PREPARING FOR PENTECOST

We are walking toward Pentecost which we will celebrate on Sunday 24 May. Pentecost is one of the major Feasts marking our faith, the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The parish has elaborated and proposed a programme to get prepared for this major event, perhaps some of you have already started this programme and are finding it fruitful. In a bit more than a week, we will be celebrating the Ascension of the Lord and we can be surprised how fast this Feast is approaching and how difficult it is to get ready.

It would be worth noting in truth where we are standing at the moment. We are celebrating on Sunday 3 May the fifth Sunday of Easter, already four Sundays after Easterday – it seems that Easter is quiet far now. But actually brothers and sisters, it takes time to receive to the full the grace of the Resurrection, and we are grateful that the Church gives us 50 days of Eastertide to dwell in the grace of the Resurrection. The disciples and other followers of Jesus took time to realise and be convinced that he was risen; in addition they had to learn to live with a different form of presence.

We are the same, we need time to realise what the Resurrection of Jesus effectively means for us, not in general but in a very concrete way today. We have prayed and pondered over a series of texts of the Resurrection of the Lord: Jesus first appearing to Mary of Magdala, then to Simon Peter and the other disciple, then to the 11 and also to Thomas in particular. He also appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Maybe one or another of these accounts have spoken to me in a special way, a word of the risen Jesus, a reaction of one of his disciples or simply the way he appeared to his loved ones, all of these can help in being in touch with the risen Lord. It would be profitable to recall again what was of interest to us initially and to ponder why, to go deeper with the grace of the Resurrection.

I wish to all of you a blessed Eastertide.