Dear Parishioners,

On this Solemnity of Pentecost, I would like to reflect on the words of St. Augustine. He said, “What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church.” By this, he means the difference between a living body and a dead one is that one has a soul and the other does not. Materially, they are both identical. In fact, someone who recently died may be mistaken for someone who is just asleep. So, the soul is the principle that unites and directs the body and therefore make it alive. Without a soul, the elements of the body begin to break down and this is the process that we know as decomposition. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is like the soul of the Church. It unites the Church, builds the Church and directs the Church in all its activities. Without the Holy Spirit, we would all be dead in sin and separated from one another.

When we are baptized, that all changes. At baptism, not only are sins taken away but we are given life in the Spirit. Our purposes are no longer just earthly but meant to bring us into everlasting life. No matter how different we all may be from one another, God brings us together into the one mystical body of Christ that lasts forever. Not only are we united to each other but also to all the faithful who came before us, the saints in heaven. There should be nothing more important to us in this life than to be with Christ, and the means He gave us to do so is through His Church.

Never forget your dignity as Christians. Each one of you is a temple of the Holy Spirit and God is calling you to be His witness in this world that needs to hear Him. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit manifested on the disciples in an extraordinary way with tongues of fire and speaking in my languages. Yet, this is what the Church does even today: empowered by the Holy Spirit, we speak to those around us about the faith and do so bravely.

God bless and have a blessed Pentecost,

Fr. Carter