Pentecost

ANTIPHON

The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world and that which contains all things understands what is said, alleluia. (Wisdom 1:7)

COLLECT

O God, Who by the mystery of today's great feast
sanctify Your whole Church in every people and nation,
pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit
across the face of the earth
and, with the divine grace that was at work
when the Gospel was first proclaimed,
fill now once more the hearts of believers.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth. (Psalm 104:30).

SCRIPTURE EXCERPT

Jesus said to his disciples:
“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father,
he will testify (μαρτυρήσει) to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear (βαστάζειν) it now.
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide (ὁδηγήσει, hodegesei) you to all truth (ἀληθείᾳ, aletheia).
He will not speak on his own,
but he will speak what he hears,
and will declare to you the things that are coming.
He will glorify me,
because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.
Everything that the Father has is mine;
for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine
and declare it to you.” (John 15:26-27; 16:12-15).”

REFLECTION

Saint Augustine, a fourth century Father of the Church, offers rich insight to this Sunday's Word in his work Tractates on the Gospel of John:

Beloved, you should not expect to hear from us what the Lord refrained from telling his disciples because they were still unable to bear them. Rather, seek to grow in the love that is shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to you so that, fervent in spirit and loving spiritual things, you may be able—not by any sign apparent to your bodily eyes or any sound striking on your bodily ears but by the inward eyesight and hearing—to become acquainted with that spiritual light and that spiritual word that carnal people are unable to bear. For that cannot be loved that is altogether unknown. But when what is known, in however small a measure, is also loved, by the same love, one is led on to a better and fuller knowledge. If, then, you grow in the love that the Holy Spirit spreads abroad in your hearts, “He will teach you all truth,” or, as other codices have it, “He will guide you in all truth”; as it is said, “Lead me in your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth.” So shall the result be, that not from outward teachers will you learn those things that the Lord at that time declined to utter, but you will all be taught by God, so that the very things that you have learned and believed by means of lessons and sermons supplied from without . . . your minds themselves may have the power to perceive.

Accordingly, when he says, “He will teach you all truth” or “will guide you into all truth,” I do not think the fulfillment is possible in anyone’s mind in this present life. For who is there, while living in this corruptible and soul oppressing body, that can know all truth when even the apostle says, “We know in part”? But it is effected by the Holy Spirit, of whom we have now received the promise, that we shall attain also to the actual fullness of knowledge that the same apostle references when he says, “But then face to face” and “Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.” He is not talking about something he knows fully in this life but about something that would still be in the future when he would attain that perfection. This is what the Lord promised us through the love of the Spirit, when he said, “He will teach you all truth” or “will guide you unto all truth.” (Saint Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John)

PREFACE

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvations,
always and everywhere to give You thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.

For, brining Your Paschal Mystery to completion,
You bestowed the Holy Spirit today
on those You made Your adopted children
by uniting them to Your Only Begotten Son.
This Same Spirit, as the Church came to birth,
opened to all peoples the knowledge of God
and brought together the many languages of the earth
in profession of the one faith.

There, overcome with paschal joy,
every land, every people exults in your praise
and even the heavenly Powers, with angelic hosts
sing together the unending hymn of Your glory,
as they acclaim: