Solemnity of Peter and Paul, apostles - Year A

Acts 12:1-11; 2Timothy 4:6-8.17-18; Matthew 16:13-19

Perhaps you remember seeing a war movie about a professor in Germany who was thought by the Nazis to have anti-Nazi leanings and so they kept an eye on him in his lectures. One day he drew a triangle on the board and made a map of the German political system and Hitler was on the bottom of the triangle. This got him into trouble and he was taken away. They asked him why he put Hitler on the bottom and he told them it was because the future of Germany rested on his shoulders.

This is a good example of the meaning of the word hierarchy even though this professor’s hierarchy was drawn upside down.

I remember also a conversation I had with an Anglican friend in a former parish of mine. He was actually the pastor of the Anglican parish. We were good friends and often discussed our mutual problems. This day we were discussing recent developments in the Anglican Church when women were first being ordained as Anglican priests. It was causing huge upheaval in that community and he said to me with great sadness: You know, we're tearing ourselves apart and we have no one to stop it.

Isn’t that interesting? We have no one to stop it. I quietly thought to myself: Thank God we do!

My friend was not lamenting the fact that there was no one willing to use his authority to stop the bickering, he was lamenting the fact that there was no one in the Anglican communion who had the authority to stop the bickering. There was no single authority who had oversight and power to do anything about the destructive dispute which is still going on today, except now it is centred on women bishops and practising homosexual clergy.

How glad we should be in the Catholic Church that Christ gave us someone who could stop the fighting! The Pope, the Holy Father, the Supreme Pontiff, the Successor of St Peter, the Universal Shepherd of the People of God, the Vicar of Christ has this total and vitally necessary power. People rail against it, complain about it, disobey it and try to destroy it, but without the Pope and his authority the Catholic Church and, I daresay, the world would soon be reduced to rubble.

Do you remember what Vatican II had to say about this power of the Supreme Pontiff? In paragraph 22 of Lumen Gentium we are told: In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power.

The Pope has full, supreme and universal power over the Church and in exercising this power the Holy Father does not have to get permission from the bishops or even to consult them, and because this power is full and absolute there is no appeal against it.

Lumen Gentium, in the same paragraph, goes on to explain that the college of bishops also has this same power over the Universal Church provided the Pope is always included among them as the head – and never without him.

The bishops can exercise this power only with the consent of the Pope - For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church, and made him shepherd of the whole flock ... .

This college, insofar as it is composed of many (bishops), expresses the variety and universality of the People of God, but insofar as it is assembled under one head (the Pope), it expresses the unity of the flock of Christ. Many bishops under one Pope.

It would come as no surprise to those of you who know me to hear that I thank God for the gift of the papacy and that I love the Holy Father. He is the means by which God gives unity and order to the Church. I thank God also for the college of bishops. How blessed we are here in the Archdiocese of Sydney to have a bishop such as Cardinal Pell and his assistant bishops! We are the envy of many other places in Australia and around the world.

Today is also the feast of St Paul, a great bishop of the Church. He was the Apostle to the Gentiles, the non-Jews (that’s us). From a persecutor of the Christians he became a preacher of the Gospel, an extraordinary turnaround. His ministry too was extraordinary and is clearly described in Acts and in his own Epistles.

Paul, like Peter, was an exceedingly humble man but ready at any time to use the authority Jesus had given him. He taught the Faith wherever he went, courageously preaching and faithfully passing on only what he had received and adding nothing of his own. He was meticulously careful in this and if he ever did give his own opinion about something he scrupulously made it clear that this was coming from him and not necessarily from the Lord.

Paul tirelessly set up new churches all over Asia Minor and finally gave his life for his Master in Rome where he was beheaded.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. If we believe what the Church believes it is because the Faith received from Christ was lived, preached and safeguarded by them. It is a marvellously great gift for which we should be deeply grateful and this gratitude can be shown by our readiness to live it and hand it on to our children and to all in our lives.

Pentecost Sunday Mass during the day - Year A

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3-7.12-13; John 20:19-23

When Pentecost day came round…

Pentecost means fifty – seven weeks plus one day - fifty days after Easter.

