Pentecost Sunday
This weekend was also the First Holy Communion in the parish. I do not remember another time when First Holy Communion fell on the Feast of the Pentecost. I was wondering how I would bring Pentecost and the Eucharist together for our children. So, I had someone bring Halo to Church for the homily. (Halo is my new six-month-old Maltese puppy). I told the kids, that I will be leaving for India in two weeks. I know that I am going but she does not. There is no way for me to explain it to her. I will miss her greatly and I am sure she will miss me too. I also have this thought that she might forget me. I have a plan. I am going to leave this T-shirt with her. This shirt has my scent on it. It’s my way of letting her know that I have not abandoned her. In and through this T-shirt she can feel my presence.
I compared my plan with Jesus and his plan. Last Sunday we celebrated the Feast of Ascension. Jesus departed from the earth to go to his Father. But Jesus left behind his presence. He didn’t just leave us a T-shirt. His presence is experienced in the Eucharist (Bread and Wine) and the Holy Spirit. In so many ways, the Bread and Wine is like the T-shirt and the Holy Spirit is like the Jesus scent. Of course, the difference between my shirt and the Eucharist is that the bread and wine is the real presence of Christ – body, soul, and divinity. I cannot say that about my shirt. But I was trying to make a point. I think the children understood it.
Creation Smells like God
In one sense, everything in and around us reminds us of God’s presence. God is Creator and all that we have and all that we are is a sign of God’s presence. Creation and nature are God’s fingerprints and carry God’s scent; the sounds, the colors, the vastness of the universe and delicateness of the tiniest insect or flower tell us of the wonder that God is. God’s presence is in the air we breathe, in the warm sunlight, in the quiet breeze, in the perfect snowflake, in the gentle rain. Most of all, the human person. The human person is not just the scent of God. The human person is in the image and likeness of God. In a broad sense, every human person is the first and original sacrament of God.
As we celebrate Pentecost, I invite you to make this week your Pentecost week. Create and increase the awareness of the ways in which God is present to us. Allow the presence of God to touch you, inspire you, and enliven you.
Baptism – The Eternal Smell of Christ
As Christians, Baptism is the first instalment of the presence of God sacramentally. Baptism is the infusion of the new life of God in us – the new life won for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Life comes from God, but new life is an infusion of the resurrected presence of Christ. At baptism, we begin to smell like Christ, as it were. At Baptism, the child is anointed with sacred Chrism and parents tell me that they could smell the Chrism for over a week on their babies. That is a great way to think of our entire life.
As parents ask yourself if your children smell Christ in you. Paul invites couples to love each other as Christ loved the Church. That is a powerful way of think of married life. At work and in our social settings imagine that people smell Christ in us. Sometimes I ask about a perfume that somebody is wearing, and I ask, “What are you wearing?” Imagine people asking us “What are you wearing?” because they smell something sacred in the way we go about life.
As we celebrate Pentecost, think about defusing the scent of Christ to the world. May the people in our lives and around us become aware of the life and presence of Christ through us.
The Eucharist – That We May Smell like Christ
Every sacrament is an experience of Christ’s presence. But the Eucharist communicates that presence to us in the most tangible way. The Eucharistic presence is made possible by the Holy Spirit. In this sense, every Eucharist is a Pentecost experience.
On the one hand, the Eucharist gives us the scent, the presence, and the life of Christ. But it also transform us into the body of Christ. This is clearly seen in the Eucharistic prayer before and after the Consecration. First, we pray for the Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. The prayer reads, “Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you by the same spirit graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of your son our Lord Jesus Christ…” But there is a second time we pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. After the Consecration we pray, “… grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of your son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.”
The implication of the Eucharistic prayer is very powerful. While the Eucharistic Bread and Wine in the Real Presence of Christ for us, we are the real presence of Christ for the world. It is so important that we not only smell like Christ but that we are the real presence of Christ in the world.
As we celebrate this Eucharist on the Feast of the Pentecost, let us pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. May our lives, our families, our parish communities be infused by the presence of Christ. May we smell like Christ. May we sound like Christ. May we be the presence of Christ in the world. Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph