PRAYING FOR THE BREATH
OF THE SPIRIT
INTRODUCTION
The
title of my homily is, "Praying for The Breath of the Spirit."
Today is the feast of
Pentecost.
Pentecoste
– is the Greek word for 50 days. Today is 50 days after Easter.
It's
called the Birthday of the Church – hang onto that word "birth".
It's the day – we believe as Christians - that the Holy
Spirit came into our world in a new way.
BREATH
The
title of my homily is, "Praying for the Breath of the Spirit."
We know what breath is like. We're breathing in and out
all day long –whether we're aware of it or not. When the weather is cold – we
can see breath
coming out of people's mouths.
I’ve seen the Grand Canyon and the Grand Cayman Islands,
but I’ve never seen the breath taking scene a birth of a new baby is. I’ve
heard a dozen times that when a new baby is born, one of the first things to do
– is to get that baby breathing.
When
a person dies, the breath of life goes out of them.
When a person drowns – or they stop breathing – EMT
people – or doctors or nurses – or anyone with training – they try to get the
person breathing –giving them artificial respiration.
One of the first teachings in various religions – one of
the first steps – in many meditation programs – is to
ask people to become aware of their breath.
Breathe in! Breathe out!
Breathe in. Breathe out.
BOOK OF GENESIS
The
book of Genesis begins very dramatically when it comes to the creation of the first person: Adam — meaning earth.
One story has God from afar — giving commands — and there
is light, sky, stars, water, the birds and fish and trees, and
all kinds of animals and wild beasts, and then God made us in God’s own image —
and all is good.
Then there is a second creation account when God makes —
sculpts - creates the first man from the
clay of the earth — and then breathes life into that sculpture.
Then realizing this person is all alone — and it's not
good to be alone — God creates woman — out of the first man.
God casts the first man into a deep sleep and pulls out
his rib and then fleshes out of that — the first woman — Eve — the mother
of all the living.
It's
very poetic — very dramatic — very visual — and in a certain sense — a very
real way of picturing how we came about.
The
writers of Genesis didn't know what we know today — about how we evolved — and we still don't know exactly how life
— started. We just know it took billions of years — in a slow crawl till
we got to the first humans.
When
we are young our lungs are great. Breathing is as easy as the A-B-C’s.
When
we are older, shortness of breath sometimes stops us in our tracks and we have
to stop to lean on a banister, a tree, or a wall.
We need air to live — to
breathe — to make this planet work — and everything is interconnected — water,
oxygen, lungs, life.
SPIRIT
The next big observation about life is that people have
good days and bad days.
People
lose their spirit.
People
run out of gas.
People
lose their breath.
People get tired — sometimes
tired of living.
Just as someone can see a
sail on a sailboat — stop — just sit still —because
there is no wind — and the boat won't go anywhere — just drifting on the waters — so too human beings drift — drag
— down, down themselves.
Then people see the wind pick up and the boat starts
moving — full sail —ahead.
So too
we see people who were down come back to life. They get a fresh breath of life — a second wind.
Poets,
preachers, teachers noticed these things and pointed this out to people.
FIRE
People
know about breath and wind — invisible — but we can feel our lungs go in and
out. We can see — especially here in Annapolis — sails billow out with wind.
Anyone who has played or worked with fire — knows that
fire feeds on air and itself.
Watch boy scouts trying to start a fire. Watch someone
trying to get a fire place going. Air is a necessity.
Anyone
who has watched altar servers blow out the candles after Mass have seen them blow the wind away
from the wick — or put one of those candle
putter outers over the flame.
Watch fire fighters and see how difficult it is to deal
with a fire when wind kicks in and up.
SO WHEN IT COMES TO GOD
So when it comes to God, we can't see God — except in
Jesus — but Jesus liked to tell us about his Father — and also about the third
person in God: the And two key images for the Spirit of
God is wind and fire — breath and fire.
So Jesus talked about
lighting a fire under people. Red — fire — igniting —passion — is something God
wants of us — to be passionate about love and service and making life better
for others.
So
Jesus talked about breathing and sending a new wind — to shake us —to enliven us — to get us moving.
So
when it comes to God — especially God the Holy Spirit — the key thing is to pray to the Holy Spirit for life — for courage —
forgiveness — peace —passion — strength.
That's the stuff in the
readings for this feast.
The
disciples — the apostles — the friends of Jesus had lost Jesus. It was like the fire went out, the air
was knocked out of them, they were filled with fear and this mighty wind shook
the house where they were hiding out —and new life, a new fire came into them —and they burst
out of that locked upper room and changed
the world.
Their
bodies got moving again — as if they were reborn — a new Genesis hit them.
In
today's gospel they discovered that when we forgive ourselves and others — when we do that we receive a new Spirit —new
life — but if we hold onto the past, the mistakes, we are dead.
CONCLUSION
This morning I preached a different sort of a sermon.
But let me end the same way.
I like to stress using our rosary – not just for Hail
Mary’s.
Today I would suggest taking your rosary beads and simply
pray on the 59 beads of one’s rosary, “Come Holy Spirit!”
Close your eyes and slowly try it. It takes about 4 minutes.
Or take your rosary and just say a one word prayer – 59 times.
What one word prayer. Today’s sequence for Pentecost has
the famous Vene Sante Spiritus prayer. Notice it contains a whole bunch of one
word prayers. Close your eyes and with rosary in hand, pray slowly these same
words: Light, Shine, Comfort, Welcome, Solace, Renew, Heal, Forgive…..
