Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 20, 19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Pentecost, fifty days later
1. Peace is one of the fruits that comes into your life in your relationship with God. Today, ask the Holy Spirit to give you the grace to live in peace, the ability to look at life in peace. That peace has to be present in the Church and the world, where it can sometimes seem that conflict is the only thing there is. The world seeks conflict, it even makes news out of conflict. In the past, when two people fought, people tried to separate them so that they would stop. Today, they film them and upload the video to YouTube. Today, we, both you and I, must seek peace.
2) Breath. Today, we must ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be able to look at life in a different way. Let the work of God inspire you and you will find a different, spiritual perspective on your own life. It is the work of God which begins with the breath of his followers. It is this breath that makes His work a Church which goes forth with peace, and satiates. Today, may the breath of the Holy Spirit come upon us so that we may go out at once and stop being locked up, we are already too crowded together.
3. Church. How beautiful it is to see how the church emerges, how it is forged in God from within, how it faces fears through the Holy Spirit, how it sets goals through the Spirit, and how it satiates the community through the same Spirit. Today, let us ask that the Church not be bureaucratic, but rather a Church that is managed in the Spirit. Let us take Christ to others without restrictions. Let us go out because God is alive.
God bless you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And don’t forget that Heaven is our goal.
