Pentecost C. May 30, 2004. Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 9:30, 6PM. Acts 2: 1-11. Romans 8: 8-17. John 14: 15-16, 23b – 26.

The woman was late for work. She pulled up behind a car just as the traffic light turned green. The car ahead of her didn’t move. The man inside was talking on his cell phone. The woman became very angry. She began to pound her steering wheel and yell and scream. She then started making obscene hand gestures just as the light turned yellow and the man in the car ahead went rushing through, but too late for her to follow. In the midst of her anger she heard tapping on her car window. When she looked up a police officer was standing outside. He told her to get out of the car and to put her hands palms down on the hood. He hand cuffed her, put her in the police car and brought her to the police stations. There she was finger printed and her identity very carefully checked. After a very intense hour in police custody the policeman who had brought her in came into the room. He said, “Mam, as you probably know there have been many cars stolen in our community these past few weeks. When I pulled up behind you I saw that you were driving an expensive car. Even more interesting I saw your bumper sticker which reads, “We worship at Our Lady of Grace” and underneath it, “What would Jesus do?” I saw you ranting and raving, really totally out of control. I was sure that someone who drove such a nice car and put a “what would Jesus do?” bumper sticker on their car would never act like that. Watching how you were acting I though that you had stolen the car. I am really sorry for causing you so much trouble. I guess that I take your bumper sticker and the place where you worship on Sunday a lot more seriously than you do.”

Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Before they went forth to every corner of the earth and into every aspect of human life the disciples prayed for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had warmed them that without the Holy Spirit they would be able to do nothing really significant. A Christian without the Holy Sprit is like a candle without a flame. An unlit candle gives neither heat nor light. Jesus wants us to light the world with his truth and to warm it with his love. To do this we must be set on fire with the Holy Sprit.

A good young man went to a wise follower of Jesus and said, “Please help me. I want to follow Jesus. I already pray a little every day. I fast and lead a pretty simple life. I try to keep all the commandments to the fullest extent that I am able. I also keep my mind free from evil thoughts. What else should I do to follow Jesus? The wise Christian teacher stood up and said, “If you want to follow Jesus, fully, you must begin to burn with the fire of divine love. You must glow with the brightness of divine truth. Everything you do must bear witness to the power of Jesus in you life. Unless the Holy Spirit sets you on fire, the other things you are doing matter very little.”

Margaret Clitherow lived in England at a time when being a Catholic was a crime against Queen, and sheltering a priest or attending Mass was an offense punishable by death. Margaret was a convert to the Catholic faith and she embraced her new faith with her whole heart. Through the darkest days of the persecution of Catholics in England Margaret hid priests in her home and provided for secret celebrations of the Mass that she had come to love so much. Eventually her crime of practicing the Catholic Faith was discovered and she was condemned to death by being crushed under massive weights. When she heard the sentence Margaret said, “God be thanked, I am not worthy of so good a death as this”. Margaret was in deep anguish on the night before her death. But the next morning the fear left her and she smiled with joy. Margaret walked barefooted to the place of her execution. She had removed her shoes and sent them home to her daughter Anne. The obvious message to her daughter was that she had walked the ways of faith in these shoes and now she was giving her shoes to her daughter. The challenge to the daughter was to put on her mother’s shoes and walk in the ways of faith, no matter what it cost her. Margaret was a powerful witness to faith, having endured both imprisonment and death for what she believed. Her faith had a powerful effect on her children. Her daughter Anne became a nun and her sons Henry and William became priests – all in the legally forbidden Catholic faith that their mother had died to preserve. The word martyr means witness. There is no more powerful witness to Jesus Christ and his Church than shedding one’s blood in public testimony to faith in Christ. The blood of martyrs and the witness of countless good lives is the seed from which the Kingdom of God grows

“When the time of Pentecost was fulfilled, the disciples of Jesus were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the spirit enabled them to proclaim…and everyone heard them speaking in their own languages about the mighty acts of God.”

On this Pentecost Sunday we thank God for the witness of faith parents give to their children. No one else will ever be able to touch their children’s lives in the same way.

On this Pentecost Sunday we thank God for the witness that husbands and wives give to one another in marriage and to the powerful witness that friends give to one another.

One this Pentecost Sunday we thank God for the witness of business people and politicians. Their responsibility is a very important one.

On this Memorial Day weekend we ask God to strengthen and purify the witness to goodness and justice of our beloved United States around the world. Our witness is so very important in the world. May we never diminish our hunger for goodness by comparing ourselves to the sins of our enemies. As a child, when I would point a finger at one of my friends and say that he had done something even worse than I had done, my mother would say, “I am not talking to Johnny – I am talking to you. I expect something better from you.” The measure of our lives is the teaching of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. The great hymn says: “America, America! God mend thy every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self control, Thy liberty in Law.” For God’s powerful Spirit working in us and in our land we give God thanks and praise.