HAPPY PENTECOST DAY

Come Holy Spirit and fill the heart of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.
Happy Pentecost Day my dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Do we sometimes complain that we do not understand each other? Sometimes the husband does not understand the wife and the wife do not understand the Husband. Most often children complain that why my parents do not understand me? Why???
Some times it is very difficult to understand people whom are we so familiar earlier. If you find this misunderstanding in your day today life then kneel down and beg to God for a Pentecostal experience an out pouring of the Holy Spirit in your life…
Whenever human beings forget how limited we are and try to take the initiative in our dealings with God, what inevitably follows is disaster. An example is the story of the Tower of Babel that we are told in Gen 11 where human beings decided to build a tower that would reach to heaven. In this way they would have access to God whenever they wanted, in this way they could manipulate God. But in the process of building the human bridge to heaven God came and confused their languages. They began to speak different languages, there was no more communication, no more understanding among them, and they could no longer work together. The result was the proliferation of languages and human misunderstanding.
Does the story of Babel remind you of the story we read today from the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus speaking in other languages? Actually the two stories are related. But Pentecost is not a repeat of Babel; Pentecost is a reversal of Babel, and this for three reasons:
1. At Babel human beings decided to build a tower to God by their own effort; at Pentecost it is now God who decides to build a bridge to humans by sending the Holy Spirit. Babel was a human initiative, a human effort; Pentecost is a divine initiative, a divine activity through the Holy Spirit.
What God asks of us as believers always seems impossible. And it is indeed impossible if we rely on our own initiatives and will power alone. But if, like the disciples, we realize that godliness is above us, and so commit ourselves to waiting daily on God in prayer, God will not be found wanting. At the opportune time God will send the flame of the Holy Spirit to invigorate us, and change us from lukewarm to zealous, fervent, enthusiastic believers. We have to put our trust in God and believe in His providence. God Provides.
2. Babel was a requiem of misunderstanding; Pentecost is a chorus of mutual understanding. The miracle of Pentecost is very different from the miracle of Babel. At Babel, the people came together with one language, understanding themselves. After God's intervention they dispersed no longer understanding each other. At Pentecost, on the other hand, people of different ethnic backgrounds (Persians, Asians, Romans, Egyptians, Libyans, Arabs, etc) came together unable to communicate, but after the miracle of Pentecost, they said, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear them, each of us in our own language?" (Acts 2: 7-8).
The miracle of Pentecost was a miracle of mutual understanding, a restoration of that precious gift that humanity lost at Babel. Now, someone might ask, is there such a language that one could speak and everybody would understand in their own mother tongue? The answer is yes. 100% yes. And the name of that language is LOVE. Love is the language that all women and men understand irrespective of ethnic background. Everybody understands when you smile. Love is the language of the children of God, the only language we shall speak in heaven. And the Holy Spirit is the outcome of the Love of God the Father and the God the Son. The Holy Spirit teaches us the one language which unites us, the language of God’s universal love which knows no boundary. The Holy Spirit disciplines us with humility and with trust in God’s Providence, so that we may speak the language of divine love which makes us one and brings us lasting joy and peace. If you know the language of Love you will understand the feelings of other people. If you have all the degrees from all the Universities and if you do not know the Language of Love you will not understand your brothers and sisters.
3. Finally, Pentecost differs from Babel in its result. Babel resulted in the disintegration of the human family into different races and nationalities. Pentecost, on the other hand, brings all peoples together and reunifies them under one universal family. This universal family embracing all races and nationalities is called church. "Catholic" means "universal". On Pentecost we celebrate the birthday of the Church. Today is, therefore, an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to be active and faithful members of this family of God we call Church.
Fulton J. Sheen once said about the church that even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people. God's frozen people indeed: frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith. We don't seem to be happy to be in God's house; we are always in a hurry to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love.
Don’t forget my dear brothers and sisters that “We can no longer move forward looking through the rearview mirror!
You may say now, “What can I do?" "I am only a single individual. What difference can I make?" Maybe we can learn something from the story of the black squirrel and the owl.
A black squirrel once asked a wise old owl what was the weight of a single snowflake. "Why, nothing more than nothing," the owl answered. The squirrel then went on to tell the owl about a time when he was resting on a branch of a maple tree, counting each snowflake that came to rest on the branch until he reached the number 1,973,864. Then with the settling of the very next flake -- crack! The branch suddenly snapped, throwing the squirrel and the snow to the ground. "That was surely a whole lot of nothing," said the squirrel.
Try to break down the tower of Babel we build and try to embrace the experience of the Pentecost where we can understand each other and Love each other and be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
What does mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit? It means a radical change in our mind and in our deeds; it means to be a new creation, to have a new mind according to God, not according to the flesh, and to act according to God’s will, not according to our sinful egoistic will. God is Love, and His Spirit is the Spirit of Love. When we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, all our deeds must be filled with love. St. Paul says to the Galatians: "Walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh ... "But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace; patience, kindness, goodness; faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And he concludes: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another" (Gal. 5: 16-26).