of the multiplicity of talents, each distinctly expressed that will build the community of love.

By contrast, when we forget that the Spirit diversifies we tend to imagine the community of the Church as a structure, become blind to the richness of his diverse presence and gifts in those around us, and even begin to wonder if the Spirit is abandoning us.

Enlighten our hearts and minds

The Spirit brings enlightenment, and this too takes the character of its richness from diversity. It is the diversity of human insights that build up human knowledge, is the spark of excitement, interest and genius.

And again, only diversity allows us to appreciate the wonder of the good and the beautiful: what if there was only one beautiful image or poem?

• Why is a diversity of languages better than just one?
• Why is it better to have four rather than one gospel?
• Why is there such diversity of insights in the Church?

Those who would reduce diversity have a low view of human nature, a lower view of the value of human living, and little or no awareness of the transcendent.

Every tyrant in history has eventually sought to destroy differences of opinion - in everything from politics to art - and then usually sought to eradicate humans that appeared too different from his image of perfection. In contrast, the Spirit produces diversity upon diversity, and we can marvel and rejoice in the Spirit's creativity.

Many clergy fear diversity

Diversity has a bad history in Christian practice.

Diversity is not richness but fragmentation, schism, heresy.

We look back to the story of the Tower of Babel as a punishment for pride. In this myth the earth had only 'one language and few words' (Gen 11:1) and all acted as single people (11:4 and 6), then people came to think that nothing would be impossible for them (11:6), so God confused their language to thwart them and he scattered them (11:7-8), and so the place came to be called Babel (11:9).

It is a powerful myth: sin splits and destroys unity- and we so easily convert the idea and imagine that diversity is the result of a broken unity!

So whenever we see variation, the difference we do not see is the distinct aspect of a mystery greater than us, where all those aspects might call us to see the limits of any one of them, and seek to grow in understanding and appreciation?

Yet just reflect on the rhetoric that we have used over the centuries to stress the lack of diversity as a sign of unity of faith: one ritual, one language, one method of doing things, one standardised theology, and on and on - it was as if we could not imagine that God could be greater than our love of imposed orderliness and uniformity!

Babel undone

By complete contrast, in his presentation of the coming of the Spirit, Luke presents his myth to counterbalance Babel.

On his great day of Pentecost the many nations, the Spirit does not remove the diversity of languages but rather enables the gathered community - itself a diverse bunch of men and women (Acts 1:14) - to begin 'to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance' (Acts 2:4).

Those who heard them did not hear new single language - neither Latin nor Esperanto - but each heard in his own language (a point Luke repeats: Acts 2:6, 8, and 11).

In Luke's myth, the Spirit, even in a miracle of uniting the nations, values diversity.

In the Babel myth that people set out to build a city as a function of their uniformity - there were only one people and they had but few words - and this provoked divine punishment; in the Pentecost myth a new city is being built by the Spirit upon the riches of diversity.

This is the Spirit given diversity of languages, cultures, peoples, and insights. From out of this diversity, the mighty works of God become known and praised in each language.

When we are thinking about the Spirit and seeking to speak about the Spirit we need to ask ourselves which myth is most powerful in our own minds.

At the end of most homilies - or bits of writing like this one - there is a natural human tendency to sum up, to put it all in a sentence, or to attempt a synthesis.

After all, is this not what a good communicator should do? So we might then speak of the Spirit being unifying in diversity and diversifying in unity, or some such seemingly synthetic formula that draws together the conflicting aspects of our reflection.

We see the same tendency in among those who are fearful of synodality: they praise it, but then imagine it can be predictably packaged.

However, such synthetic formulae almost assume that the mystery of the divine can be comprehended or neatly wrapped up. Rather we should live with the staccato insights and not seek to reduce them to what seems to fit our minds.

The Spirit is unifying. The Spirit is diversifying. The Spirit can be seen in any number of other ways. The Spirit is, indeed, infinite, or as we should constantly remind ourselves: Deus semper maior (God ever greater).

