Pentecost Sunday 24 May 2026 Sermon

Pentecost Sunday 24 May 2026 Enthusiasm

Those in the upper room received a great blessing from Heaven and were never the same again.

They were enthused – en theos - immersed in God and willing to tell the whole world.

Now it is our turn. How do we stir up and then keep that enthusiasm. How do we keep the kettle on the stove, so that we are in all times and places radiating the fire of God to a frozen world ?

Always prayer is helpful, and necessary. The same Holy Spirit who comes, also stays, bringing forth the right words and actions from those who receive Him.

The apostles, in their joy,  had another experience of the Holy Spirit. He guided St Peter to explain what had happened, and what was still to happen.

Most importantly, he called all present to repentance.

Now we ask the Holy Spirit to come to us. He can whip us a storm, but He can also be like a gentle breeze (1 K 19,11-12).

And with this range of options He can reach deep into our hearts and minds, and transform them.

Maybe we need shaking up, like a rushing wind. Maybe we need gentle encouragement to pursue more fully the things of God.

We do not know all that  goes on inside us, as regards spiritual matters.

We have a mixture of  factors at work. The Holy Spirit will help us to see more clearly what we need to change, what to correct, what to improve upon.

The Holy Spirit will give us a sufficiently clear way of seeing things that we will change, and be willing to do whatever God wants from us.

Anything wrong can be made right; anything already right can be made better still.

We may not always recognize the Holy Spirit’s influence, so subtle can it be, but we can benefit from it, provided we are humble.

When we say, Come Holy Spirit we are implying that we agree to take our part in anything required when He does come.

We do not ask Him to come to us as spectators but as participants.

He can also come to those who do not receive Him, and that has been a major part of the Church’s mission ever since the first Pentecost.

How to convert the unrepentant. Can the Holy Spirit help there? Definitely, as He can at least exert an influence on those who are resisting the truth.

He will know what to do. We can help Him succeed by adding our own prayers and sacrifices, by giving good example, by being merciful to the sinner. We never lose hope of winning new members to the Church.

It has been happening from the beginning of the Church till now. We can accelerate things by our response.

The Church is to be the Bride of Christ, arrayed in beauty for her Husband. (Rev  19,7-8). To be beautiful as a city coming down from above, all in precious stones  (Rev 21,2-3).

This Church  can be beautiful only if there are beautiful people in it, making up its numbers – people radiating the goodness of God.

This is the other side of the same coin; the Holy Spirit works both on individuals and the whole Church, at the same time.

He will hear the prayers of those who do pray; and go after the ones who do not!

He will do wondrous things, like at this first Pentecost, and small things like answering a single prayer from a solitary person.

He will ‘come’ all the more when we ask Him to – which we fervently ask today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feast of the Ascension 17 May 2026 Sermon

The Ascension  17 May 2026

It was fitting that Jesus would leave the apostles and return to Heaven.

Heaven was His true home, and where He really belonged. God attends to all the details as well as the main point.

It was necessary that Jesus complete His victory over sin and death. He was raised once at Easter, now ‘raised’ in a different way to Heaven.

But seeing it all as one process He came all the way down from Heaven and now is raised all the way back to Heaven, completing a glorious mission.

He had to rise bodily from the dead, leaving nothing for the devil to claim for himself.

There had to be this further exaltation because anything less would be undeserving. The Ascension is Our Lord’s ‘lap of honour’ as He shows to the Church (and then the world) that this phase of His mission is complete.

Benefits will flow from this event. Jesus can reach more people from Heaven than from earth.

He could have stayed on earth and healed the sick and other things that He did, but He can do more good to more people by sending blessings from Heaven.

With the Father He will send the Holy Spirit who will reveal all else that needs revealing, and guide the Church as to its mission and its teaching.

The Church will now stand in for Christ in all its aspects.

The Church will preach, the Church will heal the sick, the Church will absolve sin etc.

The Church will also share in the sufferings of Christ, and come through humble submission to the throne of grace.

Some will say that they deal with Jesus direct, and do not worry about the Church. This is to over-simplify the matter.

Our Lord wanted the Church to take His place and take His word and sacraments to the whole world (Mt 28,19-20).  We cannot improve on that process, particularly if Christ Himself set it up.

Do we come into this somewhere? We are among the saved, and the saving.

Saved insofar as we benefit from the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

Saving insofar as we reveal to others what they could have if only they would turn to God.

The Ascension was a victory; we need many more like it.

There will be another descending  by Jesus; meaning His second Coming.

There will be another ascending by Him when He takes all the saved into the glory of Heaven, now with glorified bodies.

The apostles did the most sensible thing after they witnessed the Ascension – they prayed; they went back to their base and prayed for all they were worth.

With Mary (no insignificant player!) they prayed for nine days (the origin of the Novena) to bring about whatever it was that Jesus had referred to them.

And we know what happened next. The Holy Spirit came as predicted.

But we see how much prayer was needed to bring Him to our midst.

we have a job to do, and it is to keep knocking on the door of Heaven to send the Holy Spirit.

Why do we have to pray so much for something that God Himself wants to do?  It is because there has to be someone to receive Him, to keep the reciprocal communication active.

