Pentecost and the Priesthood – Catholic World Report

Note: The following homily was preached on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 2025, at the Church of the Transfiguration in Syracuse, New York.

Wind, fire, thunder and lightning.

The Sacred Scriptures are replete with instances of divine revelation accompanied by these impressive phenomena in nature. The Book of Genesis tells us that “a mighty wind swept over the waters” (1:2) at the dawn of time; in the Book of Exodus, we learn how God gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning as the communicators of His Will and Word (see chapter 19). But less fearsome signs have also been used by the Almighty as we recall how the gentle breath of God brought Adam to life (see Gen 2:7) and how the breath of Jesus on the Apostles gave them the ability to bring to life again men spiritually dead through sin (see Jn 20:22).

All of these events are connected to God’s self-manifestation or, even better, His self-communication to the human race and, most especially, to the Chosen People.

The Pentecost being observed by the apostolic community was a major feast of covenant renewal, harking back to that primal giving of the Law to Moses, that act of God which essentially formed the people of Israel and made them His own special portion. Each time the Church gathers to celebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice, she engages in a similar ceremony of covenant renewal, and the same Spirit that hovered over the waters of the abyss bringing creation from chaos, the same Spirit that hovered over the Blessed Virgin Mary making her the Mother of the Lord hovers over the elements of bread and wine, transforming them into the Lord’s Body and Blood, which saved the world 2000 years ago and makes present that invitation to salvation day in and day out until He “comes in glory.”

Hence, it is possible to say that every time the Sacrifice of Calvary is sacramentally renewed, a little Pentecost occurs.

Yesterday, your Diocese gained two new priests, and how appropriate and providential it is for them to be offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice for the first time in persona Christi on this solemn day, which was also the distinct grace given to me forty-eight years ago.

As we endeavor to plumb the depths of the mystery of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in the Church’s sacramental life, Holy Mother Church offers us a rather full plate of food for thought; in reality, we are beset by an embarrassment of riches. What shall we make of it all? My hope is to lead you in a reflection on the Holy Priesthood, which is the principal instrument given to the Church by which the Lord has willed to continue the sanctifying work of His Holy Spirit. Let’s think of this as a kind of mini-refresher course in our understanding and appreciation of the Sacred Priesthood, which is–all too often nowadays–so misunderstood and underappreciated.

On the first Christian Pentecost, a terrified band of persecuted believers huddled together for safety and mutual support. And then, in nothing less than a miracle, God’s Holy Spirit came crashing into their lives, changing them at the core of their being in such wise that they made “bold proclamation as the Spirit prompted them.” The point to ponder, however, is not so much the period of fear but the moment of liberation effected by the action of the Holy Spirit–a liberation given for the noble purpose of sharing the Gospel message in all its fullness and truth.

When the Eleven emerged from the Upper Room, what did they find? People who were “confused,” says St. Luke. They were confused because they were overly impressed by the linguistic feat performed, yes, but I would suggest they were even more confused because they knew these men to be naturally weak and reticent and they could not fathom what had gotten into them–or better yet, Who had gotten into them.

Something comparable happens to every man at his ordination, and we have the right to expect similar results. Our task is to speak incessantly and courageously about the magnalia Dei, “the marvels God has accomplished.” It must be a priest’s special and daily prayer to take the opening verse of Psalm 104 as the theme of his priestly life and ministry: “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth”–through me!

It is interesting that when St. Peter gave that earth-shattering first sermon of his on the first Christian Pentecost, he chose to link up the happenings of that occasion with the fulfillment of the prophecy of the coming of the Holy Spirit delivered by the mouth of God’s spokesman, Joel. How significant this is becomes apparent when we read the 1994 document from the Congregation of the Clergy on the life and ministry of priests, as it underscores this fact:

It is . . . the Holy Spirit who by ordination confers on the priest the prophetic task of announcing and explaining, with authority, the Word of God. . . . Therefore, the priest with the help of the Holy Spirit and the study of the Word of God in the Scriptures, with the light of Tradition and of the Magisterium, discovers the richness of the Word to be proclaimed to the ecclesial community entrusted to him. [n. 9]

Where do we find the program of action for this task? Let us continue our reflection by feeding on the Word of God.

This work assigned to us priests by Christ’s holy Church cannot be done, “except in the Holy Spirit,” as St. Paul taught the Corinthians [see 1 Cor 12]. And if anyone is foolish enough to think that he can pull it off otherwise, he will soon learn differently and the hard way. The priestly ministry cannot be effective without reliance on the Holy Spirit for the simple reason that the priesthood is the chosen channel for the Holy Spirit. Just consider the beautiful “Golden Sequence” of today’s liturgy. So many of the titles we accorded to the Spirit and the things for which we prayed are applicable to the priest and his ministry in the Church and in the world.