The Jews called it Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, the feast of the Harvest, or the feast of the First Fruits. Whatever way we look at this feast it denotes the end of a period of waiting and the fulfilment of something hoped and worked for. For the Jews it was the first fruits of the harvest, for the Christian it is much the same, the harvest of the great work of Christ – the first fruit of his passion, death and resurrection – the Holy Spirit.

It’s a lesson for us Christians that there is a Christian way to wait – waiting, as the apostles did – waiting in prayer, with our hearts and minds directed towards our waiting.

Finally the fiftieth day came round and – the Apostles had all met in one room. This is significant, important. Some people don’t worry about gathering with fellow believers, they say ‘we don’t need to come to church to pray’. It’s like saying ‘I don’t need to come to your birthday party to rejoice for you’ or ‘I don’t need to come to your sister’s funeral to pray for her’.

Ok. No comment! If that’s where you’re at – no comment!

The Apostles, however, did gather – and so did Jesus. They gathered in the synagogue every Sabbath with the rest of the Jews. They found it very important, essential even, to do so and so do millions of Catholics today, every Sunday, without fail.

As a matter of fact, the very word for church has its origins in the Hebrew word for gathering – the gathered-together-ones. That’s what it means to be a member of the Church. It means that we gather. Our religion is not a solitary one. There are no solitary Christians. We are the People of God and we gather to worship him together.

So, the Apostles had all met in one room when the Holy Spirit came.

Eleven Apostles – one room – very important. It was when they met in one room, when they met in unity, in oneness of heart and mind, that the Holy Spirit came.

Suddenly they heard what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven, the noise of which filled the entire house in which they were sitting..

The noise of the wind filled the entire house. They were sitting in one room but the noise of the wind filled the entire house. What do you make of this? What is Luke trying to tell us? Makes us think of Mary who brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair (John 12:3). We are told: the house was full of the scent of the ointment.

I’m not a Scripture scholar but to me it says simply – the Holy Spirit, like costly perfume, the perfume of true love, cannot be confined to one room. It reaches out and touches the whole house. Indeed, Jesus promised that the story of this love would be told throughout all the world (Mark 13:9).

So, the Holy Spirit came when they gathered as one, in one room, and the ‘noise’ filled the whole house – could we read the whole Church?

And what was the first effect of this noise of the Holy Spirit?

At this sound they all assembled …

Isn’t it marvellous? The first effect of the Holy Spirit coming to those gathered is to go on gathering – from all parts of Jerusalem, men from every nation under heaven. Surely it is now obvious to us that the gathering of Christians is a work of the Holy Spirit? God wants it that way and when we resist the gathering we are resisting the Holy Spirit.

The apostles hear the noise of what seems like a powerful wind from heaven and then – something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them.

The Holy Spirit gives itself to each one of the apostles individually. This is so wonderful. There is nothing ‘en masse’ about the Holy Spirit. He may come to all but everything is individual, personal. He comes to rest on the head of each of them – Peter’s head, John’s head, James’ head, Andrew’s head ... and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech.

The gift of speech - this was the first of the Spirit’s gifts.

We need to remember that the Holy Spirit which came upon the apostles is the same Holy Spirit which overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary and formed the Word of God in her womb. In her the Word became flesh and now, in the apostles, the Word becomes speech. Jesus, the Word of God, is himself the Good News the apostles begin to preach.

The Holy Spirit makes sense only to spiritual people. It is no accident that John records only that ‘devout men’, that is, spiritual men, assembled at the sound of the Spirit’s coming. Is this because they alone heard the noise of the mighty wind of the Spirit or because they alone, like Moses and the burning bush, were moved to investigate? I do not know. We are told they were ‘bewildered’, ‘amazed’ and ‘astonished’ at the great miracle they witnessed.

Each one heard them speaking in his own native language while the apostles were given the gift of speaking many languages. Here again we see that the work of the Holy Spirit is unity, bringing all together into the oneness of the one Gospel, spoken in many languages, but always the same Word.

The strange thought strikes me that the apostles were very much like that burning bush which confronted Moses. They too were 'on fire' and they too were not consumed. As from the burning bush the word of God was spoken to Moses, so too, the Word of God came, and still comes, through the preaching of the apostles. Each one of us is invited, like Moses, to ‘turn aside’ and hear this word of God, and be converted.