27 May 2023 – Pentecost Vigil Mass (Year A)

by Fr Joachim Robert

Dear brothers and sisters, we have journeyed together for almost ten days, from the Feast of the Ascension towards now. And this whole celebration of the Upper Room, or this whole experience of the Upper Room, makes us realise of who we are as Church, who we are as community and how the Holy Spirit unites us and gives us and empowers us to go out on Mission.

And as I reflected on this whole journey, there are many many areas which I would like to cover later.

First of all, today’s theme which we have chosen for ourselves is Take Over. And this comes from this whole bigger theme of Fan into flame the gift of God. Because each and every one of us, dear friends, are blessed with this gift from God and we must fan into flame that gift the Father has given to us. And to fan the flame, we must allow the Holy Spirit to take over, to entrust our life to the Holy Spirit so that we are able to glorify and magnify God to see the wonders and glories He wants and will work in our lives.

I would like to begin with the first story.

The story of a man looking for a job. And after looking and looking and looking, he found a job and his work was to put on a costume of a gorilla and after putting on a costume of a gorilla, he had to go and run around and disturb people, jumping all around. And after jumping and jumping and jumping, he fell into the cage of a lion.

And after being in the lion’s den, he shouted and cried out: “Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!”

But then slowly the lion said: “Quiet!” because that man was also in a costume of a lion.

So here we see, dear friends, the problem is, sometimes, is that the real me is covered from the world. The real me is not being able to be seen. And very often we ourselves shadow ourselves. We sometimes cover our own goodness, cover our own talent and gifts by covering ourselves with costumes and perhaps masks that are not us. And we must allow that mask to be removed so that we are able to see the true identity that we have in God.

And for that, dear friends, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us who are we in God’s eyes, who are we as children as Sons and Daughters of God. Because the goodness in our lives, dear friends, must come out because the work of the Spirit reveals that goodness in our hearts and makes us be known as who we are. We need not put mask, put on costumes to be who we are not.

And sometimes because of the negative images perhaps that we have grown up with, perhaps of the hurt that we have had before, perhaps of all the obstacles and challenges, life experiences that we encountered, we sometimes put on masks. But the Holy Spirit invites us to take over that negativity and allow Him to be present in our lives. Because when we remove that negativity and that image, the goodness of our hearts is revealed by the Holy Spirit.

The first thing, the first point I would like to bring out is to see the goodness in one another and to see the goodness in ourselves. And because if we are not able to see the goodness in ourselves, we are unable to see the goodness in others as well.

The second story I would like to share. It is the experience of driving a car. I am sure many of you would have had the experience. Have you experienced any time that when you are driving the car, the handbrake was on? Ada? Tak ada? Huh? And only after some time you come to realise that you are dragging and dragging and dragging. And these kind of experience, dear friends, also tells us sometimes how foolish we can be. Sometimes we are unable to look at many things that is in our control. But we come to realise that these forms of sin, these forms of baggages that we have, continues to hold us down. Drags us in our journey of life. And once we realise that we need to let the handbrake go, then we see how we can move in freedom in the way that God wants of us.

In our spiritual journey as well dear friends, it is something like that. If we want to allow the Holy Spirit to take control, if you want the Holy Spirit to take over our lives, we must be able to let go of our baggages. We must be able to let go of that which drags us down. And we must allow God to be in charge. The Holy Spirit to be in charge, to take on the driver’s seat. And when we allow the Holy Spirit to be on the driver’s seat, we can be the companion on that journey because someone greater than us who is leading us forward.

And when we are able to let go of our baggages, then we find a sense of freedom, a sense of joy that comes from God. And for this, dear friends, we must perhaps ask ourselves what it is that is dragging us down, what is our baggage. Perhaps our sin, our anger, our ability of wanting to be in control, perhaps the sickness that I have, and many many other things. Let us ask ourselves what drags us down that prevents us from allowing the Holy Spirit to take over.

And for this, dear friends, we need to trust in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows more than I do. The Holy Spirit knows what is best for us and we trust that God’s plan is bigger than our plan. The second point is to trust on the Holy Spirit.

And the third experience that I would like to share is I am sure when you go to any church now, any restaurants, even hospitals, the first thing that you do is that you want to get connected with the Wi-Fi. Yes? No? Right? You want to get connected to the Wi-Fi. And when we are unable to get connected to the Wi-Fi, what do we do? We get frustrated, we get agitated, we feel restless because we are unable to be connected to something which is greater.

But I would like to ask you. When you want to connect to the Wi-Fi of God, what is your password? Anybody want to give a chance or what is your password? And since you are in CHS, I will give you the password: C-H-S. And again CHS also can mean the many many different things. But CHS is not Cathedral of the Holy Spirit but it is Come Holy Spirit.

And when we allow the Holy Spirit to come into our lives, we are connected to a far far greater source of power. We are connected to God who willingly draws us to himself rather than allowing ourselves to be stifled and be frustrated with our own ways. And when we are frustrated, dear friends, perhaps with our own anger, with our own hatred, with our own frustration, we need to ask ourselves how can we get connected to God.

The password is given to you. Quieten yourself down, empty yourself and say:

Come Holy Spirit and take over. Come Holy Spirit and take over.

I would like to invite you, dear friends, as you go through your own journey of life, ask yourself what is it that is preventing you from asking God to enter into your life. What is preventing you from wanting to be free in God?

Perhaps you take one minute to ask ourselves what is it in our lives that is preventing us from getting connected to God? Perhaps anger? Perhaps hatred? Perhaps frustration? Perhaps the burden of caring for someone? Perhaps tiredness? Burden? Sickness? Depression?

And as we look into our own lives, let us together invoke the Holy Spirit to come as we are in this Upper Room.

As we carry all our burden, let us together say:

Come, Holy Spirit. Together. Come, Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit.

As we rely on our own strength, dear friends, as we rely on our own ability to be in control of the situations around us, let us ask the Holy Spirit to take over. Let us surrender our will, our plan into the hands of God. Let us surrender to the Holy Spirit to take over and to allow us to see the far greater goodness that He has in each and every one of us so that together we can inflame or fan the gift of God in our lives.

So in conclusion, the first is to see the goodness of yourself and the goodness of the other. The second is to allow or to trust in the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit knows best. The third thing to do is to allow the Holy Spirit to take over.

Amen.

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