May 30, 2004

Easter and Pentecost are the central dynamics of the Faith. The Resurrection is the reason the Church exists and the Holy Spirit gives life to the Church. St. Augustine said, “What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.” (Sermon 267) Last Sunday Bishop McCormick bestowed the Sacrament of Confirmation in the parish. That should remind all of us of the words of St. Ambrose who converted St. Augustine: “Recall that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear in God’s presence. Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you with his sign; Christ the Lord has confirmed you and has placed his pledge, the Spirit, in your hearts.” (De Mysteriis, 7, 42)

This year the Feast of Pentecost falls on the Memorial Day weekend. This means that many of our own parishioners will be out of town, but wherever they worship “the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:20) Commemorating those who have given their lives in the service of our country is an important act of civil piety, and we also pray for our armed forces engaged in the current war against terrorism. In a Memorial Day speech in 1921, Calvin Coolidge spoke of the many different races that came to America: “...God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness. Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence?”

Chesterton called the United States a nation with the soul of a church. No nation is the Church, but no nation can serve God without obedience to Him. St. Gregory VII excommunicated the Emperor Henry IV by way of a reminder of this. In the civil order the nation remembers the dead. In the spiritual order the Church prays that the dead might rise again to everlasting life. The Holy Eucharist is the real presence of Christ among us, by the work of the Holy Spirit, and we must never think of it in a dispirited way as a mere memory.

In these critical times we need a renewal of the Holy Spirit through prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments. When St. Paul went to Ephesus, some disciples told him: “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” (Acts 19:2) Those voices are heard in the streets of Murray Hill. The same Holy Spirit who gave us the Church can bring our city to life if only, as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta often said, we give Him permission.

Fr. George W. Rutler