REFLECTION: Pentecost reminds us to be forgiving “other Christs”

by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace

It’s very important that we now take a few moments to reflect on the scripture lessons that we’ve heard today, and to reflect on those lessons in the context of this great feast of Pentecost that we’re celebrating, but also, in a way even more in the context of this sacrament of confirmation that we’re celebrating. It’s very important for these four young people, but also for the rest of us, because it’s important that we remind ourselves that each one of us has been baptized and confirmed in the Holy Spirit of Jesus.

So as we listen to the lessons, we can maybe deepen our understanding of what it means to live as a Spirit-filled person. Maybe when you listen to the lessons today, you noticed that there might seem to be a discrepancy. The first lesson tells us it was 50 days later after the day of the Resurrection that this great event of Pentecost happened. He describes it with lots of details, but in the Gospel lesson, St. John says it was Easter Sunday night when the Spirit was given by Jesus to those first disciples.

It’s really not a big problem, because we need to remember that the Gospel writers aren’t writing history. They’re not trying to record the time and the date of everything that happened in the life of Jesus. They’re trying to help us understand why it happened, what its meaning is for us, what’s the deep significance of this event. If we go first of all to Luke’s description of Pentecost, we discover that Pentecost was a feast that was of low standing among Jewish people. For over 1,200 years, they had celebrated the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost means “50th.”…

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