As we prepare for the first Joint Assembly of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, we know that there are some who, like our ancestors in the faith, may be just a little dispirited as we face the challenges of our times. But just as surely as God's Spirit inspired the fi rst generation of believers, that same Spirit is working in us to give us the words to speak to one another and to those who are seeking something-dare we say, "Someone"-to believe in.

Our coming "Together for the Love of the World" will be a visible sign of the Spirit working in and among us. It will be time to take counsel together for the common good of both our churches and for the common good of our world. It will be a time to set our fears aside and arise with "bold new decisions."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Canada • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Lutheran

Ascension theology turns at this point to the Eucharist, for in celebrating the eucharist the church professes to know how the divine presents itself in our time, and how the question of faithfulness is posed. Eucharistically, the church acknowledges that Jesus has heard and has answered the upward call; that, like Moses, he has ascended into that impenetrable cloud overhanging the mountain. Down below, rumours of glory emanate from the elders, but the master himself is nowhere to be seen. He is no longer with his people in the same way he used to be. Yet he is with them, in the Spirit.

--Douglas Farrow, Ascension Theology (New York: T and T Clark, 2011), p. 64

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Pentecost • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Theology: Scripture

O Almighty God, who on the day of Pentecost didst send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to abide in thy Church unto the end: Bestow upon us, and upon all thy faithful people, his manifold gifts of grace; that with minds enlightened by his truth and hearts purified by his presence, we may day by day be strengthened with power in the inward man; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, with thee and the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth one God world without end.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

Strengthen us, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Comforter, and daily increase in us thy manifold gifts of grace; the spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of counsel and strength; the spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and fill us, O Lord, with the spirit of thy holy fear, now and for ever.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost

The three congregations of St Christopher’s on the Costa Azahar, north of Valencia, united in the service in a church member’s large garden overlooking the Mediterranean in Ampolla.

Their Australian locum priest, Fr. Kevin Ellem, spoke passionately of the power of God’s Spirit to invigorate His Church today. Fr Kevin added a native touch to the occasion by leading the service wearing an outback approved sun hat.

Read it all and enjoy the pictures.

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Listen to it all if you so desire.

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Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Living God,
you breathe in us
on all that is inadequate and fragile.

You make living water spring even
from our hurts themselves. And
through you, the valley of tears
becomes a place of wellsprings.

So, in an inner life
with neither beginning nor end,
your continual presence
makes new freshenss break through

--Brother Roger of Taizé (1915-2005) as cited in Prayers Encircling the World: An International Anthology (London: SPCK, 1998), page 71

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

O Holy Spirit of God, who didst descend upon our Lord Christ at the river Jordan, and upon the disciples at the feast of Pentecost: Have mercy upon us, we beseech thee, and by thy divine fire enlighten our minds and purify our hearts; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

--Saint Nerses of Clajes (4th century Persian Bishop and Martyr)

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O God, who in the exaltation of thy Son Jesus Christ dost sanctify thy universal Church: Shed abroad in every race and nation the gift of the Holy Spirit; that the work wrought by his power at the first preaching of the gospel may now be extended throughout the whole world; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

--Gelasian Sacramentary

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Christians have often hoped for a time when our racial and economic differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided.

Many such interpretations emerge from a fervent hope that the specters of racism, sexism, and myriad other destructive “isms” would no longer bind us to cycles of violence and hate. Many such interpretations emerge from a misreading of texts like Galatians 3:28. Such readings imagine that becoming Christians means becoming all the same in all ways. There are no ethnic differences between us (“no longer Jew or Greek”), no differences of class and status between us (“no longer slave or free”), no gendered differences between us (“no longer male and female”).

