Gifts of the Spirit
Pentecost, May 28, 2023
 
Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Acts 2: 1-21; Ps. 104, Lord Send Out Your Spirit; 1 Cor 12: 4-13; John 20: 19-22
 
           I recently learned a Gospel song, and the lyrics go like this: This joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me. The other verses change to this strength that I have, this pride, this love, this peace. Then they all end in: The world didn’t give it, the world can’t take it away. This song helped me understand the gift Jesus’ disciples received the day of Pentecost, and the gifts we receive from the Holy Spirit as well. These gifts, of joy, strength, love, pride, and peace, for example, are not gifts we can earn by following the right rules, or going to the right church. There is nothing we can do to deserve these gifts, other than exist as beloved creatures of God. God gives these gifts from pure unmerited love. We have them because of God’s generosity; it is not transactional.
 
           And it is the Holy Spirit who is with us in the world and communicates these gifts to us. Jesus promised Wisdom Sophia as an advocate before his death, and so now we know she is the Spirit of God alive and inspiring God’s love in us, and in every other creature. As we heard in our second reading today, everyone is gifted a little differently, and it takes all those diverse gifts to make up the Body of Christ. Alive with our many and varied blessings, we bring Christ’s love to the world. We are charged with helping to care for the sick, help the blind see, help the lame walk, and help the oppressed find justice.
 
The Spirit joins Jesus the Christ and the Creator in the flow of love that is God. We don’t know exactly what happened when the Spirit came to the disciples on the first Pentecost 2000 years ago. We heard two different descriptions in our first reading and Gospel today. But we know the Spirit must have inspired dramatic change. Our first reading today expressed this change as moving the disciples from fear, locked away together in the upper room, afraid they might be the next victims of execution, to moving out into Jerusalem to spread Jesus’ teachings, using whatever language it took to help their listeners understand. The writer of Acts used the symbolism of a driving wind and burning flames to emphasize the drama of the in-Spir-ation the disciples felt. Evidently reflecting together on all Jesus’ words to them, on Jesus’ death, and now the signs they had seen that he was still alive with them, moved them so strongly that they lost their fear and felt that all they wanted to do was to take the love of Christ, and the Spirit of God, out to the city to share it with everyone there.
 
As Jesus’ disciples in 2023 in Indianapolis, Rochester, Huntington, Chapel Hill, and all our homes, how are we called to share the love of Jesus? How can the Spirit of God in all things and all people in-Spire us to help bring health, strength, peace, pride, and justice? Not only to all people, but to our endangered planet? The Spirit flows to us through all other beings. She is present in God’s trees, rocks, animals, flowers, soil, water, and air. We are all members of our Creator’s family, brought together by wisdom Sophia. What am I called to do to keep our family thriving and loving? What are you called to do?
 
I learned another song recently, as well. Its lyrics are I breath for the trees, and they breathe for me, I breathe for the trees, and they breathe for me. The Spirit’s breath, that driving wind, is in us all. What are we called to do to keep it flowing?

Prophetic Mothers of the Church
5th Sunday of Easter and Mother’s Day, 5/14/23
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Helen Weber-McReynolds, RWCP
Acts 16: 16-19, 23, 40; 21: 7-9; Ps. 78:1-7 (feminist interpretation by Marchiene Vroon Rienstra); John 14: 18-21, 25-26
 
           A few years ago, a friend invited me to an exciting event. She said some progressive Catholics were hosting a prayer service at Cathedral High School. It was to celebrate the feast day of St. Mary of Magdala. When I got to the Cathedral chapel the day of the event, I found that the leader of the prayer service was a petite, light-haired lady named Maria McClain. She said the group there intended to form a new prayer community in support of women’s ordination. She used inclusive language, addressed God as female, and preached about how Mary Magdalene was the Apostle to the Apostles. I wanted to know more about this new group! I was excited to talk to people who thought ordination for women could be a reality. At that time I had just about given up on the hierarchical church, and Maria and her group felt like prophesy to me that day. What they were saying was what I understood to be right and just, and consistent with the love of the God who made us all in her own image. It seemed Maria and her group were speaking God’s truth, and protesting the injustice of exclusion of women from church leadership.
          That’s what prophecy is, after all. It is listening to and reflecting on the word of God, and then proclaiming it to other people. Scripturally, it was especially called for when one perceived injustice, and urgently felt the need to help people turn toward justice and mercy instead. Prophets such as Isaiah, Jonah, and Zechariah urgently demanded returning to adherence to God’s word, and conversion away from abuses of the law that had arisen. Prophecy is reminding people of the justice and unconditional love of God, and working to actualize it in your community.
           Part of the mission of the Roman Catholic Womanpriest movement is prophetic disobedience—choosing to defy the proclamations of the church forbidding women’s ordination, and instead following the example of Jesus. Scripture tells us Jesus always fought for the rights of those dispossessed, disenfranchised, and discriminated against. The early church followed his example, welcoming women and other marginalized people as prophets, community leaders, preachers, and benefactors. The women’s ordination movement seeks to restore the openness and inclusivity of the early church. It seeks to prophesy that God calls people of all genders and sexualities to ministry. It seeks to proclaim to the world that exclusion of women from ministry is unjust and that limiting ordination to men is depriving the church of gifted leaders.
           In our first reading today, five women prophets were mentioned. Our second reading invites us all to to tell of the wonders of God’s strong and marvelous love, and to pass it on to our children. And then in the Gospel, Jesus spoke as the voice of God to the world, saying I am in God, you are in me, and I am in you. He was the Truth personified.
           Maria went to become the prophetic mother of this church, St. Mary of Magdala. She helped firmly established us as a community, passing on the responsibility of proclaiming our truth. St. Mary of Magdala community can prophesy by continuing to serve as an example of a new way of being church, of the potential for inclusive, creative catholic communities. We can spread the word that inclusion and Catholicism are not mutually exclusive. We can invite people to join us, especially those many people concerned about the rigidity of the hierarchical Catholic church. Most of all, we can live lives of acceptance, love, and inclusion, in imitation of Jesus, our brother, our teacher, and our example.