Pentecost Homily from Fr. Simeon

PENTECOST 2025

(Acts 2:1-11; Rom 8:8-17; Jn 20:19-23)

Redwoods, June 8, 2025

On this great solemnity of Pentecost we celebrate the coming to us of the Holy Spirit of God, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity. The Spirit comes down upon us as a “strong driving wind”, as “tongues of fire”, and as the gentle yet life-giving “breathing” of the Lord Jesus into our souls. The Spirit of Father and Son comes to fill our beings with the very life of God, just as the Creator did at the beginning in Genesis, when he blew the divine breath into Adam’s nostrils and mouth in a primal, world-determining kiss, as the rabbis like to say. In the face of such bountiful, self-giving activity on God’s part, I would like for us to ask ourselves a fundamental question: Why do we human beings so often behave toward one another like beasts of prey when God’s Holy Spirit is constantly in-Spirit-ing and empowering us so that we can behave, rather, like angels of peace and mercy?

Part of the mystery of Pentecost is that, on the one hand, it appears a lot more abstract and intangible than either Christ’s Resurrection or his Ascension, because in these events we see and hear a concrete person, accessible to our senses. And yet, at the same time, though we cannot see the powerful Wind of the Spirit in itself but only in its effects, Pentecost is the most concrete and practical of mysteries, because, the Holy Spirit is the divine power that enters and transforms us from within, so that we can live lives that manifest the presence of Christ active in us. Indeed, it is the working of the Holy Spirit within us that turns us from being mere spectators of Jesus’ person and life into actual performers in the drama of our own and the world’s salvation.

In the weeks leading up to these great feasts of the Christian Year, we have continually heard poignant declarations by the Lord Jesus concerning the Holy Spirit, such as the following: The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you… When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth… He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you… It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

Christ, who cannot lie, not only reveals truth to us; he also bestows on us two faculties in relation to the truth which we do not possess on our own and without which the possession of the truth would be useless: namely, the capacity to remember and understand the truth, and the capacity to put the truth into practice by shaping our thoughts and actions in conformity to the truth. The Holy Spirit Christ sends us is, in fact, the divine energy that activates in us these two capacities.

The Spirit’s single purpose is to transform our inmost being in the likeness of Christ so that we can perceive the world with God’s own eyes and love it with God’s own Heart. The Holy Spirit’s primary operation is to instill in us the desire and the capacity to love as Jesus has loved—that is, unconditionally. In this way the Spirit remakes our entire person from within so that we become other Christs in the world, working with Christ for its redemption.

But transformation by the Spirit of God does not mean that we become holy automatons, cloned after a single pattern! If this were so, we could not speak of genuine teaching, reminding and guiding, all of which require a full-hearted response and engagement on our part as unique individuals. God aims at regenerating us, at giving birth to a vibrant new life within us. To reproduce ad nauseam the same tired model would contradict God’s nature as Lover of humankind and original divine Artist who takes delight in unimaginable variety. Each of us embodies Christ in a unique and highly personal and unrepeatable manner, as Paul writes to the Corinthians today in his description of the various charisms.

For this reason we can say that, being the best of loving friends, “the Spirit does not speak in our place but rather suggests to us what we should speak. The Spirit does not decide for us but advises us on what and how to decide. The Spirit does not do things in our stead but rather proposes what we should do. The Spirit does not forgive others for us but teaches us how to forgive and how to heal from the wounds that have been inflicted. The Spirit does not resolve conflicts as if by magic but rather educates us as to how to handle them well. The Spirit does not erase the dark aspects of our past existence but rather teaches us to find out their meaning and how to make fruitful use of such apparent failures in the present” (Fratel Paolo, Bose).

The presence and action of God’s Spirit may be detected wherever human beings are moved to deeds of selfless love, reconciliation, justice and peace. We can be sure that Christ’s visible Church in this world is but the tip of the iceberg of the whole mystical Body of Christ. In this connection, I want to tell you a moving story that illustrates this universal working of the Spirit of God for the benefit of all humankind.[1] It is the story of the Palestinian Aziz Abu Sarah and the Israeli Maoz Inon. This Muslim and this Jew met with the Holy Father at the Vatican on May 29 of this year. They had come to Rome to appeal to our new pope to intervene on behalf of peace in the Holy Land.

Maoz, the Jewish partner in this dialog, lost both his parents in the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas. Some time later, while suffering greatly, Maoz had a vision of himself in tears and all humanity crying along with him. Then something incredible happened. In his words: “Our tears healed the wounds, healed our burnt skin and cured us. And we kept crying and crying, and our tears went down to the ground. And our tears started washing the blood from the century-long conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. And our tears were purifying the land, and then I could see the path to peace and reconciliation.”

Maoz later struck up a friendship with the Muslim Aziz, who says: “We are not just partners, but we are brothers. We are brothers, pursuing justice and peace.” And what Aziz cannot forget is that “when we talked first time, Maoz’s first sentence was, “I’m not crying only for my parents. I’m also crying for the children in Gaza”. “To me,” says Aziz, that’s very powerful. For someone to be in so much pain and to think about the pain of others is not what most people do.” Together, Maoz and Aziz run an organization called InterAct. They are planning on leading a group of organizations on September 21^st of this year on a simultaneous march from East and from West Jerusalem. The two processions are to meet in the middle on that International Day of Peace.

Only the energy of divine Love, working deep in human hearts, can help the sorrowing turn the agonizing pain they feel into deeds of compassion and reconciliation with others, especially if these others are considered ancestral enemies. Let us who live in relative security, peace and comfort be astounded into action by the work of Christ’s Holy Spirit in human hearts everywhere, creating people who venture courageously and selflessly into situations of mortal risk, social conflict and hatred, in order to bring there a glimmer of God’s light. In whatever society we find ourselves, let us all strive to lay aside every form of life-choking prejudice and political contempt in order to welcome fully into our souls the transforming power of the Spirit of God who can make all things new. And so we pray: