{"id":5012,"date":"2024-05-17T11:58:51","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T10:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=5012"},"modified":"2024-05-17T11:58:56","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T10:58:56","slug":"commentary-on-the-pentecost-sunday-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-the-pentecost-sunday-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on the Pentecost Sunday (B) 19.05.2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie<\/a><\/h3>\n

Jn 20:19-23 <\/b><\/p>\n

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, \u2018Peace be with you.\u2019\u00a0 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.\u00a0 Jesus said to them again, \u2018Peace be with you. \u00a0As the Father has sent me, so I send you.\u2019\u00a0 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, \u2018Receive the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

A French writer describes the human spirit as \u201cthe unassailable, unchangeable, indestructible core, the keen point of the soul which alone can approach the Absolute and unite itself with the Divinity\u201d (Jacqueline Kelen, La Faim de l\u2019\u00c2me<\/em>).\u00a0 This idea of spirit as a hard inner core is widespread, even among people from whom you would expect better.\u00a0 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), in his famous book Walden<\/em>, gave this account of why he went to live in a hut in the woods: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life … I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.\u201d\u00a0 Such aggressive verbs!\u00a0 –\u00a0 to front, to suck out, to put to rout, to cut, to drive, to reduce<\/em>\u2026. All this tough talk about a hard inner core is somehow unconvincing.\u00a0 People who are sure of their strength don\u2019t talk or write like that.\u00a0 It is more defiant than descriptive.<\/p>\n

The word \u2018spirit\u2019 means breath.\u00a0 This does not suggest a hard aggressive core but a soft give and take.\u00a0 St Peter, who was probably much tougher than Thoreau, could use gentle language to describe that \u2018inner core\u2019: \u201cthe inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit\u201d (1 Peter 3:4).\u00a0 It matters a great deal how we describe our inner being; it matters not only for our self-understanding but also for our understanding of God.\u00a0 We are the primary image of God, and if we have a hard mechanical sense of ourselves, our image of God will be similarly hard and separate.\u00a0 It may well match the image of God in, say, Sheehan\u2019s Apologetics <\/em>long ago, but it has nothing to do with the Father of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 St Paul, who was even tougher than Peter, could write, \u201cDo not grieve the Holy Spirit of God\u201d (Eph 4:30).\u00a0 The Spirit of God is gentle, which does not mean weak.\u00a0 Real strength is always gentle.\u00a0 One moment\u2019s experience of God’s Spirit is enough to do away with all talk of an indestructible inner core attempting to \u201capproach the Absolute and unite itself with the Divinity\u201d \u2013 as if we could do such a thing by our own heroic efforts.<\/p>\n

By way of relief, read these lines by Jessica Powers on today\u2019s feast of Pentecost:<\/p>\n

That was the day when Fire came down from heaven,<\/em>
\ninaugurating the first spring of love.<\/em>
\nBlood melted in the frozen veins, and even<\/em>
\nthe least bird sang in the mind\u2019s inmost grove.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie Jn 20:19-23 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, \u2018Peace be with you.\u2019\u00a0 After he said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5012"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8204,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012\/revisions\/8204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}