Pentecost Sunday

Homily Video

Pentecost Sunday Homily Transcript

Doctor Geetha and Tom Chitta are a wonderful couple that I met 13 years ago. They live in India, but they spend six months of the year here in the United States and they go from one parish community to another talking about this foundation that they set up, FCN, Foundation for Children in Need, that helps the poor and underprivileged children living in India.

So I met them 13 years ago, and I’ve been sponsoring a child for some time now and supporting their mission. In January, this past January, I had the privilege and the opportunity to go to India and to visit the mission and the work that they do. It was truly a very humbling experience. It’s one thing to give money to a child to support their education or help them. It’s another to see the gratitude on their face and the hope in their eyes as they see a brighter future because of this wonderful foundation that they are a part of.

The thing that impressed me so much was the work of Tom and Doctor Geetha isn’t just for Christians, but it’s for poor children in India whether they’re Muslim, Hindu, or Christian. They have these schools set up to feed them, to give them an education, and a safe place to live. I was very humbled by their work and that experience, and I share it today on this feast of Pentecost because I think it helps us to understand a little bit about the meaning of Pentecost.

Pentecost reminds us that with the Holy Spirit, we become one with God in a very unique way. We become much bigger than ourselves. Now, not all of us can start a foundation like Tom and Doctor Geetha, but when we give of our time to visit those who are homebound and sick, when we choose to join our church’s prayer circle, or when we put that little bit that we can into a second collection to help the needy, those in other parts of the world, we live much bigger than ourselves and we continue the work of Pentecost. We continue the work of the Holy Spirit.

So today as we celebrate this wonderful gift and the feast of Pentecost, the Spirit living in us, let’s think about all the different ways that we are being called each and every day to be more faithful followers of Jesus, to live in his risen life. Because in the profound and in the most simple ways that we do so, we give life and flesh to the Holy Spirit that is living and working in each of us.

Readings

First Reading:

Acts 2:1-11/1

Second Reading:

Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13

Gospel:

John 20:19-23

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