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 of living in peace, the ability of looking at life in peace. We should pray for peace in the Church and in the world, especially at this moment where conflict seems to proliferate. The world seeks conflict, it even makes news out of conflict. In the past, when two people were fighting, people tried to separate them so that they would stop fighting; today they film them and upload it to You Tube. Today we must seek peace.
2) Breath. Today, let’s 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 have a different, spiritual look on your own life. It’s the work of God which begins with the breath on his followers, that breath that makes it a Church which goes forth, takes peace to the world, and satiates it with love. Today, may the breath of the Holy Spirit come upon you and me so that we may go out at once and stop being closed in on ourselves.
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’s ask God to help us be a Church that is guided by the Spirit, and not a bureaucratic Church. Let’s take Christ to others without restrictions. Let’s go out because God is alive. Don’t forget that something good is on the way!
God bless you and be with you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
