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Browsing Father Michael Deering's Sunday Homilies

God has to start over in every generation ... with the Spirit!

Homily originally presented June 9, 2019

 

God has to start over in every generation ... with the Spirit!

 

Have you ever wondered why ...

God doesn’t’ just  reach down and get rid of all the bad guys?

 

I mean the majority of the news we see on TV and in the paper

is about people doing very bad things:

Abortionists killing babies before and even after they’re born …

Active Shooters killing co-workers and classmates and random bystanders.

People manufacturing illegal drugs and creating pornography,

People kidnapping and enslaving and abusing women or children.

 

And so, after hearing this stuff, day after day, you may start to wonder:

“Why doesn’t God just wipe out all the bad guys ... so that we could live here in peace?”

I mean if God would just get rid of these bad people … we’d be ok ... wouldn’t we?

 

Have you ever wondered about this ... I know I have!

 

But when I do ... I end up admitting ... that it wouldn’t do any good!       Why?

 

Why ... because God already did that once … and it didn’t change things for long!

 

We know from Genesis that when sin spread and became rampant on Earth, God sent a Great Flood that wiped out all of the bad people … sparing only Noah and his family.

 

And what happened?    In no time at all … sin returned!

Yeah ... getting rid of all the bad guys ... didn’t get rid of  ... bad behavior!

 

Almost immediately Noah got drunk, his son committed sexual improprieties and soon the towns of Sodom & Gomorrah were filled with perverted sexual activity, and on and on.

 

This clearly shows that the problem of sin isn’t something that is wiped out once & for all.

Rather, it continues to show up in each person as the sad consequence of

the Original Sin of Adam and Eve.

 

Every soul is born with Original Sin opposing it and even when it’s removed in Baptism, we are left to struggle through life battling concupiscence which is the attraction to sin.

 

And so, the full restoration of man’s evil inclinations

will not be remedied from without … but rather from within!

Remedy must be achieved from within … from within the hearts and spirits of man. 

 

It’s only under the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, dispensed through His Church ...

 that we’ll be able to do what Noah’s Ark and The Great Flood only pointed to.

 

It’s only through the Sacraments that we’ll be equipped to follow the ways of God instead of the ways of the world ...  overcoming evil and living in peace with one another.

 

You see, evil is not something that is wiped out once and for all ...

no, it is something that must be overcome in every generation.

 

A significant sin that must be overcome in every person, in every age, is that of pride.

 

This was actually the Sin of Adam and Eve ...

 (the devil tempted them saying: eat this forbidden fruit and you’ll be like God!)

and the sin of Pride continually comes up in in succeeding generations.

 

For example, early in Genesis there’s the account of the Tower of Babel.

 

Of that time, Scripture says,

“The whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.”

 

And the people said, “Come, let us build a tower with its top in the sky and so make a name for ourselves, otherwise we shall be scattered all over the earth.”  

 

So, what was their reason for building their tower?

Was it to give glory to God?

No… their reason for building the tower was … to build a name for themselves …

 in other words  … their reason for building the tower was to give glory to man.

 

How arrogant, how prideful! That’s man … still full of the pride of Adam and Eve!

 

So what did God say,   “Let us go down there and wipe them out!

 

No! God said, “Let us then go down and there confuse their language, so that one will not understand what another says.” And Scripture says, “Thus the Lord scattered them from there all over the earth and they stopped building the (tower).”  

 

To overcome their pride, God scattered them.

But what God really wants ... is to have people gathered together … united in Him!

 

God is one … and He wants us to be onein Him … not against Him!

 

Which is why the feast of Pentecost is so very important!

 

Pentecost is one of many occasions of God ... uniting His People.

 

Yes, Pentecost  can actually be seen as … The Tower of Babel … in Reverse!

 

Where once God scattered by different languages, now God unites by different languages!

 

You see at the Tower of Babel, the people were confused because

they couldn’t understand the different languages.

 

And now at Pentecost, the people were confused because

they could understand the different languages!

 

Luke says today, “But they were confused

because each one heard them speaking in his own language.”

 

Pentecost is Babel in reverse!   God is not scattering … but uniting!

 

Where at Babel, one language separated into many .,. 

now at Pentecost, many languages were united in the same message.