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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O Lord our God, long-suffering and full of compassion: Be present with us, we beseech thee, as we enter upon this season in which we make ready to recall our Saviour’s sufferings and to celebrate his triumph. Grant us the aid of thy Holy Spirit, that as we acknowledge our sins, and implore thy pardon, we may also be enabled to deny ourselves, and be upheld in the hour of temptation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

--Prayers for the Christian Year

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O Holy Spirit of God, Lord and Giver of life: Come into our hearts, we beseech thee; that enlightened by thy clear shining, and warmed by thine unselfish love, our souls may be revived to the worship of God, and our lives be dedicated anew to the service of our fellows: for Jesus Christ’s sake.

--H. C. Cooksey

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O Almighty God, who on the day of Pentecost didst send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to abide in thy Church unto the end: Bestow upon us, and upon all thy faithful people, his manifold gifts of grace; that with minds enlightened by his truth and hearts purified by his presence, we may day by day be strengthened with power in the inward man; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, with thee and the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth one God world without end.

--Scottish Prayer Book

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O Holy Ghost, giver of light and life, impart to us thoughts higher than our own thoughts, and prayers better than our own prayers, and powers beyond our own powers, that we may spend and be spent in the ways of love and goodness, after the perfect image of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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O Holy Spirit of God, who didst descend upon our Lord Christ at the river Jordan, and upon the disciples at the feast of Pentecost: Have mercy upon us, we beseech thee, and by thy divine fire enlighten our minds and purify our hearts; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

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O God, who according to thy promise hast given thy Holy Spirit to us thy people, that we might know the freedom of thy children and taste on earth our heavenly inheritance: Grant that we may ever hold fast the unity which he gives, and, living in his power, may be thy witnesses to all men; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

--Church of South India

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Read it all carefully.

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Almighty God, who fillest all things with thy boundless presence, yet makest thy chosen dwelling-place in the soul of man: Come thou, a gracious and willing Guest, and take thine abode in our hearts; that all unholy thoughts and desires within us be cast out, and thy holy presence be to us comfort, light and love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

--James Ferguson

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My Western background left me completely unprepared for this Eastern take on the feast of the gift of the Spirit to the Church. In Western Churches, Pentecost particularly focuses on the “fire” of the Holy Spirit lighting on the disciples in the upper room and the “empowerment” of the Church for mission. Traditionally in the West, the color of the feast is red (for the fire).

In the East, the color of the feast is green – which is also the color worn for the feast days of monastic saints. In the West, green is the “ordinary” color worn in the “in between” Sundays and weekdays of the Calendar. For the Orthodox, gold serves this function.

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O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who after his ascension didst send upon the first disciples thy promised gift of the Holy Spirit: Regard, we pray thee, the present need of thy Church, and grant us by the same Spirit to be endued with power from on high, that we may bear effectual witness to the truth of thy holy gospel; so that they who serve thee may be strengthened and encouraged, and they who serve thee not may be convicted and converted; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Almighty God our Father, who after thy Son had ascended on high soon thereafter sent forth thy Spirit in and on the Church, grant that we who have been born again by water and that same Holy Spirit, may be prepared as tomorrow we celebrate and remember how He descends and births thy body of which we are a part, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Ascension • Easter • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

What is the deepest and surest assurance and intimation that the Holy Spirit is present in our world and Church today? The answer is: joy. If there is joy present you can bet that the Holy Spirit has something to do with this precious gift.

St. Augustine who was the most musically passionate of the Fathers of the Church memorably evokes the experience of this joy with these words: "Whenever people must labor hard they begin with songs whose words express their joy. But when joy brims over and words are not enough they abandon even this coherence and give themselves to the sheer sound of singing.

"What is this jubilation? What is this exultant song? It is the melody that means our hearts are bursting with feelings that cannot express themselves. And to whom does this jubilation most surely belong? Truly to God who is unutterable, if words will not come and may not remain silent what else can you do but let the melody soar? This is the song of the Holy Spirit."

On this great feast of the birth of the Church, let us ponder anew the whole reality of the Church, from the wide-angle view of its vastness and beauty, to the sometimes turbulent and complex surface, zooming in finally on hope, one of the deepest manifestations of the Spirit alive in the Church. In doing so, we can marvel once again at the mercy and generosity of God and give thanks to the Lord who continues to call us to fidelity and joy.

