Our People

Homily for Mass for the Solemnity of Pentecost and Confirmation

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
11/5/2008

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," Jesus said (Acts 1:8). Who is this 'you'? Most obviously the Apostles who heard these parting words before he ascended and who awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Yet they were not alone. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told they gathered around Mary to pray and that there were other kinsmen and women there as well (1:13-14).

But there is another reason for thinking Jesus was not only speaking to the Apostles: he said that "you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Now, according to tradition, the two Jameses got no further than Jerusalem and Judea before being executed. John escaped to Asia Minor, Ephesus and Patmos. Peter preached in Antioch and Corinth before being crucified in Rome under the emperor Nero. Andrew got to Greece, Philip to Turkey, Bartholomew to Armenia, Matthew, Simon and Jude to Persia. St Thomas gets the prize for clocking up the most frequent flyers points: he got as far as India and no doubt hoped to make it to Australia.

Even death did not stop these gadabouts. By rather complicated routes the bones of most of them eventually found their way to Rome. St Thomas' relics stayed put in Madras; but James' got to Spain and Andrew’s to Scotland. We need not examine too closely the itineraries of these saints or of their relics. Clearly receiving the Holy Spirit can do some extraordinary things to you, including sending you on mission to distant places or to unfamiliar places closer to home. Clearly receiving the Holy Spirit can be a dangerous thing, as it demands your all, and makes more of that all, and sometimes puts that all in harm’s way, even as it puts you on the way to God.

In fact the Apostles did not make it to the ends of the earth. It took generations for the Gospel to reach even the edges of the Græco-Roman empire, and 2,000 years later there are places the Gospel has barely penetrated. Here in Australia there are many who do not yet know Christ or who are only weakly connected to him. And the Gospel has yet fully to infiltrate our own hearts. So to whom was Jesus referring when he said ‘you’ would receive the power of the Holy Spirit and ‘you’ would be his witnesses? The whole Christian community, from then until the end of time, for it is only through them that the Gospel can reach the end of the earth. And that means that Pentecost must in some sense still be happening.

Pentecost was the ancient Jewish Feast of the Harvest and also of the giving of the Law: it was the ideal day, then, for God to give the first Christians a new fruitfulness and a new guide. Filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit we see today the Apostles courageously communicating divine wisdom to all around them – and doing so in every language of the Mediterranean. However, none yet spoke Stryne. If the Gospel was to reach the ends of the earth, it would be the task of a future generation who spoke Aussie English.

But who would dare take on such a task? Who would take the Gospel to the wilds of deepest, darkest Sydney? Only people on fire with the Holy Spirit. As much as those first Christians, we need that power Christ promised. Yet when we hear the word power all sorts of things might come to mind. There is the power of nature, seen in the waves crashing against the beach, in the stars of a clear night, or in the face of a newborn baby. As any mother on this Mothers Day would tell you, nature is awesome. It has wow power. Yet the power of nature can also be cruel, as the terrible devastation recently rent upon poor Burma demonstrates. Wow power can be positive or negative.

In addition to the forces of nature there is another sense of power: the power we have over nature, the ability to put nature to our uses. The power industry, and who owns and controls it, is very much in the news at the moment. This kind of power gives us light and warmth and transport and more; it powers industry and even the sound system in a cathedral – at least sometimes. This power we harness from nature we might call action power and it, too, can be ambivalent. Nuclear power and fire power can be used to kill; fuels can pollute our environment. Action power, like wow power, can be for good or ill.

And then there is the power we have over each other. Law and order, authority and influence have many positive uses. Individuals, families, communities all need this decision power. Yet this too has its pointy end. The recent violence in Tibet underlined how dangerous can be both anarchy and dictatorship. Sometimes power corrupts, manipulates, exploits, tyrannizes. In the struggle for power over self, resources and others, people can do violence, terrorism, drugs; they can lie and cheat and manipulate and oppress. Instead of being an energy to bring life and love, decision power can sometimes snuff them out.

So is power to be loved or to be feared? It all depends on where it comes from and where it is going, who is driving it and to what end. When God gives us power he is giving what we need to choose the good and true and beautiful. Jesus gives the Holy Spirit of Truth, who opens our hearts to the fullness of wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Jesus gives the Holy Spirit of Charity, who infuses us with reverence, awe and love for God and neighbour, and impels us to service. Jesus gives the Holy Spirit of Witness, inspiring in us the courage and right judgment to stand up like Peter and be counted.
 
The Acts of the Apostles record that after the Spirit was given at Pentecost to the Apostles, it was given in turn to Jews (2:33), Samaritans (8:14-19), Saul the Persecutor turned Apostle to the Gentiles (9:17), and lastly to the Gentiles themselves (10:45-47; 11:15-16). Increasingly receiving the Spirit was associated with baptism, which marked out Christian baptism as different to that of John the Baptist or others (Acts 1:5; 2:38; 8:14-19; 10:45-47; 11:15-16). Luke also records the beginnings of the Sacrament of Confirmation – an additional giving of the Holy Spirit after Baptism – with Peter and John laying hands on the Samaritan Christians after their baptism to mediate the Holy Spirit to them (8:14-19) and Paul doing the same for the Ephesians (19:2-6). When likewise in a few minutes time I pray over our candidates for Confirmation and put the sacred oil of chrism on their foreheads and say “Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit” Christ will fulfil his promise and give them the power of his Spirit as he did the Apostles all those centuries ago.

In just 65 days time the World Youth Day celebrations will begin in Sydney under the banner of that promise. To the great relief, no doubt, of the regulars here at the Cathedral all the work on the floors and interior of the Cathedral, and much of that on the exterior including the piazza will at last be finished. We will have spruced up God's house in time to welcome more than 200,000 youth from around Australia and around the world. They will gather with the Successors of Peter and the Apostles for a week of catechesis and prayer, worship and celebration. When we hear our cathedral and our streets abuzz with youthful faith spoken in so many languages and see the Holy Father and the Bishops leading us in worship, it will be as if a new Pentecost has come to this Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. All will be challenged to be witnesses to Christ in the decades ahead. For the fifty of you being confirmed here today, this ceremony is not just an echo of Pentecosts past, but a premonition of those World Youth Days ahead.

So be from this morning active members of the Church, alive in Jesus Christ. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit offer God your lives given in service of all, as Christ did. Be ready, when the young people of world arrive with Pope Benedict to show them that we are people of faith and that empowered by the Holy Spirit, we too are ready to be witnesses to Jesus Christ.