“THE Spirit is present only when charity, joy, peace, patience, endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness, and chastity are deeply in our lives—and permeate the air around us.” –Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday—the great feast when we commemorate that time when the Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles and assembled as believers fifty days after Christ’s resurrection. On that day, as Leo the Great said, “the clarion of the gospel has rung out, a rain charisms, a river of blessings, has watered every desert and dry land, for the Spirit of God has swept over the waters to renew the face of the earth, and a blaze of new light has shown out to dispel our former darkness.”
From that day, the apostles came out boldly from their timid selves to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations and to bring conversion to Christianity to many people. Succeeding apostles and believers would continue to spread this faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to the whole world.
We all have become part of this great task and commission. We continue to speak boldly about our faith in Jesus Christ and all the He stands for, especially in times when people and governments are not living the mandate of the Gospel to bring love, justice, and peace in our world.
In connection with the recent outcome of the presidential election in the Philippines, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Philippines is right in making this bold statement: “The greatest promise the Church can offer any government is vigilant collaboration, and that offer, we make now. We will urge our people to work with the government for the good of all, and we shall continue to be vigilant so that ever so often we may speak out to teach and to prophesy, to admonish and to correct—for this is our vocation.”
We hope too that we, bishops and priests, would preach not just by words but also by example. It’s time that we show a genuine apostolic life marked by humility, simplicity of life, and chastity. It’s time that we too become vigilant about our conducts and lifestyles.
After all, to live in the Spirit means to live by the Law, which St. Paul describes as not living in “lewd conduct, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, bickering, jealousy, outbursts of rage, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factionalism, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like” but living in “charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness, and chastity.” (Gal 5:22)
On this Pentecost Sunday, we pray for a new era of life in the Spirit in the Philippines. We pray that the new government, the church and all civic and religious groups work together to bring progress of peace, justice, safety, unity, education, and economy in the Philippines.
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From a Filipino immigrant family, Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas was ordained to the priesthood from St. John’s Seminary in 1991. He served as Associate Pastor at St. Augustine, Culver City (1991-1993); St. Martha, Valinda (1993-1999); and St. Joseph the Worker, Canoga Park (1999-2001). In 2001, he served as Administrator Pro Tem of St. John Neumann in Santa Maria, CA, until his appointment as pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary, Los Angeles, in 2002, which lasted 12 years. His term as Associate Director of Pastoral Field Education at St. John’s Seminary began in July 2014.
