Pentecost Sunday (Acts 2:1-11): Pentecost happens again and again

A reflection for Pentecost Sunday 2025, written and spoken by Kieran J. O'Mahony OSA. 

www.tarsus.ie

Gentle piano music to close the meditation

Transcript

St John’s Priory
Dublin D08 F8NW
8 June 2025
Acts 2:1-11
Making Pentecost our own…

Welcome
Today, Pentecost Sunday, we mark the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the Christian mission and the birth of the church. It would be natural to think of Pentecost as a supremely Christian feast but we would be wrong. The feast and even the name Pentecost both take us back to Jewish tradition. The Jewish feast of Pentecost — still celebrated today — marks fifty days since Passover. Hence the name Pentecost. Like many religious feasts, the roots are agricultural and the original feast celebrated the wheat harvest, a time of gladness, a time when the first fruits were brought to the Temple in Jerusalem. In Jesus’ day, Jewish tradition went further and linked Pentecost to the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. The richness of associations inspired Luke to use the feast to mark the outpouring of the Spirit, the start of the mission and the founding of the church. In other words, there is a great deal going on!

Steps
Can the feast still “speak” to us today? Or in other words, can we make the feast our own? As it happens, we are living at a time when this is uniquely possible.

Steps
1.  Vatican II and Synodality
The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was called by Pope John XXIII. He believed that in order to connect better with people in an increasingly secularised world, some of the Church's practices needed to be improved and presented in a more understandable and relevant way. Although now a long time ago, Vatican II was a game changer. Of their nature, councils usually take a long time to be absorbed and fully accepted. Fortunately, in our time, under the inspiration and guidance of Pope Francis, the potential of Vatican II has been re-ignited. He called it the “Synodal Way”. Francis, as we know, was from Argentina and a Jesuit. Both backgrounds matter. The South American church took up the challenge of Vatican II to create a more participative church, making a fundamental option for the poor. Jesuits specialise in helping people see what God is asking of them — discernment. The Synodal Way is now simply part of being church and has immense potential for the future, under the banner of communion, mission and participation.

2. Pope Leo
One of the worries after the death of Pope Francis was that traditionalists would reassert themselves and reverse the progress already achieved. This did not happen, thanks be to God. Pope Leo XIV is a firm supporter of the Synodal Way. As he said himself in his brief speech from the balcony on the evening he was elected,

To all of you, brothers and sisters in Rome, in Italy, throughout the world: we want to be a synodal Church, a Church that moves forward, a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close above all to those who are suffering.

On the 10th of may, speaking to the Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Leo expanded further and a little more technically. He said,

In this regard, I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Pope Francis masterfully and concretely set it forth in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, from which I would like to highlight several fundamental points: the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation (cf. No. 11); the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community (cf. No. 9); growth in collegiality and synodality (cf. No. 33); attention to the sensus fidei (cf. Nos. 119-120), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. No. 123); loving care for the least and the rejected (cf. No. 53); courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities (cf. No. 84; Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1-2).

In other words, the new way of being church — a church of participation, communion and above all mission — continues under the grace of the Holy Spirit. Vatican II marches on.

3. And what about us?
The Synodal Path is already part of our experience of church. The listening exercises of four years ago were eventually fed into the two assemblies in Rome in 2023 and 2024. These assemblies were new in style and in personnel. In style: significant time was given to prayer and to listening respectfully to each other in the “conversations in the Spirit”. In itself, that was something new. New as well was the make-up of the Synod. Usually, only bishops are present and only bishops can vote. But Pope Francis changed that: some 70 lay faithful were also present — known by the unwieldy title of non-bishops! — half of them women and they were all able to vote equally. And there is more to come. There are to be diocesan assemblies and eventually a national assembly Ireland, with preparations already underway. An international review is foreseen for 2028, once more in Rome itself.

The programme is the same as Vatican II: to better connect with people in an increasingly secularised world, to review the way we do things and to present the faith in a more understandable and relevant way.

Conclusion
As we mark the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the mission and the birth of the church, we do so at a particular moment in our history. A moment of transition, a moment of hope, a moment of real renewal from the foundations upwards. In other words, a time of grace, thanks be to God. Once again, we are called to respond to God’s deeds of power with energy, with the prophetic word,  in the power of the Spirit, with a capacity to dream for a better way of being together, as Pope Francis put it. May be be so. Amen. 

Happy feast day, everybody!