Read it all.

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Those are his words, not mine--see what you think; KSH.

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O Holy Spirit of God, who didst descend upon our Lord Christ at the river Jordan, and upon the disciples at the feast of Pentecost: Have mercy upon us, we beseech thee, and by thy divine fire enlighten our minds and purify our hearts; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

--Adapted from a prayer of Saint Nerses of Clajes [Fourth Century A.D.]

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

Almighty God, who fillest all things with thy boundless presence, yet makest thy chosen dwelling-place in the soul of man: Come thou, a gracious and willing Guest, and take thine abode in our hearts; that all unholy thoughts and desires within us be cast out, and thy holy presence be to us comfort, light and love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

--James Ferguson

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

O Holy Spirit of God, Lord and Giver of life: Come into our hearts, we beseech thee; that enlightened by thy clear shining, and warmed by thine unselfish love, our souls may be revived to the worship of God, and our lives be dedicated anew to the service of our fellows: for Jesus Christ’s sake.

--H. C. Cooksey

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

O Almighty God, who on the day of Pentecost didst send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to abide in thy Church unto the end: Bestow upon us, and upon all thy faithful people, his manifold gifts of grace; that with minds enlightened by his truth and hearts purified by his presence, we may day by day be strengthened with power in the inward man; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, with thee and the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth one God world without end.

--Scottish Prayer Book

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

More than 4,000 Christians put denominational differences aside and united as one for a special event to praise God and the city of Oxford today.

Christians from dozens of different nationalities cancelled their usual Sunday worship to join together for a mass prayer in South Park in which they were told Christianity is more relevant than ever in today’s world.

Congregations from an estimated 40 Oxford churches including Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, Russian Orthodox, and the Chinese fellowship were blessed with fine weather as they sang hymns under one marquee roof.

Read it all.

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The account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles -- we listened to it in the first reading (Acts 2:1-11) -- presents the “new course” of the work that God began with Christ’s resurrection, a work that involves man, history and the cosmos. The Son of God, dead and risen and returned to the Father, now breathes with untold energy the divine breath upon humanity, the Holy Spirit. And what does this new and powerful self-communication of God produce? Where there are divisions and estrangement he creates unity and understanding. The Spirit triggers a process of reunification of the divided and dispersed parts of the human family; persons, often reduced to individuals in competition or in conflict with each other, reached by the Spirit of Christ, open themselves to the experience of communion, can involve them to such an extent as to make of them a new organism, a new subject: the Church. This is the effect of God’s work: unity; thus unity is the sign of recognition, the “business card” of the Church in the course of her universal history. From the very beginning, from the day of Pentecost, she speaks all languages. The universal Church precedes the particular Churches, and the latter must always conform to the former according to a criterion of unity and universality. The Church never remains a prisoner within political, racial and cultural confines; she cannot be confused with states not with federations of states, because her unity is of a different type and aspires to transcend every human frontier.

From this, dear brothers, there derives a practical criterion of discernment for Christian life: When a person or a community, limits itself to its own way of thinking and acting, it is a sign that it has distanced itself from the Holy Spirit.

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O God, who in the exaltation of thy Son Jesus Christ dost sanctify thy universal Church: Shed abroad in every race and nation the gift of the Holy Spirit; that the work wrought by his power at the first preaching of the gospel may now be extended throughout the whole world; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

--Gelasian Sacramentary

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

Fifty days after Easter we celebrate the solemnity of Pentecost, in which we recall the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit, who – as wind and as fire – descended upon the Apostles gathered together in the Cenacle, and made them able to preach the Gospel to all nations with courage (cf. Acts 2:1-13).

The mystery of Pentecost, which we rightly identify with the event of the Church’s true “baptism,” is not, however, exhausted by this. The Church in fact lives constantly from the effusion of the Holy Spirit, without which she would exhaust her own powers, like a ship with sails and no wind. Pentecost is renewed in a special way in certain powerful moments, whether this be at the local or the universal level, whether it be in small assemblies or in great convocations.

