Fears and Tears

My daughter was Confirmed last weekend, and due to the pandemic and the postponement of the first date, it fell on Pentecost Sunday. The day we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles all those years ago.

The Lord died a most cruel death and rose again on the third day, where He conquered death and brought life to all. He spent 40 days with His Apostles, showing and teaching them peace and love. He ascended to Heaven to His Father, so the Helper could come to us – The Holy Spirit. Pentecost celebrates this outpouring of the Holy Spirit that happened all those years ago.

Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them – “Peace be with you, As the Father has sent Me, so I send you”. And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them – “Receive the Holy Spirit”. John 19-21

My daughter, along with about 40 others received the breath of the Holy Spirit, the gift of peace from above, the fire of love sent by the Father to renew, strengthen and bring gifts unique to her and the other young men and women present. It was a great witness and reminder of my own Confirmation years ago, when I said yes to the Lord, my Amen, which means so be it, Come Holy Spirit, Come.

The Holy Spirit enters the heart and sows peace, the peace our world needs to love one another, to have courage to stand up for others, to be the voice of truth so love is spread, to act justly seeking what is right, that is the way of peace.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He may grant you in accord with the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts though faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen Ephesians 3:14-21