 

And what was that message?

Scripture says, everyone heard the Apostles “speaking in( their) own tongues of …

the mighty acts of God.”

 

Hear that!   Not the mighty acts of man … but … the mighty acts of God.

 

That’s the way God wants us to be united … in our praise and gratitude toward Him!

 

He alone is God. 

He alone is the Maker of Heaven and Earth … of all things … visible and invisible.

 

Man is not God.   Don’t listen to Satan!   There’s nothing you can eat to become God!

Man is a Creature of God, who’s invited to enter into God’s family

and become an adopted child of God.

Man can’t do this on his own.

because of concupiscence, man is prone to be attracted to things of the world.

 

So man needs special help to recognize and pursue the great offer that God places before us … to be members of his family … both now and forever.

 

And the help that God gives us … is nothing less than … His Holy Spirit!

 

It’s God’s Holy Spirit who can take away

confusion and separation among men … and make them one family … in Him.

 

God’s Holy Spirit brings understanding and unity … not confusion and division.

 

You could say that God accomplishes this in two steps:

 

Through Baptism … we become one in body;

Through Confirmation … we become one in spirit.

 

You see, at Baptism,  God’s Holy Spirit first comes to dwell in us.

And at Confirmation, the 7 gifts of God’s Holy Spirit are poured into our soul.

 

St. Paul wrote often about the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

In our Second Reading today from Romans, Paul says,

“Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh;

on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

 

Body and Spirit … that’s how God wants us to be united to him.

 

In Bethlehem, at Christmas, God gave us the Holy Body and Blood of Christ

In the Upper Room, at Pentecost, God gave us the Holy Spirit of Christ.

 

And thanks to the Mass, we continue to have access to all of this to this day in the Eucharist as we receive ... the Body and Blood ... the Soul and Divinity of Christ!

 

It’s at Pentecost that God gives us the power to all be one in Christ!

 

By the Holy Spirit,  we become the mystical Body of Christ …  the Church.

 

Jesus is the head and we are His Mystical Body …  

individual yet uniteddistinct yet one … in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the power behind this.

 

By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles became the sign of the Catholic Church,           the Church that Jesus established , which embraces the languages of all nations.

 

Remember, the word Catholic means universal; One body of believers over all the earth

 

St. Irenaeus gives us the following visual to help us see the work of the Holy Spirit:

 

“Like a pile of dry flour,

which cannot become one lump of dough, one loaf of bread, without moisture,

we who are many

could not become one in Christ Jesus without the water that comes down from heaven.”

 

And the water that comes down from Heaven

the water that makes us one … is God’s gift of the Holy Spirit!

 

Recall Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well ... he asked her for a cup of water.

She was annoyed to think that Jesus, a Jew, would ask her a Gentile for a drink.

Jesus said, If you only knew who it was that asked you for a cup of water,

you would have asked him for a drink and He would have given you “living water”.

 

When Jesus spoke of living water

          He was not referring to water that you take in from the outside,

but water that springs up from the inside, from within your soul!

He was referring to the Holy Spirit!

 

Through Baptism and Confirmation, we’ve been given this living water.

 

And Jesus is continues to send the Holy Spirit to us through the other 5 sacraments.

 

In Confession you receive forgiveness for sin by the power of the Holy Spirit. I say, “God the Father of Mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins.”

 

In Mass, the Bread and Wine are transubstantiated by the power of the Holy Spirit. I say

“Make holy, therefore, these gifts we pray,

by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall

so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

Yes, the power that we need to wipe out sin is here … we just need to use it!

 

So when the local News reminds us of all the bad people in the world,

should we pray that God comes down and wipes them out?

 

No, God did that once and it wasn’t a lasting fix to the situation ... and He promised to never do it again. The only way to have lasting goodness ...

is to listen to and follow the Holy Spirit ... generation after generation!

 

In our Gospel Acclamation today we prayed,

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.”

 

Let’s pray this prayer often.    It’s a prayer that really works.

 

Just pray the first 3 words ... Come, Holy Spirit

 

It’s a beautiful invocation; it’s a powerful invitation!

 

For you see, saying, Come Holy Spirit makes Pentecost happen ... every day!

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