Acts 2:1-11
1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13
Jn 15:26-27; 16:12-15

Seeds of Pentecost?
I was awed by the response of people to 911 and the 2005 hurricane tragedies. Through new accounts and televisions reports I watched people from different backgrounds reach across the usual boundaries. These events brought out in people an amazing generosity of time, skills, and money toward those in need. Some gave to the needs of the people through physical labor, organizing people to make things happen and others of us reached out through money, prayer, and by giving blood. These tragedies tapped within us a deep desire to reach out to people who became for us in a very real way, brothers and sisters in need of support and love.

The tragedies in themselves were tragedies, yet they called forth from us an awareness of union with others – despite and in the midst – of our differences. We found ourselves saying, that could have been me/us if…”there but by the grace of God, goeth I.” Today as I caught up in the Pentecost story, I had forgotten all of the groundwork that had happened for the disciples between the crucifixion and the coming of the Spirit. This powerful experience came after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The ground of Pentecost was readied by all of this and the individual Easter experiences that happened behind closed doors, while fishing and walking, and in what was thought to be ordinary experiences…until Jesus showed up unexpectedly.

What has been the groundwork prepared for you and me, that readies us for that inner Pentecost? How has the Holy Spirit worked the soil of our lives to make us ready for new revelations and transformations? Let us be ready to be in awe and amazement of how the Holy Spirit will come to us today and use our tragedies, our sufferings, and our doubts to reveal the Holy.