First Reading
Acts 2:1-11
1. Only minutes before, the disciples were just an insignificant group, cowering behind locked doors. Suddenly they were filled with power, speaking with great courage and freedom “and in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.” Can you explain the birth of the Church in terms of this reading? Was the Church “astounding” on the first Pentecost? How can/could it “astound” today?
2. Did the Holy Spirit come only once in history, as in the upper room? Or do you see the Holy Spirit as dynamic and constant in all life? How were the disciples different after the Spirit’s arrival? Are you confident that the Spirit is with you? Will the Spirit work through you in some way to change things that need changing: Climate crisis? Hunger? Immigration? Racial bias? Trafficking?
Second Reading
1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13;
1. “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” Were Vivaldi and Michelango given gifts solely for their own pleasure? Then, for whose benefit were they given? What are your gifts and for what benefit were they given to you and those around you?
2. St. Alphonsus Rodriguez was a Jesuit Brother (1533-1617) whose job for forty years was doorkeeper of the Jesuit College in Majorca. Would his spiritual gift of service compare to that of St. Francis Xavier, who converted whole countries? How?
Gospel
John 20:19-23; or John 15:26-27; 16:12-15
1. Jesus “breathed” on them. How does this relate to Genesis 2:7: “God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life?” What significance does this have for you? How important is the Holy Spirit in your life?
2. In his homily at Mass for the Feast of Pentecost, Pope Francis asks us the following questions:
Are we open to ‘God’s surprises’? Or are we closed and fearful before the newness of the Holy Spirit? Do we have the courage to strike out along the new paths which God’s newness sets before us, or do we resist, barricaded in transient structures which have lost their capacity for openness to what is new?Holy Mass with the Ecclesial Movements, May 19, 2013
Paragraph 2, near the end
