A: Solemnity of the Pentecost (31 May 2020) - SOCIAL BUT NOT COMMUNAL DISTANCING (Jn 20:19–23)

Now that many countries are easing their lockdown measures, we are faced with a novel societal set-up. While being allowed to go out to the streets again, we are still forbidden to be physically close to one another. In the so-called new normal, we are barred to perform usual gestures of courtesy and endearment. No shaking of hands. No chats over coffee in a café. No smiles and laughter as faces are concealed behind masks. No squeezing of one’s self to create space for another commuter. No lending of hand in passing fares to jeepney drivers. Yet these new measures do not impede us from doing charity and showing respect to one another.

Forty-nine days after the Passover is the feast of the Pentecost—rounding 49 to 50 makes it the fiftieth day. Properly called “Shavuot,” it celebrates the 7th week (i.e., 7 x 7 = 49) from the first appearance of shoots (called “Omer”) to the major agricultural harvest (Deut 16:9), thus, prompting peoples from different provenances to gather in Jerusalem to thank God for the bountiful yield (cf. Exo 34:22; Num 28:26). In essence, it is a communal celebration of joyful thanksgiving to God. The coming of the Holy Spirit could not have descended in a more opportune time than in the Pentecost (Acts 2:2–4), when peoples from all over the world would gather (vv. 9–11). Providentially, after Peter and company’s dauntless preaching, some 3,000 were baptized that very day (v. 41). Truly, a great spiritual harvest for God’s kingdom!

While we attribute this growth in number to the apostles, it is realistically the Holy Spirit that made all these things transpire. Transfigured in the forms of a “violent wind” (v. 2) and “tongues of fire” (v. 3), the Spirit of God descended on the frightened apostles, filling them with courage. Consequently, it emboldened them to go out of their hiding in the Upper Room and to speak in the open. Thus, while it is their multi-lingual efficient preaching that impressed the pilgrims, it is the unseen force within each of them that brought forth the rise of Christianity.

Our gospel today actually serves as a prelude to this descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. In the Johannine account, it was Jesus himself who breathed this same Spirit to his disciples when he appeared to them for the first time (Jn 20:22). Along with this gifting, Jesus mandated them to witness to God’s message of mercy and love to the whole world: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (v. 23). In this same Upper Room, they would later receive the Holy Spirit at the Pentecost. If we put these two accounts—one Johannine and the other Lucan, respectively—in one linear timeline, we can speculate that the apostles’ first reception of the Holy Spirit only allowed them to deepen personally their faith in Jesus, but it is the latter that gave them the audacity to be missionaries of the gospel. In other words, the first wave is for their own spiritual growth, while the second wave is for others’.

Indeed, most of us have been spiritually enriched at the first wave of the pandemic with more than 50 days of lockdown: we realize the value of human life, the importance of family and relationship, the significance of trivial things, and the reliance to Divine Will. On this second wave or phase of the crisis when we go out into the open, we are now commissioned by Jesus through the Holy Spirit to witness to God’s goodness by our merciful and loving dispositions. May we always display tenderness and kindness even without being physically demonstrative. Remember that even with our mouths covered, our sweet smiles are still noticeable in our eyes.

- Rex Fortes, CM