The councils, for example, had sessions gratified by special outpourings of the Holy Spirit, and among these is certainly the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. We might also recall that celebrated meeting of the ecclesial movements with Venerable John Paul II, here in St. Peter’s Square, precisely on Pentecost in 1998. But the Church knows countless “pentecosts” that vivify the local communities: We think of the liturgies, particularly those experienced in special moments of the community’s life, in which the power of God is perceived in an evident way, infusing joy and enthusiasm in souls. We think of many other gatherings of prayer in which young people clearly feel the call of God to root their lives in his love, even consecrating themselves entirely to him.

Read it all.

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Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christ-likeness of character apart from his fruit, and no effective witness without his power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead.

--The Acts of the Apostles, A Commentary by John Stott

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[At Pentecost Peter] intendeth to prove...that the Church can be repaired by no other means, saving only by the giving of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, forasmuch as they did all hope that the restoring drew near, he accuseth them of sluggishness, because they do not once think upon the way and means thereof. And when the prophet saith, “I will pour out,” it is, without all question, that he meant by this word to note the great abundance of the Spirit....when God will briefly promise salvation to his people, he affirmeth that he will give them his Spirit. Hereupon it followeth that we can obtain no good things until we have the Spirit given us.

--Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles

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The more specific you can be the more enjoyable it will be for the rest of us.

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O Thou whose eye is over all the children of men, and who hast called them into a kingdom not of this world: Send forth thy Holy Spirit into all the dark places of life. Let him still the noise of our strife and the tumult of the people, carry faith to the doubting, hope to the fearful, strength to the weak, light to the mourners, and more and more increase the pure in heart who see their God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who after his ascension didst send upon the first disciples thy promised gift of the Holy Spirit: Regard, we pray thee, the present need of thy Church, and grant us by the same Spirit to be endued with power from on high, that we may bear effectual witness to the truth of thy holy gospel; so that they who serve thee may be strengthened and encouraged, and they who serve thee not may be convicted and converted; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Spirituality/Prayer

Pause on Ascension for a moment. The Ascension, frustratingly, is often radically misunderstood. The Ascension is not about Jesus going away and encouraging his followers to look forward to the time when they, too, will leave this sad old earth and follow him to heaven. The angels do not say to the watching disciples, ‘This same Jesus, whom you have seen going into heaven, will look forward to welcoming you when you go to join him there,’ but ‘this same Jesus, whom you have seen going into heaven, will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’. And the point of that so-called ‘second coming’, or ‘reappearance’ as several New Testament writers put it, is not that he will then scoop us up and take us away from earth to heaven, but that he will celebrate the great party, the great banquet, the marriage of heaven and earth, establishing once and for all his rescuing, ransoming, restoring sovereignty over the whole creation. ‘The kingdom of this world,’ says John the Seer, ‘has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he shall reign for ever and ever.’ Amen, we say at the Ascension. This is the real Feast of Christ the King, and the sooner we abolish the fake one that has recently been inserted into our calendar in late November the more likely we shall be to get our political theology sorted out. And, boy, do we need to sort it out right now. If at a time like this we cannot think and speak and act Christianly and wisely and clearly and sharply into the mess and muddle of the rulers of the world we really should be ashamed of ourselves. Jesus is already reigning, is already in charge of this world. ‘All authority,’ he says at the end of Matthew’s gospel, ‘has been given to me in heaven and on earth.’ When he returns he will complete that work of transformative, restorative justice; but it has already begun, despite the sneers of the sceptics and the scorn of the powerful, and we celebrate it with every Eucharist but especially today at Pentecost.