We pray all year, but especially this week of the Pentecost Cenacle, for the victory of Jesus Christ to hold firm in every place, every time, every person.

The more fervently we pray the more good things will happen, and keep happening.

Come Holy Spirit!

6th Sunday of Easter A 10 May 2026 Sermon

 6^th  Sunday of Easter (A) 10 May 2026

‘Always have within you the reason for the hope you have’ 1 P 3,15

 This will help us and enable us to help anyone who asks us.

What is the reason for our hope?  We are promised a very happy eternity, ultimately meaning that we will see a lot more happiness than unhappiness if we see the whole span of time.

We face many difficulties  in this life but the consolations are much greater.

This is our hope and the same hope we can offer to others.

It is a real hope, not just a story someone has made up to feel good.

We love a happy ending; in this case we are headed right for one.

We need constant reinforcement of the basic pattern of our belief.

We believe all these things, but maybe not enough. Not yet but we are getting there.

The things we believe do not change, while we might change.

We can always return to base and make a fresh start, and that is why the Church offers cycles and seasons, where days and weeks can have their own way of influencing us for the good.

Our faith is the precious pearl (Mt 13,45-46) for which we would exchange all our possessions, so valuable is it.

We can share the reason for our faith without having perfect faith ourselves.

We are learning as we go. Those we share our faith with may be better at it than we are ourselves. Not a problem if it means we all reach the heavenly city.

The Church is the tree to which all the birds will fly (Mt 13, 31-32) the people that need to come in. Or call them the harvest that is waiting to be gathered.

Another reason it can be hard to share the faith is that the listener may disagree with one or more aspects and therefore be hard to convince.

Some listeners have gone so far as to kill the evangelist. We honour those who have had the courage to give up their lives in that way.

Another reason for difficulty is the perception that there is a certain arrogance in offering the faith to another. How do I know my belief is better than his? We do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ 2  Co 4,5 St Paul tells us.

Our belief is in Him not ourselves.

It does work a lot better if the one proclaiming the message is living a good life, but it is important to understand that the message remains through all weathers.  The heavens declare the glory of God. Ps 19,1

We will not force the faith on anyone to believe it, will not force it. We won’t torture you but we will seek to persuade you.

Our behaviour is our most ready form of advertising. Let your light shine Mt 5, 14-16     and 1 Peter you will convert others without a word being spoken (1 P 3,1-2)

We pray and fast; we come back again and again to the main points. All this we believe is real; we are on a winner here, and the finish line is in sight, poetically speaking.

The more we believe it the mor we will proclaim it. I should be condemned if I did not preach it 1 Co 9,16.

Today we honour our mothers. For many of us probably the most influential person in our reaching the faith would be that same person who has done so much else.

We pray for those mothers still with us, and for those who have left us, that their hope be fulfilled.

We cannot omit Our Lady, the perfect mother, who leads us all in hope as in every virtue, and whom we honour in the month of May.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

5th Sunday of Easter (A) 3rd May 2026 Sermon

 5^th Sunday of Easter 3rd May 2026 Revealing God

 Jesus came to show  us what God was like. If you see Me you see the Father as well.(today’s Gospel Jn 14,9)

 And what do we see when we look at Jesus? Tell John what you see and hear – the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame jump for joy – (Mt 11,4-5)

 This is what God is like: He saves, He heals, He lifts up from the ditch… all positive, and someone we are glad to know. He is everything that is good, kind, generous, merciful. He is all good and nothing bad.

 If we do not understand something about God’s promises, the fault will be with us, not God.

 If we can be patient we will understand all that we need to know of God's nature, and His way of acting.

 The whole idea of the Incarnation was that God would come down to the earth and start repairing things. By the time He came there was a lot of sin about - unconfessed, unrepented, unamended, which made a very murky environment for Him to work in. – so far were things degenerated that even when He came He was still not welcomed. (Jn 1,11)

 However, He did work many miracles, which were helpful to the people who received them, but also were strongly symbolic of what was achievable and what was to come.

 Amidst all these happy events, He came also to correct where beliefs and behaviour had become muddled.

 A lot of this side of His ministry struck resistance. Many preferred the dark to the light; many still do, but the offer of salvation is always there.

 He taught us that if we stay close to Him, we will be protected from the worst of the evil going round.  If we give up our false gods, amend our ways, we will know a much greater happiness.

 God is not cruel by nature, as some think, but always working for our advantage.

 Trust in Him (Jn 14,1). Stay on board and you will find all you need.

 If we approach Him He will not turn us away. A humble and contrite  heart You will not spurn (Ps 51,17)

 He came to show us what God is like. We could also say that He came to show us what we are like, or can be like. He took on our nature but without sin (Heb 4,15). He embraced our humanity but also acted to improve it, by removing the imperfections.

 We approach Him then, not in fear but trust.

 By a combination of mercy and grace Jesus will act in and around us to help us go deeper in our search for ultimate happiness; to find that place He has gone to prepare (Jn 14,2).

 At the Last Supper, when Jesus delivered these words, He was trying to strengthen His apostles, to cement them in their faith, so that they could be strong for others as well as themselves. By the time of Pentecost they were ready for that responsibility!

 As we can be ready for whatever mission the Lord has in store for us.