Pentecost Sunday

by Father Charles Irvin, M.Div, J.D.

Many times Pentecost is spoken of as the "Birthday of the Church". One could likewise consider Good Friday, with the flow of water and blood from the pierced side of Christ hanging on the Cross, to be the birthday of the Church. Or perhaps Easter Sunday could be thought of as the birthday of the Church. At any rate, today is certainly the day when the Church "went public", when the Church burst out into the public square. It's good to celebrate this day, living as we do in a time when people want the Church to get back into the closet.

This being the birthday of the Church in the public sense, I'd like to point out some things that are right about the Church. We have plenty of people telling us about all that's wrong. They're a dime-a-dozen; at a moment's notice, in the most inopportune of moments and in most inappropriate of ways, they tell me about all that's wrong in the Catholic Church. They tell me that they don't go to Mass because of all the hypocrites that are at Mass. In other words, you're all a bunch of hypocrites and they don't want to be seen among you! They tell me that priests are power-hungry money grubbers, that I, because I'm not married I don't have a clue as to what life's all about, that I'm hung up on sex, that I am shielded from real suffering, and so forth.

In the interests of fairness we ought to take a look (at least once a year!) about what's right with our Church. After all, one doesn't attend a birthday party to tell all of the assembled guests about what's wrong with the guest of honor!

The first thing that's right about the Church is that She is the creation of God. The story about Her birth is told in symbolic language. Literal language simply can't bear the weight of what's being communicated. Sometimes only the language of poetry and songs, symbolic language is strong enough to be adequate to the task.

The Church is not the result of mere human creation; it is not simply a voluntary association of like-minded individuals who have banded together to form a legal and political entity known as the Roman Catholic Church. The Church was not created by human hands. Certainly the way it was created was not the way humans create social or political or legal entities.

The Church has a mission, a purpose given to her by God. She has a clear self-identity and a fixed purpose. Her mission is universal, communicated to people of every race, nationality and tongue. It speaks fiery words of love, of challenge and of vision, speaks in words that can be understood by people of every age, culture, race and continent. It needs to say the same thing over and over and over again until we finally "get it". And it needs to say it well, in language and in imagery that is inspiring, illuminating, comforting and yet challenging.

The Church is a community, a family, a place where individuality and personal rights are balanced in a common good, in commonly shared rights and responsibilities, much like a family. Families are places where persons are individuated, where their personalities are formed and shaped in their relationships with others.

And the Church is directed outward, directed toward others. It needs to be an outreaching family, living out concerns for the marginalized, the oppressed, the dispossessed, the little ones, however hidden and unrecognized they may be. It needs to be the community in which a thousand sermons are not simply preached but actually lived; the Church is that privileged place where God's spoken Word is received in the living and in the acting out of it, not just in the listening to it.

The Church needs to be, and in fact IS, the continuation of that Body of Disciples who first followed Jesus, who listened to what He had to say and then put into practice what He asked us to do. Our Church strives mightily to remain integrated with the Church of the Apostles, to retain the integrity and the truthfulness of full integration with the Mystical Body of the Risen Christ.

There are things that are wrong among Catholics and in the Catholic Church itself. There are attitudes and structures that need to be changed. But that's the way it has always been in our Church, from its very beginning, from the time Peter and Paul had to settle their differences about whether or not non-Jews could be members of the Church. Polarities, diversities and dialogue have vitalized the Church from its inception.

Perhaps there's something wonderfully right about our internal differences. Perhaps there's something wonderfully right in our diversities and even in our disagreements. Perhaps that dynamic allows us to turn to the Holy Spirit so that we might continually be re-shaped, molded, and re-formed as God would have us.

Perhaps we might even say the Church's birthday party is not over and never will be because God's Church is continually being reborn, renewed and raised up in a never-ending cycle of Passion, Suffering, Death and Resurrection. Perhaps, in spite of what all of the critics are saying, there's a whole lot that's right about our Church, and that being in the Church is really a good place to be. Hopefully that's exactly why you are here. I know that's why I am here.

[ Back to Easter Home Page]