Why especially today? Because at Pentecost we discover, as in last week’s Collect, that the Holy Spirit comes to strengthen or comfort us and exalt us to the same place where our saviour Christ has gone before. In other words, the Spirit is the power of heaven come to earth, or to put it the other way the Spirit is the power that enables surprised earthlings to share in the life of heaven. And, to say it once more, the point about heaven is that heaven is the control room for earth. The claim of Pentecost, from Acts 2 and Ephesians 4 and Romans 8 and all those other great Spirit-texts in the New Testament, especially John 13—16, is precisely that the rule which the ascended Lord Jesus exercises on earth is exercised through his Spirit-filled people. No doubt we do need ‘comforting’ in the modern sense of that word, cheering up when we’re sad. But we need, far more do we need, ‘comforting’ in the older sense of ‘strengthening’, strengthening-by-coming-alongside. Just as, in human ‘comfort’, a strange thing happens, that the sheer presence, even the silent presence, alongside us of a friend gives us fresh courage and hope, how much more will the presence alongside us and within us of the Spirit of Jesus himself give us courage and hope not simply to cheer up in ourselves but to be strong to witness to his Lordship, his sovereign rule, over the world where human rulers mess it up and ignorant armies clash by night.

So being ‘exalted to the place where Jesus has gone before’ is precisely not about being snatched away from this wicked world and its concerns. On the contrary, it is to be taken in the power of the Spirit to the place from which the world is run.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics

Now, dear brothers and sisters, in today's solemnity Scripture tells us how the community must be, how we must be to receive the Holy Spirit. In his account of Pentecost the sacred author says that the disciples "were together in the same place." This "place" is the Cenacle, the "upper room," where Jesus held the Last Supper with his disciples, where he appeared to them after his resurrection; that room that had become the "seat," so to speak, of the nascent Church (cf. Acts 1:13). Nevertheless, the intention in the Acts of the Apostles is more to indicate the interior attitude of the disciples than to insist on a physical place: "They all persevered in concord and prayer" (Acts 1:14). So, the concord of the disciples is the condition for the coming of the Holy Spirit; and prayer is the presupposition of concord.

This is also true for the Church today, dear brothers and sisters. It is true for us who are gathered together here. If we do not want Pentecost to be reduced to a mere ritual or to a suggestive commemoration, but that it be a real event of salvation, through a humble and silent listening to God's Word we must predispose ourselves to God's gift in religious openness. So that Pentecost renew itself in our time, perhaps there is need -- without taking anything away from God's freedom [to do as he pleases] -- for the Church to be less "preoccupied" with activities and more dedicated to prayer. Mary Most Holy, the Mother of the Church and Bride of the Holy Spirit, teaches us this. This year Pentecost occurs on the last day of May, when the Feast of the Visitation is customarily celebrated. This event was also a little "Pentecost," bringing forth joy and praise from the hearts of Elizabeth and Mary -- the one barren and the other a virgin -- who both became mothers by an extraordinary divine intervention (cf. Luke 1:41-45).

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I would like to reflect on a particular aspect of the Holy Spirit, on the intertwining of multiplicity and unity. The second reading speaks about this, treating of the harmony of the different charisms in the communion of the same Spirit. But already in the passage from Acts that we have listened to, this intertwining reveals itself with extraordinary evidence. In the event of Pentecost it is made clear that multiple languages and different cultures belong to the Church; they can understand and make each other fruitful. St. Luke clearly wants to convey a fundamental idea, namely, in the act itself of her birth the Church is already "catholic," universal. She speaks all languages from the very beginning, because the Gospel that is entrusted to her is destined for all peoples, according to the will and the mandate of the risen Christ (cf. Matthew 28:19). The Church that is born at Pentecost is not above all a particular community -- the Church of Jerusalem -- but the universal Church, that speaks the language of all peoples. From her, other communities in every corner of the world will be born, particular Churches that are all and always actualizations of the one and only Church of Christ. The Catholic Church is therefore not a federation of churches, but a single reality: The universal Church has ontological priority. A community that is not catholic in this sense would not even be a Church.

