A Superabundant God: The Pentecost 2024

                                                         A Superabundant God:

                                                The Pentecost 2024 

May 19, 2024

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Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104; Galatians 5:16-25; John 15:26-16:15

 

The arrival of the Spirit at Pentecost helps us expand our images of God because if our imaginations are too restrained, our sense of God becomes too small for our souls. Jesus stretched the imaginations of his disciples by framing his preaching with signs of God’s excess. Pentecost is the great moment for believers when we receive God’s extravagance. Consider some of the images Jesus told us about: abundant banquets, anger that gives way to mercy, unrivaled hospitality, the graciousness to receive sinners, tearing down stiff boundaries. God allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Today, we must indulge in the unprecedented magnifying of the mystery of God. Pentecost helps us liberate ourselves from our tiny images of God.

 

Think back on those hard to grasp parables in which Jesus challenged our notions of human equivalence. What is this human equivalence? It is when we want fairness for ourselves and justice for others. This notion of equivalence is a product of a small faith that settles for balance in place of boundlessness. When we imagine God to be one of equivalence, we restrict God and make God an extension of our human thinking. God has shown us not to be the small-minded judge whose logic focuses on fairness or when every fault deserves the right type of punishment. Justice produces balance, equivalence, and in this space, nothing is free for others, most especially mercy. Everyone receives according to what each has given. We are unhappy with a small-minded image of God.

 

The God of Pentecost is not the god of fairness but excess. That’s the sort of God we want to know and to praise. God’s unbelievable mercy wrecks the standards we impose upon the way God should operate. God breaks through our barriers constantly. Our souls expand when we are in harmony with God’s superabundance. Like the story of the Prodigal Son, God’s compassion embraces those who have strayed and extends mercy to them long before they return to the fold. Forgiveness is often granted before a confession is made. Suffering is not a punishment for sins but an occasion to let God into the light of rightness. Christians are encouraged to embrace the devotion to the higher rightness of superabundance, rather than to the God of fairness. 

 

To truly praise God, we are encouraged to be open, to be adaptable to change, to move forward and onward so that we see the grace of God operating within the strivings of our day and even in the culture that surrounds us. God’s promise unfolds into the future. All we have is the present moment and the opportunities for future fulfillment. It means to leave the past behind, and for so many, this is difficult to do. We hold ourselves back when we hold onto the past. We limit ourselves. We find reasons why no one should take a chance with us. We keep ourselves buried in an event from the past that shape our self-perception, which amounts to a lack of trust in God and in humanity. We are the only one to hold us back. God wants more for us. We keep the past in the present and we must let Jesus liberate us from that destructive thinking if we cannot do it ourselves. No one wants to keep you from achieving your best possible attainment of a meaningful life. God wants you to succeed, which is the reason we are given the spirit. God wants more. God is the more. 

 

The Holy Spirit is God’s way of giving us this superabundance that we do not deserve, but that’s the type of God we have. We simply must be open to receiving the workings of God in our life, and to express our gratitude. We must actively accept his gift. Parents, teachers, priests, judges, and many other professions often express this gift of excess, and it makes a difference in the life of a person who is seeking a connection with God. God will never hold back. God will fill the cup until it overflows. That is simply the type of God we have. This is the God we celebrate today in this gift of the Spirit. We have a God who is the overflowing presence of goodness. We are blessed indeed. This is a God we want to know more fully. This is a God who we get excited to praise and worship. This is a God who inspires our Easter song: Alleluia. Alleluia.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Genesis 3) After Adam had eaten of the tree, the LORD God called to him and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? 

 

Tuesday: (James 4) Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

 

Wednesday: (James 4) Instead you should say, "If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that." But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin.

 

Thursday: (James 5) Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire.

 

Friday (James 5) Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another, that you may not be judged. Behold, the Judge is standing before the gates. Take as an example of hardship and patience, brothers and sisters, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

 

Saturday (James 5) Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing a song of praise. Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the Church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (John 19) When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple,  “Behold, your mother.”

 

Tuesday: (Mark 9) They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they remained silent. For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

 

Wednesday (Mark 9) "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us." Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.

 

Thursday (Mark 9) Jesus said to his disciples: "Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward

 

Friday (Mark 10) The Pharisees approached him and asked, "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?" They were testing him. He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?" They replied, "Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her." But Jesus told them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment.

 

Saturday (Mark 10) When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

 

Saints of the Week

 

May 20: Bernardine of Siena, priest, (1380-1444) was from a family of nobles who cared for the sick during plagues. He entered the Franciscans and preached across northern and central Italy with homilies that understood the needs of the laity. He became vicar general and instituted reforms. 

 

May 21: Christopher Magallanes, priest and companions, martyrs (1869-1927) was a Mexican priest who served the indigenous people by forming agrarian communities. He opened seminaries when the ant-Catholic government kept shutting them down. He was arrested and executed with 21 priests and 3 laymen. 

 

May 22: Rita of Cascia, religious (1381-1457), always wanted to become a nun but her family married her off to an abusive man. He was murdered 18 years later. Rita urged forgiveness when her two sons wanted to avenge their father's murder. They soon died too. Rita wanted to enter a convent, but he marital status kept her out. Eventually, the Augustinians in Cascia admitted her. She became a mystic and counselor to lay visitors.

 

May 24: Our Lady of the Way or in Italian, Madonna della Strada, is a painting enshrined at the Church of the Gesu in Rome, the mother church of the Society of Jesus. The Madonna Della Strada is the patroness of the Society of Jesus. In 1568, Cardinal Farnese erected the Gesu in place of the former church of Santa Maria della Strada.  

 

May 25: Bede the Venerable, priest and doctor, (673-735), is the only English doctor of the church. As a child, he was sent to a Benedictine monastery where he studied theology and was ordained. He wrote thorough commentaries on scripture and history as well as poetry and biographies. His famous work is the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," the source for much of Anglo-Saxon history. 

 

May 25: Gregory VII, pope (1020-1085), was a Tuscan who was sent to a monastery to study under John Gratian, who became Gregory VI. He served the next few popes as chaplain, treasurer, chancellor and counselor before he became Gregory VII. He introduced strong reforms over civil authorities that caused much consternation. Eventually, the Romans turned against him when the Normans sacked Rome.

 

May 25: Mary Magdalene de'Pazzi (1566-1607), a Florentine, chose to become a Carmelite nun instead of getting married. Her biography, written by her confessor, gives accounts of intense bouts of desolation and joy. She is reputed to have gifts of prophecy and healing.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• May 19, 1652. Birth of Paul Hoste mathematician and expert on construction of ships and history of naval warfare. 
• May 20, 1521. Ignatius was seriously wounded at Pamplona, Spain, while defending its fortress against the French. 
• May 21, 1925. Pius XI canonizes Peter Canisius, with Teresa of the Child Jesus, Mary Madeleine Postal, Madeleine Sophie Barat, John Vianney, and John Eudes. Canisius is declared a Doctor of the Church. 
• May 22, 1965. Pedro Arrupe was elected the 28th general of the Society of Jesus. 
• May 23, 1873. The death of Peter de Smet, a famous missionary among Native Americans of the great plains and mountains of the United States. He served as a mediator and negotiator of several treaties. 
• May 24, 1834. Don Pedro IV expelled the Society from Brazil. 
• May 25, 1569. At Rome Pope St Pius V installed the Society in the College of Penitentiaries. Priests of various nationalities who were resident in Rome were required to act as confessors in St Peter's.