Pentecost Thoughts

This was the opening prayer used at the Mass I attended this morning:

God our Father, let the Spirit you sent on your Church to begin the teaching of the gospel continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ....

This wording struck me. Pentecost, the beginning of the teaching of the gospel? Um... what about Jesus? What about the three years with his disciples, and the 50 days during which he taught them after the Resurrection? Doesn't that count?

The thought occurred to me that what Jesus came to do relative to the gospel was not so much to teach but to reveal. We absolutely cannot know the mind and heart of God apart from God revealing it, and that was the purpose of the Incarnation. Jesus did not come to answer our questions but to live with us, to be Emmanuel, God with us.

Also, though I cannot find the reference to this prayer right now, a prayer was offered during the Mass which referred to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit "completing the Paschal Mystery". The Paschal Mystery refers to God's plan of salvation by which earth is wedded to heaven and His life is freely shared with us. Specifically it refers to the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We can't leave off this last piece! This is where the Gift promised by Christ and poured out by the Father comes to live within the heart, the soul, of every believer and we are then empowered to teach the gospel to all nations.

So, what is the difference between our teaching and Christ's revealing?

To teach something means to pass on to others what you have already received. The Apostles had received from Christ, but they needed to be operating in divine power, so Jesus told them at the Ascension to stay put in Jerusalem until they had received the promised Holy Spirit. And when they received this outpouring, what they gave, what they spoke came through them, but it did not come from them. This is a sacrament. This is the Church. This is the way God works in this world.

If we are to share with a Christian awareness, we must have before our eyes always that we do not make ourselves, we do not preach ourselves, we do not belong just to ourselves. Before our eyes must be Christ as He is present to us. We receive all as from Him, we give all as to Him. This is not something we can drum up by our own effort, but we must always implore the Holy Spirit, the activator, who makes all of this real.

And then go with it.

The teaching of the gospel, "learning about our faith," is not, or should not be considered, primarily an intellectual activity. The intellect is part of what it means to be human, to be sure. There is absolutely nothing wrong (and there is everything right) with seeking rational thought about Truth. Revelation never contradicts reason, but it does surpass our limitations. But if we think of our need to learn more about God to require reading more books and memorizing more formulaic statements, we are missing the life. Yes, we must pray, but even more so we must live love with whomever God has placed in our lives. "We should love one another" is perhaps the most mundane thing that people of all faiths and no faith can all agree on. But this IS the mission of Christianity! There is such a world of difference between agreeing that love is a good thing and actually loving. Faith without love, or as St. James says, faith without deeds, is dead. It is worth nothing.

Nothing.

Zilch, nada, zip.