In this regard it is necessary to add another aspect: that of the theological vision of the Acts of the Apostles in respect of the journey of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome. Luke notes that among the peoples represented in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost there are also "foreigners from Rome" (Acts 2:10). At that time Rome was still distant, "foreign" for the nascent Church: It was a symbol of the pagan world in general. But the power of the Holy Spirit will guide the steps of the witnesses "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8), to Rome. The Acts of the Apostles ends precisely when Paul, by providential design, arrives at the empire's capital and proclaims the Gospel there (cf. Acts 28:30-31). Thus the journey of God's Word, begun in Jerusalem, arrives at its goal, because Rome represents the whole world and thus incarnates the Lucan idea of catholicity. The universal Church is realized, the catholic Church, which is the continuation of the chosen people and makes its history and mission her own.

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Pentecost was anything but the privatization of piety. Christians who spent yesterday in a holy huddle missed the point entirely! For Pentecost was anything but that. Out of a prayer gathering sprung a radical egalitarianism. For as the inaugural sermon made it patently clear this movement was to be typified by a fundamental re-alignment of human relationships and concepts of justice. Both old and young would become visionaries; women were included in the movement. And God would pour his liberating Spirit on every culture under the sun.

Yesterday thousands of Christians relived that moment as they met for a Global Day of Prayer in Millwall football stadium joining half a billion people around the world - not just to pray for other Christians, but to celebrate and pray about the problems in our world. They prayed about war and famine and asked searching questions about their responsibility as UK citizens.

In the ecumenical service where I preached yesterday morning there was nothing incongruous about our intercession for teenager, Jimmy Mizen who became the 13th victim of knife crime in London on Saturday night. And it seemed natural to redirect our giving in response to disaster victims in Burma.

As the German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann put it: 'no corner of this world should remain without God's promise of a new creation through the power of the resurrection.'

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost

The drama of Pentecost: mighty wind, flames of fire, the gift of tongues, can distract us from the more profound and lasting effect of the coming of the Holy Spirit: namely, the way this event transformed the apostles' - and through them, our - relationship with the Word of God, empowering these "uneducated and ordinary men" (Acts 4:13) to unlock the meaning of their ancient texts, the psalms and prophecies so familiar on one level but of which the deeper significance had, until then, remained veiled. Peter must have heard the words of the prophet Joel many times and had no doubt listened to many a rabbi expounding them, but on the day of Pentecost those "young men" who "shall see visions" and "old men" who "shall dream dreams" (Joel 2:28) appeared, not as pencil outlines on the faded page of the past but in full technicolour before him. Here we have the essence of lectio divina, to engage with a text in a living, life-transforming way, through the gift of the Holy Spirit; to perceive the Word in the words. This is what makes lectio more like prayer than study, and why we may have to broaden our vision of this term to include all contact with the Word of God. After all, a phone-call or voice message from a loved one is at least as, if not more, welcome than a text message or letter. No one has taught us this better than the Apostle John:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being" (John 1:1-3).

Today we tend to think of lectio divina as an almost exclusively individual activity; but it's important to realise that such personal reading of the Scriptures grew out of, and reinforced, their public proclamation in the liturgy.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost

The Spirit, the dynamic energy of God, the breath of the divine life, is often associated with random inspiration, with inspired prophets and enthusiasts who do their own thing. But in the Bible the Spirit is also the one who orders. The mighty wind that swept over the waters of chaos in the very opening verses of Scripture brings order and pattern and shaping life. Energy and order are not opposed in the order of the new creation of God’s life-giving Spirit any more than they are in the patterns of energy that make up the order of the universe. The church is to be and to live the order of the new creation. The Spirit is the Spirit of transforming holiness, shaping men and women in the pattern of the divine love in whose image they are made.

St Augustine knew that a fallen world was a world of disordered desire. He went so far as to say that all thefts, all murders and adulteries sprang from disordered love. “Shall we stop loving then?” he asks. “No, if you stop loving you will become a block of wood, a dead thing.”

