Pentecost Sunday 2020

Mass during the Day
Lectionary: 63

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed,
"Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. As Scripture says:

Rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me."

He said this in reference to the Spirit
that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Today I lead this essay with the gospel selection for the Pentecost Vigil Mass. In this passage from the Gospel of Saint John we hear Jesus’ promise to give rivers of living water to those who believe in him. Our New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) provides four scripture links to illuminate this one. Two are from the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel: and two from the Gospel of John

1. Isaiah 12:3; With joy you will draw water from the fountains of salvation
2. Ezekiel 47:1. Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and there! I saw water flowing out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the front of the temple faced east. The water flowed out toward the right side of the temple to the south of the altar.
3. John 4:10, 14; [From Jesus conversation with the Woman at the Well:]
   Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
   The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the well is deep; where then can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?”
   Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
4. John 19:34; From the Passion Narrative:
   …but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

Although we often imagine the Holy Spirit as a dove, wind, or tongues of flame, water is also a powerful and important symbol of the third person of the Holy Trinity. There is no life without water, and yet water comes to us in so many forms: liquid, gas, and solid. Its biological functions are beyond counting, not to mention its uses as a tool. Although it is essential to life, it readily destroys life by storms, flooding, and drowning. Cities form around major sources of water, and the same cities vanish when the water disappears. Wars have been and will be fought over water.

The Holy Spirit is like water in that we perish without it. Uninspired, we wither and die like dead branches off a vine. With the Psalmist (42) we sing,

As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When can I enter and see the face of God?

And Psalm 63 insists: “O God, you are my God— it is you I seek! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, In a land parched, lifeless, and without water.”

We celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the Church and the great climax to the Easter Season. Saint Luke described this remarkable event in Jerusalem, when the disciples heard a rushing wind and tongues of flame appeared over their heads.

Saint John gives us water as another symbol of the Holy Spirit, and he tells us of Jesus’ gift of the Spirit. which could not come unless he were crucified: 

Bowing his head, he handed over the spirit. (19:30)

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit….” (20:22)

If you’ve ever swam in the ocean or been caught up in river rapids you know the overwhelming power of water. It carried your helpless, flailing body where it willed, and you had little to say about it. The Holy Spirit comes to us as a healing force which is more compelling than our preferences, desires, and needs. It is a “power greater than myself” which saves me from myself.

As we face the now-familiar epidemics of drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide; and are suddenly confronted by a viral pandemic coupled with economic collapse and its ramifications, we ask the Lord to, “Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth.”