Friends,
as we celebrate this great feast of Pentecost, and, thus, bring the Easter
season to a close, we are invited to look back as well as look forward. Back, to relish all of the graces which the
seasons of Lent and Easter have afforded us.
Forward, to see the direction towards which God’s Spirit impels us.
As
we do this today, I’d like to focus on an image from the prophet Ezekiel: the
dry bones that are brought back to life. This image comes from a reading that is
used in the extended Vigil of Pentecost and so it has something that speaks to
this great feast. It is an excellent
image because it encapsulates so much of what we have been celebrating during both
the Lent and Easter seasons. Allow me to
take a moment to describe it to you.
In
this passage from the beginning of the 37th chapter of the book of
Ezekiel, Ezekiel is given a vision of a field filled with dead bodies: bodies
that have been dead so long that they are nothing more than dried-up
bones. Later in the passage, God will
reveal to Ezekiel that these dead bodies are the chosen people of God, “the
whole house of Israel”, who had become dead because of their sin. God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy (that is,
to proclaim his Word) to this field of bones.
When the word of God comes to them (that is, the word spoken by the
prophet), the bones come alive: they reform themselves into bodies and take on the
flesh of living creatures once again.
Having heard this much of the passage, let’s consider how it connects to
our Lenten and Easter journeys.
On
Ash Wednesday, we acknowledged that we were dead in our sin—like the dry ash
placed on our heads—and asked for God’s grace to be renewed in life once
again. Then, for the next 40 days, we
let the word of God renew us: that is, we allowed the word of God to put flesh
on our bones once again. In the Easter
season, we’ve celebrated the new life that the Word of God won for us in his
passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven: that we, who were “dry
bones”, have been given new flesh through our baptism into Christ. Nonetheless, there was still something more
to celebrate.
Looking
back at the passage from Ezekiel, we see that these newly resurrected beings
must have been something like zombies. Ezekiel
said, “I saw the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them,
but there was no spirit in them.” Therefore,
God prompted him to prophesy again and to call on the Holy Spirit to “breath
into these slain that they may come to life”: that is, to give them a full
human life. This image ought to remind
us of the story of the creation of man in Genesis, when God “breathed” the
breath of life into the man, as well as the Gospel reading we heard today when
Jesus “breathed on” his disciples to infuse them with the Holy Spirit.
Friends,
this is the meaning of the celebration of Pentecost. For these 50 days of Easter, we have been
formed in this new life that the Word of God gives us. And now, we are reminded that the Holy Spirit
has been given to us to animate us and to become a living force in the world to
continue to draw all men and women back to God.
What a great reason to celebrate, right?
And
so, what should be our response? First
of all, it should be joy and gratitude.
Joy that our weak human nature has been given the power of God’s Spirit
to overcome its tendency to self-destruction in sin; and gratitude to the One
who has graciously shared the power of his Spirit with us. Second, however (and equally important), our
response should be action. In other
words, the joy of having received God’s Spirit should move us to action in the
world, like the first apostles, about whom we heard in the first reading. In fact, this is exactly what our late Holy
Father, Saint John Paul II said to us at World Youth Day in 1993: “Do not be
afraid to go out on the streets and into public places, like the first Apostles
who preached Christ and the Good News of salvation in the squares of cities,
towns and villages.”
This
second response is so important because we know that, when we step outside of
this church, what we step into is a field filled with dry bones: that is, a
world full of men and women who are dead in their sin. We see this both physically, as our senses
are continually assaulted by invitations to indulge our bodies and not our
spirits, as well as digitally, as social media assaults us with much of the same. This world needs us to be prophets, like
Ezekiel, to declare this truth: that this world of indulgence leads to death,
but that a life of true happiness is possible in Christ Jesus. In declaring this, we will make it possible
for God to bring new life to their “dry bones” and so to fulfill his prophecy
to “open their graves and have them rise from them”.
Therefore,
my friends, as we celebrate this powerful good news, let us renew our
commitment to allowing the Spirit of God to direct us in our lives. Many of us, perhaps, have grown timid because
we acknowledge our weaknesses as well as the hostility of the world to the
gospel message. This celebration reminds
us that God has given us power to be effective evangelizers in spite of our
weaknesses and in spite of the hostility of the world. Therefore, we should not fear to renew our
commitment to the Spirit, but rather boldly do so, trusting in the promises of
God to lead us through every storm. In
doing so, our lives, the life of our parish, and the life of our community will
be renewed and glorified. And God’s
kingdom—the glorious Jerusalem that awaits us—will become ours.
Given in Spanish at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish: Carmel,
IN
May 28th, 2023
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