Our calling is to “set love in order”, to be shaped and ordered, we might say, by the internet of the Spirit, the Lord and the Giver of life, who “alone can order the unruly wills and passions of sinful men”. And that grace and that life is at the heart of the Church’s being, and of what it is to be human, and so at Pentecost we pray: “Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire!” for “the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world. Alleluia!”.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost

We need to remember, as we celebrate Whitsun tomorrow, that progress in the Spirit is by fits and starts. The gift of the Holy Spirit is something we need to get used to, and the Holy Spirit needs to get used to us

The description St Luke gives of the Church in Jerusalem after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is one that has inspired many subsequent reform movements in the Church, and has been very influential in the foundation of many religious orders. It is not difficult to see why. It tells of the whole group of believers being of one heart and soul, with no one claiming private ownership of any possessions, but holding everything in common, and not a needy person among them (Acts 4:32-35).

Commentators describe this passage as a "summary", but it is a very curious kind of summary, for no sooner has Luke given it than he appears to contradict it, at every point. First we hear of a married couple who tried to deceive the community by presenting only part of the proceeds of the sale of their property as though it were the whole (Acts 5: 1-11). A little later we are told of dissension that divided this early Christian community, if not along racial lines, then certainly along linguistic ones. The Hellenists (Greek speakers) grumbled against the Hebrews (Hebrew or Aramaic speakers) because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of bread (Acts 6:1-6). Christians are not supposed to grumble, even when they have something to grumble about, as St Paul told the Corinthians in peremptory fashion (1 Corinthians 10:10). But here we find grumbling among those who have just been described as being "of one mind and one heart". How can these Hellenists have had anything to grumble about if the Jerusalem community held everything in common, and there was not a needy person among them?

The solution the Apostles found to this problem hardly allows them to be seen to best advantage as giving testimony to the Resurrection of the Lord with great power (Acts 4: 33). For whereas Jesus had characteristically attended to the physical and spiritual needs of the people, and had encouraged his disciples to do the same (cf. Mark 6:12-13), here we find the Apostles distinguishing between service to the Word and waiting on tables, and clearly regarding themselves as being too important to be involved in the latter. Nor did their solution address and heal the original division, for the seven they appointed to wait at tables all had Greek names: presumably there were separate soup kitchens for Hellenists and Hebrews thereafter.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Biblical Commentary & Reflection • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • * Theology • Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)

Three weeks ago I celebrated Mass in the northern Spanish village of Caleruega, in a tiny chapel marking the birth place of St Dominic. This chapel was built on the site of his parents’ bedroom soon after his death in 1221 and became the crypt of a larger church.

Today, at the centre of the crypt, there is a fountain of flowing water, a symbol of new life. Many pilgrims have come to this fountain over the centuries, especially those seeking fruitfulness and fertility in their lives, and they still do so today, for this is a place of powerful prayer and of the gracious action of God.

This weekend Christian Churches throughout the world will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, marking the outpouring of the Spirit of God, which flowed not from the birth of a saint but from the death and Resurrection of the Son of God.

The images of Pentecost are full of energy, freedom and joy. The flames of fire, the powerful wind, the soaring dove, the kaleidoscope of languages – all portray the fruitfulness of this gift of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost the frightened first band of Disciples are transformed into fearless preachers of the Word of God. Our liturgical celebration of the feast gives access to that same gift today.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • Liturgy, Music, Worship

The concept of the Holy Spirit would eventually be seen as equal with the Father and Son as manifestations of the Triune God – a monotheistic concept in which Christians attempt to explain three ways in which the single God is experienced by and revealed to believers. In modern times, the evangelical movement known as Pentecostalism places deep importance upon a personal experience with the Spirit, and especially upon being “baptized” by the Spirit in the model of the original Pentecost.

Outside of this and similar movements, however, the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology and worship is too often misunderstood and underemphasized. And indeed, with rare exception, Pentecost Sunday will go by once again like the crazy uncle at Christmas dinner – forgotten and ignored; it will go largely unnoticed by the global church it helped plant so many years ago.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Pentecost • * Theology • Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)