Pentecost  Sunday
(C - cycle)  May 22,  2010

The church I grew up in had a plaster or wooden bird stuck to the roof about half way down the main aisle. It, of course, represented the Holy Spirit. Every once in a while, I would look up to see if she was still there. (I use the feminine pronoun because this is the only chance to do that with the Trinity, the Father and Son giving abundant masculine representation.)

 

Some of us may have wondered lately if the Spirit had flown the coop. On this Pentecost day when we commemorate the outpouring of the Spirit that created the church, I’d like to reassure them that she’s still around.

 

My witness is Nicholas Kristoff, a colunist and blogger for the New York Times. Recently he wrote two columns on the Catholic Church. He doesn’t seem to be a Catholic himself, and he dishes out his fair share of criticism, but he also has this to say:

 

“Yet there’s another Catholic Church as well, one I admire intensely. This is the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for. This is the church that supports  extraordinary aid organizations like Catholic Relief Services, saving lives every day, and that operates superb schools that provide needy children an escalator out of poverty.

 

This is the church of nuns and priests in the Congo, toiling in obscurity to feed and educate children. This is the church of a Brazilian priest fighting AIDS.

 

This is the church of the Maryknoll Sisters in Central America and the Cabrini Sisters in Africa. There’s a stereotype of nuns as stodgy Victorian traditionalists. I learned otherwise while hanging on for my life in a passenger seat as an American nun with a lead foot drove her jeep over ruts and through a creek in Swaziland to visit AIDs orphans. After a number of encounters like that, I’ve come to believe that the very coolest people in the world may be nuns.

 

Ordinary lepers, prostitutes and slum-dwellers may never see a cardinal, but they daily encounter a truly noble Catholic Church…those church workers whose magnificence lies not in their vestments, but in their selflessness…And unless we’re willing to endure beatings alongside Father Michael…and stand up to warloards like Sister Cathy, we have no right to disparage them or their true church.”

 

You don’t have to go to Africa or Central American for inspiration. Just look at the banners hanging in this church today. They represent the many people of St. Tim’s who give their best for God and others. No, the Spirit hasn’t flown away. She’s still in our church and in our hearts.