Pentecost A  2011.   June 12.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 7:30, 6PM. Acts 2:1-11.  I Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13.  John 20:19-23.

I am told that giving birth to a baby can be a noisy process.  When I was born my father sat in the fathers’ waiting room until the doctor came out to tell him that he had a new son.  Now most fathers want to be in the delivery room with their wives, ready to receive the baby as he or she enters the world.  New fathers find out that grunting, groaning, sweating and tears – and maybe even fainting - are a part of giving birth to a child.  Bringing forth new life can be a very noisy, difficult and scary process.   

On the day that the Church was born “a noise like a strong driving wind came from the sky and it filled the entire house where the disciples were staying. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them ... there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.  At the sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language.”  Something new and startling had happened.  The Church, the Body of Christ, had been born and entered the world.   Just as the Holy Spirit hovered over Mary with such power that Jesus was conceived in her womb, now the Holy Spirit hovered over the first disciples with such power that the Church was born.   The Church is the Body of Christ present in the world today. 

St. Paul told the Corinthians, “Just as a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many are one body, so also Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

The Church is much more than a group of people who read the Bible and decide to start meeting together.  The Church is much more than an organization that Christians started in order to worship and get good things done.   The Church is a living Body born on the first Pentecost and continuing to exist as the presence of Christ in the world today.   While you and I are the Church, the Church is much more than you and me. The Church is God’s creation sent into the world with the authority to forgive sins and build the Kingdom of God.  

The Church is much bigger and older than one pastor, good or bad, or one parish good or bad, or one period of history, good or bad. St. Paul does not want us to be naïve about the Church.  After having spent years working to establish the Church in many places and after enduring many hardships Paul summoned the presbyters (that is the priests) of Ephesus and said to them, “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.”   St. Paul boldly proclaimed that the Church is the Body of Christ.  At the same time, he recognized that even among the leaders of the Church there would be weakness and scandals that would lead people away from Christ.  That does not change God’s plan. The Church is the Body of Christ, born on Pentecost and sent forth as God’s saving presence, holy example and powerful witness in the world. 

The Church is more than one person, one moment, one style or one scandal.  I personally believe in the witness and holiness of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church in spite of my sinfulness and the sinfulness of others.  Thank God that you and I are the Church, but also thank God that the Church is much more than you and me.

John Henry Newman made a long and painful journey to the Catholic Church.  He had met Christ and learned much Christian truth in the British Anglican Church of his birth.  But he wanted something more.  After reading much history and theology and praying even more Newman decided to become Catholic.  It was an awesome choice because Newman was a prominent clergyman in the Church of England.  This is how Newman prayed about his Catholic Faith.

“Let me never for an instant forget that you have established on earth a kingdom of your own, that the Church is your work, your establishment, your instrument, that we are under your rule, your laws and your eye - that when the Church speaks, you speak. Let not familiarity with this wonderful truth lead me to be insensible to it - let not the weakness of your human representatives lead me to forget that it is you who speaks and act through them.”

For the great gift of the Church that we are and the Church that we are yet called to be, and for the new birth, strengthening, purification and mission of the world-wide Church we give God thanks and praise this Pentecost day.