Archbishop of Sydney

All Christians call today Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after Easter, when we celebrate God’s presence among us, known as the Holy Spirit.  It is a good day for the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation, especially for adults.

 

Christians start from a few simple beliefs.  There is only one God, spiritual not material, Creator and Sustainer of the universe.  This God is good, interested in us enough to love each one of us, even the most unlovable!  So he sent his only Son to live with us, teach us, suffer and die for us.  First of all the one true God acts through his Church, the Catholic Church and the other Christian churches and communities.

 

The Spirit of God is also active in the world, not usually through prophets and heroes, but through everyday events and persons, which we often take for granted.  We depend on the yearly seasons, night and day, good weather and rains, just as the Spirit works whenever men and women freely choose the good, the true and the beautiful.  The struggle against evil and selfishness, the struggle for meaning and faith are inspired by the Spirit.

 

In faith we know God is near, but the Spirit is elusive, sometimes hard to recognize with our minds and feel in our hearts.

 

All of us should want to understand what is happening around us and, more importantly, to hear and understand as we “listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (Rev. 3:22).  This is hard work and public opinion is sometimes quite wrong, often contributing to a culture of death and disarray.  As adults we all have to choose; good or evil, faith or fear.

 

The Spirit must not be reduced to the blind, impersonal forces which guide the universe and occasionally seem to fail e.g. in earthquakes, volcanoes, droughts, because the Holy Spirit is personal, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, our leader and redeemer.  Only a personal God can love us.

 

Yes, the Holy Spirit is mysterious, invisible and in some ways silent.  Scripture speaks of the Spirit as “ruah”, breath or wind.  Discerning what the Holy Spirit wants us to do requires courage, since it sometimes means going where we do not wish to go.

 

Such was Elijah, a prophet about 2850 years ago, who lived in a time of drought, as we do.  His struggles were much fiercer than ours.  Ahab and Jezebel persecuted him viciously, as they strove to destroy faith in the one true God.  The struggle for this faith, for the capacity to believe today in the reality of God is quieter, but still real.  The forces of secularism and superstition are not spent, as American and British atheists are unusually noisy at this moment.

 

In good times the fruits of the Spirit exist in abundance, but when the spirit of evil strengthens, these fruits are in short supply.  St. Paul listed them to the Galatians as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness gentleness and self-control.  However in every circumstance we need to cooperate, because no one has all the gifts and every person is obliged to search for the truth of things.  All the gifts and fruits of the spirit are based on truth.

 

No one has any right to opt out of the search for truth, especially in faith and morals, no matter how limited or deep their level of religious understanding.

 

Some people are inclined to search only for what is “true for them”, leaving others also to make their choices of what is true.  They value their right to pick and choose.  But there is another important consideration.  If personal choice constitutes morality, no one can tell you you’re acting wrongly.  It is only your critic’s point of view!  In faith and morals it’s up to the individual to decide which claims are true, they claim.

 

This sounds attractive as long as we acknowledge that we find and recognise truths in faith and morals as well as science; we do not create truths.

 

The earth does not become flat because I deny that it is spherical.  Laws of physics are discovered, often understood imperfectly, but not created by human minds.  God does not come into existence because I believe in Him (neither does the man in the moon), nor would He cease to exist if I became an unbeliever.

 

Recently the Australian bishops listened to Archbishop Pius Ncube from Zimbabwe in Africa, which has been ruled for 27 years by President Mugabe, now a paranoid tyrant.  The country is bankrupt, inflation is running at 2000% a year and 20,000 Zimbabwe dollars equal 1 Australian dollar.

 

Mugabe has killed thousands and recently imprisoned and tortured 600 senior political opponents.  These actions are evil, even if Mugabe believes them justified.

 

No adult should ever opt out of the search for truth, especially in faith and morals.  It is important to know that God loves us, to know the difference between right and wrong, to know that love is supremely important.

 

I ask all those who are uncertain about God’s existence, or uncertain about claims to truth, to pray each day: Dear God of Love, if You exist, bring me to the Truth.

 

How can we condemn evil if moral truths are simply a matter of opinion?  Surely the slaughter of the innocent, rape, drug running and many other crimes cannot be defined out of existence?

 

Peer pressure can be fierce, whether we are young or old.  Alcohol, drugs and pornography can seem attractive escapes for every generation.  Long journeys start with small steps and bad habits capture our wills.  Apathy is poisonous, but individual courage and leadership inspire others, like a snowball rolling down a hill.

 

When the Holy Spirit first came upon the timid disciples at Pentecost, they were transformed, filled with the spirit of courage.

 

Peter, the up-country Galilean who had denied Christ three times, supported now by the Eleven, went out and preached to the Jewish visitors to Jerusalem from many nations that Jesus the Nazarene whom they had crucified was back from the dead, raised to life and freed from the pangs of Hades.  Three thousand were converted and baptized (Acts 2:1-41).

 

This week we celebrated the Feast of Mary Help of Christians, patroness of the Church in Sydney.  We ask her to pray for us, that God may give us all the courage and wisdom to refuse compromise and balance with the forces of evil, and to struggle mightily against them.

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.