Pentecost Prayer
This weekend let us all say St. John Henry Cardinal Newman’s favourite little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit:”
Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love. AMEN.
The title for this weekend is Pentecost which literally means 50th and is a feast celebrated on the 50th day after the Passover feast by the Jews and a feast celebrated on the 50th day after the feast of the Resurrection of Jesus by Christians. The Jewish Pentecost was originally a post-harvest thanksgiving feast. Later, the Jews included in it the remembrance of God’s Covenants with Noah after the Deluge and with Moses at Mt. Sinai.
There are four important events that occurred on this Feast day. First The Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary as fiery tongues. Next the frightened apostles were transformed into fiery preachers and evangelisers and were given the gift of tongues by a special anointing of the Holy Spirit. Third the listeners experienced a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit through the apostles’ gift of tongues and they heard the Apostles speaking in their native languages. Fourthly the early Christians became powerful witnesses and brave martyrs for their Faith in Jesus.
The Holy Spirit has many roles in to play in our lives. 1) As an indwelling God, the Holy Spirit makes us His Living Temples (I Cor 3:16). 2) As a strengthening God, He strengthens us in our fight against temptations and in our mission of bearing witness to Christ through our Christian lives. 3) As a sanctifying God, He makes us holy through the Sacraments: a) Through Baptism He makes us children of God and heirs of Heaven. b) Through Confirmation, He makes us temples of God, warriors, and defenders of the Faith. c) Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, He enables us to be reconciled with God by pardoning our sins. d) Through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, He gives us spiritual nourishment by converting bread and wine into Jesus’ Body and Blood. e) Through the Sacraments of the priesthood and matrimony, He makes the Church community holy. 4) As a teaching and guiding God, He constantly reminds us of Christ’s teachings and guides the Church to teach Christ’s teachings correctly. 5) As a listening and speaking God, He listens to our prayers, enables us to pray, and speaks to us, mainly through the Bible. 6) As a Giver of gifts, He gives us His gifts, fruits, and charisms, thus enriching the Church.
Finally, there is this Pentecost story about Chippie from the Internet. It all happened in Galveston, Texas. A woman was cleaning the bottom of the cage of her parrot Chippie with the canister vacuum cleaner. She was not using an attachment on the tube. When the telephone rang, she turned her head to pick it up, continuing to vacuum the cage as she said, “Hello,” into the phone. Then she heard the horrible noise of Chippie being sucked into the vacuum. Immediately she put down the phone, ripped open the vacuum bag, and found Chippie in there, stunned but still alive. Since the bird was covered with dust and dirt, she grabbed it, ran it into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held the bird under the water to clean it off. When she finished that, she saw the hair dryer on the bathroom sink. She turned it on and held the bird in front of the blast of hot air to dry him off. A few weeks later, a reporter from the newspaper that originally published the story went out to the house to ask the woman, “How’s Chippie doing now?” She said, “He just sort of sits and stares. he doesn’t sing any more” Today’s Gospel tells us that it was what happened to the apostles. They all were traumatized by the arrest and crucifixion of their master and bewildered by his post-Resurrection appearances and his command to prepare for the coming of his Holy Spirit. Many of us can identify with Chippie and the apostles. Life has sucked us up, thrown cold water on us, and blown us away. Somewhere in the trauma, we have lost our song. Hence, we, too, need the daily anointing of the Holy Spirit to keep us singing songs of Christian witnessing. (biblestudyresources.com)
You may decide for yourselves whether the Holy Spirit was assisting the solicitor in the following story: A solicitor was on holiday in a small farming town. While walking through the streets, he noticed that a car was involved in an accident. As expected, a large crowd gathered. The solicitor was eager to get to the injured, but he couldn’t get near the car. Being a clever person, he started shouting loudly, “Let me through! Let me through! I am the son of the victim.” The crowd made way for him. Lying in front of the car was a donkey!
Deacon John Writes:
This Sunday is World Communications Day and the scriptures remind us of the power of prayer. Prayer is world communications day in action. It is the conversation we have with God.
The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, shows us the importance of prayer in our lives – to sustain and to comfort us through the current difficult period.
The gospel contains the opening section of Christ’s great prayer before he begins his passion and death. It has been called the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus. .
When the disciples were uncertain about the future after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven they turned to the one thing they knew that could help them – prayer. Their prayer would not be answered at once – it was nine days before Pentecost arrived and the Holy Spirit would fulfil what Christ had promised. They persevered and did not stop praying — praying for guidance, for wisdom, for “hope unseen.” The disciples didn’t give up. Neither should we!
The psalm today offers us all the gift of hope. “The Lord is my light and my help; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; before whom shall I shrink?”
The scriptures cry out to us: trust and pray. Trust in God’s generosity and mercy. Trust in His plan for our lives. In the midst of our darkness, pray for light.
The important word is pray. The disciples did just this in the community when they turned to others for help and support. So should we. We are the Body of Christ, and that means we are, together, not only his hands and his feet – we are also his voice — to one another, and to the world. Trust in Him and no matter how deep the darkness, the light we are all looking for will come.
Wait for it………Watch for it………Pray for it.
The disciples in the upper room did and look what they achieved!
We have the opportunity to receive a £1000 donation from the Ecclesiastical Movement for Good awards, but to do so we need your help please!
