By Fr. Andrew Kelly
PENTECOST SUNDAY – MAY 24, 2015
Imagine Sunday’s Gospel (John 20:19-23) as a circle with Christ at its center breathing the Holy Spirit equally upon all disciples. Christ exempts and excludes no one. All are sent and on Christ’s mission.
Pentecost Sunday is a beautiful reminder of what a believing community looks like. Christ’s community circle is filled with interconnecting circles of various ministries needed for Christ’s mission. Each circle is unique as each ministry is unique. But for the sake of Christ’s mission, the circles stay connected to each other in and through Christ.
The only way the circles stay connected is that the entire circle consciously stays anchored in its Christ centeredness. Circles disconnected from their Christ centeredness will then disconnect from each other, eventually causing the whole circle to collapse in failure.
The beauty of a Christ-centered circle is that the whole community sees Christ breathing mission and ministry upon everyone equally. If this is what Christ is doing, why would a Christ-centered community do anything different when it comes to Christ’s mission and ministry?
Watching Christ breathing Spirit, mission and ministry upon all disciples equally, excluding and exempting no one, is what makes Pentecost Sunday so beautiful and significant.
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)