Homily for Pentecost Sunday – 24 May 2026
Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost: the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church at the beginning of its history, and his continuing presence ever since. We remember that we are the original pentecostal church, a Church born of the Holy Spirit.
The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells the familiar story. At the Jewish feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, his disciples were gathered in Jerusalem. A strong driving wind filled the house where they were; tongues of fire rested on each of them; and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Consider that, gathered here for Mass today, we are like that first Church community on the day of Pentecost. They were gathered around Mary, in the Upper Room, the place of the Eucharist, in prayer, preparing for the coming of the Holy Spirit — exactly as we are here, now. We are the spiritual descendants of that first Church, two thousand years ago, part of an ancient tradition reaching through time and around the world: a great family of saints and martyrs who heard the Scriptures we hear, received the Eucharist we receive, and were transformed by that encounter with the living God, giving themselves completely in holiness of life.
The great truth of this feast is that what happened to them happens also to us. As the Holy Spirit came upon that first community in the Upper Room, making them the Church, so the Spirit comes to us again today, to renew and recreate us — as individuals, as a parish, as a whole Church. It is the prayer we make our own in today's psalm: “Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.” The Spirit who hovered over the waters at creation is the same Spirit who renews the face of the earth still — and that renewal begins here, with us. If we are open to him, we too can know a profound transformation, like that of those first disciples.
In the Gospel, St John tells how Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to his disciples on the evening of the day he rose from the dead. They were locked in a room, and Jesus came and stood among them. After showing them his hands and side, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He breathed on them deliberately: the Holy Spirit was the very breath that animated Jesus himself, and by breathing he handed that same breath on to them, so that from that moment the Spirit would animate them too.
Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit because he was entrusting his mission to them. He was about to return to his Father, and his disciples would carry on his work. And so, just before he breathed on them, he said, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” The mission of Jesus was to save the world from sin — and that now becomes the mission of his disciples. This is why, in the same moment, the Spirit is given for the forgiveness of sins: Jesus commissions the apostles and their successors to be ministers of God's mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We hear it still in the words of absolution: “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.”
And what was given in that locked room is given to each one of us. In the second reading, St Paul tells the Corinthians that the Holy Spirit first comes to us through baptism, and makes us members of the body of Christ. The Spirit, he says, is given to each of us for a good purpose, and is the source of our unity as a Church. Within that body, each of us has something essential to contribute; no one is unnecessary, no one dispensable. Together we are the continuing presence of Christ in the world. So when we celebrate Pentecost, we celebrate ourselves as Church — the continuation of Jesus’ saving work in our own day. Indeed, St Paul tells us we cannot even say the words “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
The theological maxim worth remembering is: the Father sent his Son to give us his Spirit — so that through Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, we might receive the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit, then, is not an afterthought; it is the very purpose for which the Son was sent. God has gone to extraordinary lengths to give us his Spirit.
Held together, the three readings show how much depends on the Holy Spirit — and yet how easily we overlook him. The Spirit is everywhere in our worship. The Mass itself is a litany of references to him: from the Sign of the Cross, through the Gloria, to its high point in the epiclesis, when the Holy Spirit transforms our gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
Consider what this gift means for our sense of who we are. Too often we suffer from a kind of inferiority complex, a lack of self-esteem, failing to recognise the extraordinary dignity already ours — that we are children of God, and our very bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Those of us who are baptised have received the Spirit; those of us who are confirmed have received his fullness — confirmed to strengthen our relationship with Jesus, to take our place as active members of the Church. The Spirit helps us to defend our faith and to be missionaries of the Gospel.
The Holy Spirit is the greatest gift God can give us. He even prays within us: each time we lift our hearts and minds to God, the Spirit prays in us and with us; and when we do not know how to pray, St Paul tells us the Spirit himself prays in us with sighs and groans too deep for words.
This feast places a simple question before us: are we making room for the Holy Spirit? Too often we are passive, or apathetic, about the spiritual life. We need to let God's Spirit animate us, energise us, and awaken in us a deep longing for God and the things of God; to make room for him, and let him challenge us, teach us and guide us. He will empower and equip us for mission — for to receive the Holy Spirit is to be sent. Our mission is to make Jesus present in the world, so that those around us may come to know him and receive eternal life. We are to be the healing, merciful, saving presence of Jesus among the very people with whom we live and work.
So we might ask ourselves: what would our parish look like if it were truly empowered and driven by the Holy Spirit? What would this community be doing? What would each one of us be like?
Today, then, the gift of the Spirit is renewed in us, and we ask him to enter our lives more fully. Today we are invited to be “pentecosted” — to renew our appreciation of, and reliance on, the Holy Spirit, to invite him into our lives each day, to cooperate with his saving work, and give him our whole life: our thoughts, our work, our hearts.
On this Solemnity of Pentecost, think of the Holy Spirit, and talk to him. Invite him; welcome him; ask Jesus to send him. And let each of us ask: what is the Holy Spirit saying to me, and to us as a community, today? Today, and every day, let us pray: Come, Holy Spirit.
