B: Solemnity of the Pentecost (23 May 2021) - VACCINES AND HERD IMMUNITY (Acts 2:1-11)

Nowadays, vaccines are exponentially produced and circulated to more global communities. Putting these vaccines into more shoulders is believed to be the most viable plan in achieving herd immunity so that, once achieved, the Corona virus and its variants may not be as infectious and lethal as they are now. Hence, people put their trust in vaccines, queueing to desperately receive them despite the long hours of wait and even uncertainty. Yet, their distribution is controlled by pharmaceutical manufacturers, the World Health Organization, government officials, and local health authorities. Who gets a vaccine is mitigated by these decision-makers. While this setup is the best solution to enforce an orderly vaccination program, the ordinary layperson is left helplessly hoping for that blessed time to arrive, especially in Third-World countries where the ratio of available vaccines to the population is enormously disparate.

We celebrate today the solemnity of the Pentecost, a Jewish feast that commemorates the first agricultural harvest of the year (Exo 23:16). Incidentally, at the same time in 33 CE, the apostles of Jesus received the Holy Spirit that fueled them to go out of their hiding in the Upper Room and embraced their new role as frontliners in spreading God’s good news (Acts 2:1-4). Peter preached boldly before a large assembly of people, ardently witnessing to Jesus’s Lordship and Resurrection from the dead (vv. 14-36). This supernatural experience coupled by Peter’s proclamation brought forth the immediate baptism of three thousand converts (v. 41).

What is often understated in this landmark event is that the Spirit was received by those in the Upper Room indiscriminately. While it is popularly called the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, Christian tradition tells us that it was received by all the disciples who were gathered there, including the Blessed Mother. Also, outside this Pentecost event, there were other occasions in the Acts when the Spirit descended on groups of people, e.g., the deacon Stephen (7:55), the Pharisaic Saul (9:17), and the Gentile Cornelius’s household (10:44).

Furthermore, the Spirit was dispersed by those who received them to others with no bounds. Those who were gathered in Acts 2, who miraculously understood the Galilean apostles’ words in their native languages (v. 7), were people of various provenances, viz., Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, and Rome (vv. 9-10). This information only tells us that the Spirit is a “free gift” that is dispensed freely and randomly. While it could have been distributed in the temple precincts where the religious elites and aristocrats would have congregated, the apostles chose to preach and baptize in the public streets where the poor people were. The Upper Room is conventionally located outside the walls of Jerusalem—identifiable now beside the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition in Mt. Zion—indicating that the Spirit was first received and dispensed in the outskirts of the commercial, religious, and political center of Jerusalem.

Instead of concentrating vaccination in First World countries that have better health systems and less fatalities in the past 17 months, why not conduct them first in dense populations and societies with less access to hospital services and less survival rate within their dire economic condition? I can only echo the words of the 18-year-old Greta Thunberg in her new advocacy, saying last 19 April to the WHO conference: “But so far, on average, one in four people in high income countries have received the coronavirus vaccine compared with just one in over 500 in low and middle income countries.... That we don't only see it from our Western privileged point of view, but rather that we think globally, and we need to prioritize those most vulnerable first.”

The Spirit is a gift for all. Let us, then, make it available to all, especially to the most vulnerable.

- Rex Fortes, CM