Veni Sancte Spiritus!
6/5/22
Dear Parish Family,
Blessed and Happy Pentecost!
Pentecost existed in the Old Testament as a festival at the harvest of grain and a commemoration of the giving of the law at Sinai. For us, it’s 50 days after the Resurrection when our Lord, together with His Father, sends us the promised Paraclete, God the Holy Spirit. We can also see a connection between the Old Testament understanding of Pentecost and our Catholic Faith. The Apostles used grain and harvest imagery to explain the Church in their early document, the Didache:
As grain was scattered over the hills and then was brought together and made one,
so let your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth into your Kingdom (9.4).
And, as Pentecost was an occasion to call to mind the giving of the law to the children of Moses, so Pentecost is a liturgical remembering of God the Holy Spirit inscribing His law on the hearts of the Children of the Church.
Congratulations to our young parishioners who were confirmed on Saturday afternoon (6/4/22) by Bishop Waltersheid!
Come, O Holy Spirit, come! From Your bright and blissful Home, Rays of healing light impart.
Come, Father of the poor, Source of gifts that will endure, Light of ev'ry human heart.
You of all consolers best, Of the soul most kindly Guest, Quick'ning courage do bestow.
In hard labor You are rest, In the heat You refresh best, And solace give in our woe.
O most blessed Light divine, Let Your radiance in us shine, And our inmost being fill.
Nothing good by man is thought, Nothing right by him is wrought, When he spurns Your gracious Will.
Cleanse our souls from sinful stain, Lave our dryness with Your rain, Heal our wounds and mend our way.
Bend the stubborn heart and will, Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful who in You, Trust with childlike piety, Deign Your sevenfold gift to send.
Give them virtue's rich increase, Saving grace to die in peace; Give them joys that never end.
Amen. Alleluia.
[Sequence for Pentecost from the Roman Missal]
In the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Fr. Jean-Luc