Pentecost Sunday, at the Vigil Mass .
NB: The Vigil Mass
has its own prayers and readings. Those for the Mass During the Day on Sunday
should not be used – though some priests seem to be unaware of this. It is
incorrect to refer to this Vigil Mass as an ‘anticipated Mass’. It is a
celebration proper to the evening before Pentecost Sunday and may be celebrated
in an extended form. It also fulfils the Sunday obligation.
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA
Gospel John 7:37-39 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Mass During the Day, Year A
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand)
Readings (English Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland, India)
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Gospel John 20:19-23 (English Standard Version, Anglicised)
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.’
ConfessionIn
the summer of 1982 I did a number of short supplies for priests in parishes in
a diocese in the western USA. In one parish where I spent only a weekend I
found a note that had been shoved under the front door on Monday morning and
addressed to me. There was no signature but it was written in the style of a
teenage girl.
Very
often anonymous letters are negative and condemnatory of the receiver. This was
the very opposite. I don’t remember what the gospel reading of the Sunday was
but it highlighted the mercy of God and that is what I had preached about.
Whatever I said touched the writer of the note profoundly. She wrote that for
years she had hated God. I’ve no idea why or of what had been troubling her.
She might well have been the victim of some awful act of another. But when at
that Sunday Mass she heard the Good News that God is a forgiving God and that
he loves each of us individually and unconditionally she was able to let go of
the hatred, if that is what it really was, and of the anger in her heart and
accept God’s love. She wrote that for the first time in years she went to Holy
Communion.
As we celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit the
gospel today tells us that the Risen Lord, appearing to the Apostles, breathed
on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold
forgiveness from any it is withheld.
One of the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit to the
Church is the power to forgive in God’s name, to enable us to hear Jesus say to
us what he said to the Apostles twice in today’s short gospel reading, Peace
be with you. This is the gift he offered at the Last Supper.
This is the gift God gives us most especially in
the Sacrament of Reconciliation, what many of us still call Confession or
Penance. It is the way in which God, through the Church and
specifically through the sacrament of Holy Orders, brings back into communion
with him those who have turned away from him through mortal sin, that is a sin
involving grave matter, a clear awareness that it is such and full and
deliberate consent to the act. To go to confession in that situation is a
matter of urgency, to be done before we go to Holy Communion again. Then Holy
Communion becomes a true celebration of the full communion that God wants each
of us to have with him.
But the sacrament is also a great help to those who
are faithfully following Jesus but who sometimes take to byways down which God
is not calling them, byways that lead into sin. Though the Sacrament of
Reconciliation is not essential for the forgiveness of such sins it is the
special way given by God through the Holy Spirit for that. If you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.
The priest too is a sinner and each time he goes to
confession himself he understands the struggle to overcome shame of those who
come to him to confess their sins and to receive from him the forgiveness of a
merciful and understanding God.
I left that parish on Monday morning and did not
know who had shoved the note under the door. I’ve no idea what became of the
writer. Perhaps she went to confession shortly after. Very likely she hadn’t
committed any grave sin but had suffered greatly because of the actions of
another; But whatever the situation was she had a profound experience of God’s
mercy that Sunday, something like that of Zacchaeus, like that of the woman
caught in adultery, like that of the Prodigal Son.
The gospels don’t tell us what subsequently became
of Zacchaues or of the woman caught in adultery. But we know that the Holy
Spirit profoundly touched their hearts, healed their wounds and changed their
lives as Jesus passed by. And I know that the Holy Spirit profoundly touched
the heart and healed the wounds of that young woman in the western USA parish
as Jesus ‘passed by’ that Sunday morning through a priest who spent only two
nights there.
The Sequence in today’s Mass, Veni Sancte Spiritus, ‘Come, Holy Spirit’, expresses something of that in the seventh stanza:
Lava quod est sordidum, Heal our wounds, our strength renew,
Traditional Latin Mass
Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-24-2026 if necessary).
Lesson: Acts 2:1-11. Gospel: John 14:23-31.
PentecostAnd there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them (Acts 2:3; Lesson).