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, emeritus professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK) and director of the Centre of Applied Theology, UK. His latest award-winning book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).

Welby made this statement to over 5,000 Christians across various denominations and traditions gathered at a Pentecost event marking the culmination of "Thy Kingdom Come", a 10-day prayer initiative.

"We're all different, we look different, we have different cultures and backgrounds and yet, in Jesus, we're brought to be one," he said.

"What makes it possible for people with such differences to be in one church, to minister to so many different people outside the church, to show them the love of Jesus and to speak of Jesus? The Holy Spirit of God, nothing else.

"We can say what we like but we can't do very much in the human heart, only the Spirit speaks from heart to heart."

He then spoke of the UK's politicians who are "struggling" and "suffering" as they try to find agreement on Brexit.

"We're so contemptuous of them but they are trying to rebuild the broken. Most of them go into politics for good reason ..."

Welby said when he sees the nation's politicians he hears them saying they've never known a time as hard as this in the 35 years they've been in parliament.

"What can change it? It's the Spirit of God and God is calling the church to be confident about bringing the healing and hope in Jesus to this country," he said.

"We have a moment of opportunity in saying yes, we're different, and Jesus does not say to you all be the same, he says I made you different and you will be drawn in your difference with love for one another through the cross and resurrection, through Ascension and Pentecost, through the coming of the Spirit, and we will see our society transformed."

Other church leaders attending the event included the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, Archbishop Angaelos, and the chair of the Redeemed Christian Church of God UK, Pastor Agu Irukwu.

The Anglican Bishop of London, the Rt Rev. Sarah Mullally, led the square in praying for Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick and other representatives of the London emergency services.

Christian singer Matt Redman, the Kingdom Choir (who performed at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex last year), worship artist Lou Fellingham and Sounds of New Wine Gospel Choir (which recently picked up the Premier Gospel Best Newcomer Award) led the music at the gathering.

Source

• Christian Today
• The Tablet
• Image: Christian Today

But little by little, he came to see the good the movement is doing for members and for the Church, the Pope told 50,000 people at Rome's Olympic Stadium on June 1.

The gathering involved charismatic Catholics from 55 nations.

"In the early years of the charismatic renewal in Buenos Aires, I did not have much love for charismatics," Pope Francis told them.

"I said of them: They seem like a samba school."

But Pope Francis told the charismatics that their movement was begun by the Holy Spirit as "a current of grace in the Church and for the Church".

He asked charismatic groups not to try to organise everything or create a bureaucracy that attempts to tame the Holy Spirit.

The temptation "to become 'controllers' of the grace of God" is a danger, the Pope said.

Group leaders, sometimes without even meaning to, become "administrators of grace", deciding who should exercise which gifts of the Holy Spirit.

"Don't do this anymore," Pope Francis said.

"Be dispensers of God's grace, not controllers. Don't be the Holy Spirit's customs agents."

At one point during the Rome gathering, the crowd prayed that the Holy Spirit would fill Francis and he knelt on the stage, while they sang with their hands raised toward him.

After the song, many in the crowd kept their hands raised as they prayed in tongues, speaking in unfamiliar languages, the Catholic News Service reported.

Pope Francis also encouraged charismatics to exercise "spiritual ecumenism", by praying with members from other Christian churches and communities to help heal divisions.

He also invited the crowd to stay close to the Word of God, as charismatics had always been known for their love of the Scriptures.

Pope Francis invited the crowd to come to St Peter's Square for Pentecost in 2017 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the charismatic movement.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Asia News
• Image: Catholic Sun

Festivals need to promise good times, strutting their stuff with music, laughter, food, entertainment and, if we allow them to, speaking subtly of a deeper connectivity, that becomes apparent through the creativity of the human spirit.

The ancient Artemisia festival had it all. People gathered from all over Turkey to enjoy food, wine, music, games and theatrical contests in honour of the Goddess. As well as providing a boost for the economy it was an opportunity to flutter eyelashes and flex muscles to impress a potential mate. Definitely a crowd puller, even Pliny the Roman writer thought so.