Dear Friends,
As the Great Fifty Days of Easter conclude today, we celebrate the Holy Spirit of God, generously poured into our hearts, always alive within us and between us. Fittingly we conclude as we began, with strong symbols of our baptism and the calling it brings with it. We are sprinkled with baptismal water as we recall God’s gift of forgiveness to us. And then, after the profession of our faith, the faith of the Church, we are invited to come forward and have our hands anointed for the ministry to which our baptism commits us. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we have the privilege and responsibility of doing the ongoing work of Christ. And so we are told, “Remember that your hands are the hands of Christ.”
At Pentecost, we celebrate two inseparable aspects of the work of God through the Holy Spirit:
First, that God continues to empower every single member of the Christian community to live as a beloved one of God, as Jesus Christ did. We are to be involved in the mission of showing all human beings that they too are God’s beloved ones, and that they can enjoy and live in that blessing.
Secondly, that the very nature of the Holy Spirit is to make community, to form bonds of trust and affection between persons, and to produce wonderful fruit of their commitment to each other. That is why this is sometimes called the birthday of the Church, the first taking of responsibility by the Christian people of God for the work of Christ in the world. That is why our attention to the health of the Church community is vital, and why we pray for the unity of Christians, as we have done especially during the last week.
I am delighted that our community of faith continues to gather in and include new people. We all need to co-operate for this to happen. Do you have friends or acquaintances who may be seekers, whom you could invite to join us for the Liturgy, especially on one of the great festivals like Pentecost? And are there any who would like to be catechumens, and take part in a process of enquiry that prepares them for baptism or for the reaffirmation of baptismal promises next Easter?
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