As you know, £1,000 could make a huge difference to our work, especially now, and your nomination could be the one that wins us £1,000. In total, 500 charities stand to gain £1,000 and we’d love to be one of them.
It’s quick and easy to nominate Lepra – just visit https://www.movementforgood.com/#nominateACharity and enter our details. You’ll be asked to enter a charity number (213251), and then Lepra should auto populate below. Lepra’s charity type is Health. Then you just need to enter your name and email address. The closing date for nominations is 24th May.
“God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called”
2 Corinthians 3 v5
Position Vacant: Administrator / PA. Initially 20 hours. With 20 days annual leave + Bank holidays (pro rata) £10ph (dependent on skills / experience)
Computers for Charities is seeking an Administrator / PA. Duties include assisting day to day running of the Charity & support to Chairman.
Location: Eastbourne. This position offers wide opportunities to aid personal and professional development, whilst also challenging and diverse.
Skills required: Good People & Communication skills, Organisational ability, Compassion & Empathy including aptitude for initiative. UK driving licence essential, Committed Christian with valid passport desirable,
Computers for Charities, Recycling for Charities, Recycling for Charities Trading Ltd are interconnected. Whereas computers are a part of the charities work.
People constitute the focus of the charities support and ethos within its Eastbourne workshop, Locally, Nationally, Worldwide seeking to provide an open door between church and World through varying means.
Our organisations are Christian based, and keen to seek the most suitable candidate for this most crucial position.
Closing date for applications: Friday 19th June.
For further information.
Please call. Simon Rooksby – Chairman
Tel: 01323 848588 or email: [email protected]
Website: www.computersforcharities.org
Previous applicants are welcome to apply
Joke of the Week
Lord Birkett, the English judge, said “I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking. But I strongly object when they start shaking them to make certain they are still going.
Deacon John Writes:
From Easter to Pentecost the readings all concentrate on the preaching of the Good News of salvation and on the promises Jesus made to his disciples, culminating with the promise that all would receive the Holy Spirit. This Sunday we hear about the Holy Spirit and how we can experience Him in our daily lives.
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles begins by describing how the Deacon, Philip, in Samaria, converted many of the Samaritans to Christianity and then how Peter and John were sent to follow this up through prayer and laying on of hands to bring the Holy Spirit to them.
The reading from the first letter of Peter reassures us that life is possible when we suffer in any way so long as we continue to live our Christian lives of love in the midst of any kind of suffering, be it from a virus or any other difficult situation. The Gospel contains Jesus’ promise to his disciples of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, and is part of the long “Farewell Discourse” near the end of John’s Gospel. The Gospel tells us quite specifically that, providing we live as Jesus commands, the Holy Spirit will accompany us in all that we do in the name of Jesus – our faith will be nurtured, we will see Jesus in the poor, the sick and in all those in need, so enabling us to be healers of discord in our world. We are assured that we will never have to face any trial alone—even death—if we walk with Jesus. There is a sentence in the second Eucharistic Prayer when the priest holds his hands over the offerings and says: “Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It has only been during the lockdown that Tessa & I have actually noticed the word ‘dewfall’ at this point while listening to Mass!
Next Thursday is Ascension Day, the day on which Jesus was taken up to heaven. We can perhaps imagine him flying up from the land and vanishing into cloud in front of our eyes. Jesus invites all of us to prepare ourselves for a similar flight. Set our eyes towards heaven. Keep our hearts open to receive the Holy Spirit to help us achieve that goal. Surely that is what He is inviting, encouraging, helping us to do.
Deacon John Writes:
In the Gospel for this Sunday Jesus makes it clear that He is God, when He says “To have seen me is to have seen the Father” and then “whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself.” God became man, one of us to show us a real person leading a life of caring for others, a life of healing, forgiving, a life of love.
We are called not just to be followers of Christ but to be Christ to the world around us. It is through our being Christ that He may live and act in the world today and every day. That is easy to say but from where do we get the strength to be Christ to the world? The answer to this surely lies in the Sacraments, especially from receiving the Eucharist. When we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, Christ is in us, giving us the power to be like Him.
One of the key actions we can take is to Listen. In the Gospel Jesus first listens to the disciples, listens to Thomas, listens to Philip and then comforts them, eases their fears, teaches them. We can do the same: listen to what people are saying to us by giving them our time and undivided attention.
Secondly, we hear time and again how Christ healed the people he came in contact with. We all have the power to heal, not physically perhaps, but through our words, gestures and actions such as showing acts of kindness. It is by doing these things that we show that we care and allow Jesus to live his life through us.
One of the key signs Jesus made was that of forgiveness not just in words but in actions too. We should always be asking ourselves some questions such as: How forgiving am I? Do I pray daily for the grace to forgive others? Do I show this forgiveness through what I do – a phone call, (a handshake or a hug in normal circumstances).
When we come forward to receive Christ’s Body and Blood and confirm that with our “Amen” we should all remember that what we are really saying is “Lord, live in me today so that I may give life, heal and forgive as you did.” Remember there is nothing casual about that “Amen” – it is the most important word we say in that Mass.
Now the weather has changed and you are clearing out your cupboards and drawers once again. Please remember to put aside any suitable donations for St Wilfrid’s sales table, which will be running as soon as things are back to ‘normal’.”
