Opening Prayer Series: Pentecost Sunday Year A

The Opening Prayer for Pentecost Sunday for Year A (Mass during the day) reads as follows:

Let us pray

( that the Spirit will work through our lives to bring Christ to the world)

God our Father,

let the Spirit You sent on Your Church 

to begin the teaching of the gospel

continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe.

In making this prayer tangible, the following reflection questions emerged.

1. What is my relationship with the Holy Spirit?
2. How might I continue to nurture this relationship for the remainder of 2011?
3. How has the Spirit worked in my life? ( recall some examples where the Spirit was at work)
4. How might the Spirit work in my life in the future ( ask the Holy Spirit for the help He can provide in specific areas of my life)
5. How might I cooperate with the Holy Spirit to bring Christ to the world?
6. How might I encourage believers that I know to be a powerful instrument by which the Holy Spirit may work ( eg form a small group of parishioners/believers to bring the gospel of Christ to others)

When a person needs mouth to mouth resuscitation,  the person trying to save the person in need, uses his/her own breath to bring them back to life. In other words, he/she breathes on  them. If our own breath can bring life to others, imagine the power of the breath of the Spirit.

In today's gospel, Jesus breathes the breath of the Spirit on His disciples to give them His power to forgive sins. When we participate in the sacrament of reconciliation, the priest says the words of absolution, but it is indeed God who forgives us. The priest uses his breath to utter the words of absolution, but by the nature of his ministry, he is working in the name of God-Father, Son and Spirit and it is the breath of the Spirit which transforms our souls.

Most of us are not called to ministry in the Church as an ordained minster, but we can breathe the breath of the Spirit to others, as we offer a comforting word to someone grieving,  a word of hope to someone in depression,  a warm compassion to someone in need of our forgiveness. Of course the Spirit is not limited, nor should we be as He lives in us. 

On this Pentecost Sunday, let us be renewed again with a fresh indwelling of the Holy Spirit.