I never thought that the writer Brendan Behan was a theologian. However, when he was in Dublin’s Mater Hospital in the 1950s, he had a telling conversation with a female staff member. ¨You`re married, I see” he told the woman. When she said that she wasn’t, he commented that she was wearing a wedding ring. “I am married alright, but to God” said the woman who was a religious sister. “Well, you married into a good family”, replied Behan.
Comparisons or images help us to understand something that is difficult or unfamiliar. The following example, to help us understand the Holy Spirit, is a good one: wind, fire, (today’s First Reading) a dove descending (Jesus’s baptism) and two from St. Paul, where he calls the Holy Spirit a “first instalment” and a “seal”:
The apostles had spent three years with Jesus. They had experienced his wisdom, witnessed his miracles and enjoyed his popularity. They had seen him rejected, crucified and resurrected. In today’s Gospel he leaves them yet again but with the promise of the Holy Spirit. What incredible change and turmoil they’ve been through in three years! And today they are left standing ...looking into the sky!
Until recently we rarely had adults or teenagers in Ireland offering themselves for membership of the Church; this usually happened at birth. As with Irish society, this is also changing. I ministered outside Ireland for some 20 years and this gave me the opportunity during these days of Easter-Pentecost to accompany those in the community who had been baptised, confirmed and, who for the first time, received the Eucharist at the Easter Vigil.
Many years ago when I was a young man preparing for the Leaving Certificate, the Shakespearean play that year was Hamlet. In the play there is a line “By indirections find directions out.” I always liked the idea of a wrong direction as a means to discover a right way.
In the final sentence of today's gospel Jesus said "I have come that you may have life and have it to the full." St. Irenaeus once said that the glory of God was found in a human person fully alive. Living life to the full is bringing the best...
We are a Roman Catholic Congregation of Priests, Brothers and Lay Associates. Our congregation was founded in Paris in 1703 by a young 24 year old Breton Lawyer, Claude Poullart des Places.
He founded a community for young men who wished to become priests and dedicated it to the Holy Spirit.