We priests, by the mysterious workings of grace, are called to “shed a ray of light divine.” It is our particular privilege to be “the Father of the poor,” not merely to those economically disadvantaged but even more to those who are spiritually malnourished and who cry out for the food of the truth of Christ. By standing at the altar and repeating the awesome words of Christ at the Last Supper, we give the Lord’s People access to “sweet refreshment here below,” which is a foretaste of the “rest most sweet; grateful coolness in the heat; solace in the midst of woe,” all of which anticipates the glory of the liturgy of Heaven. It is our responsibility to teach all who would listen that where God’s Holy Spirit is not present, “man hath naught, nothing good in deed or thought, nothing free from taint of ill.”

By God’s design, it is ours to heal wounds, renew strength, and “wash the stains of guilt away.” That almost incredible power was given to the Apostles and their successors on Easter night, when our Blessed Lord linked for all time the possession of genuine peace to the forgiveness of sins. Nevertheless, we live in such a world that the psychiatrist Karl Menninger could entitle his book, Whatever Became of Sin? Modern man has lost his sense of sin which, of course, explains why he has also lost the key to full and lasting peace. We priests must remind the world that sin exists, not in the fashion of a dreary and depressing Cassandra, but with an attitude of joy and enthusiasm. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, in one of his poems, has the priest of the poem say to the fallen, in admirable humility and with love for sinners:

“Look not to me—no grace is mine;
But I can lift the Mercy-sign.
This wouldst thou? Let it be!
Kneel down, and take the word divine,
ABSOLVO TE.
(“Absolution,” December 14, 1832)

In the confessional, the priest seeks to “bend the stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill; guide the steps that go astray.”

Yes, the work of absolution is central to the priesthood as those words are uttered in Baptism, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick, paving the way for any other sacramental encounters, which increase the divine life within. Once the roadblock of sin is removed, then the process of divinization can begin–and only then. From the Garden of Eden until the present, man has wanted to be like God–and that is not bad in itself; in truth, it is a holy desire implanted within us by the Creator as a way of bringing us into union with Him. And so, we shall pray at the commingling of the water and wine: “May we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.” A bold prayer, to be sure, but a good one, so long as we go about it all in God’s way, rather than our own. And that is why our Divine Savior gave us priests–to provide for the divinization of the human race so that Christ’s faithful can attain to “virtue’s sure reward. . . [and the] joys that never end.”

An image looming large over the landscape of today’s celebration is that of fire, which can warm or destroy, enlighten or consume. From the smoke and fire of Mount Sinai to the fiery flames of the Cenacle, this symbol bespeaks the power and majesty of God. Even in ancient, pagan Rome, this was so as it fell to the Vestal Virgins to keep the flame alive before the altar of the goddess. Those superstitious Romans believed that if the fire went out, so would the glory of Rome. Thus, the Vestal Virgin who would fail in her duty would have her life snuffed out. Christ’s priest as an instrument of the Holy Spirit is, in a preeminent manner, the keeper and the bearer of the flame of God. Notice that I do not say only “the keeper,” for it is not enough for the priest to possess that flame for himself or to preserve it as a museum piece; he is required to impart that flame to all. In what does that flame consist? Exactly what is he called to share?

The priest is the keeper and the bearer of the flame of truth. In all too many ways, Pontius Pilate can be seen as the true ancestor of Western civilization since the so-called Enlightenment. His cynical question, “What is truth?” has echoed down the corridors of time to our own day which not only questions the existence of absolute truth and objective reality; it has made it the one and only acceptable dogma of modernity that we must hold all truth to be relative, with every opinion claiming equal authority, as Pope Benedict XVI so eloquently and forcefully dubbed it – “the dictatorship of relativism.” How particularly silly for an age, which demands such rigid standards of scientific evidence for almost every other aspect of life. The priest must stride into such a world with all confidence and assurance, asserting that the true dignity of the human person needs nothing less than the Veritatis Splendor, brought into high relief by the eponymous encyclical of Pope John Paul II. That “splendor of truth” comes from the Holy Spirit, whose special mission it is to lead us “to all truth” [Jn 16:13]. In this way, the priest helps “renew the face of the earth.”

The priest is the bearer and keeper of the flame of the sacred. I said earlier that we must restore a sense of sin, but we must also restore the sense of the sacred; I am fully convinced that the two tasks go hand-in-glove. In all the great theophanies of both Testaments, the human person is graciously granted a glimpse of the divine but immediately becomes conscious of the tremendous gap that exists between himself and the Almighty and responds accordingly, which is with a holy fear and wonder. The priest must recapture that attitude for his people by prodding them into reverence and devotion through the tried and true practices of the Catholic Tradition: bowing one’s head at the holy name of Jesus; genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament; fitting attire for worship; a holy silence in the house of God; liturgy which truly raises the mind and heart to the Blessed Trinity. When the sacred and the profane merge, contrary to some theories, only unfortunate results ensue: Not only is God dethroned, but man is progressively debased. On the other hand, when the precincts of the sacred are honored, man is progressively elevated.

When the priest reminds his flock that the ground on which they stand is holy, he is helping to “renew the face of the earth.”

The priest is the keeper and the bearer of the flame of unity. St. Paul understood this all so well, which is why he urges his readers to appreciate God’s manifold gifts and ministries as being “given for the common good,” in order to build up the “one body,” which is Christ’s Church. An office in the Church can never be treated as a vehicle for personal empowerment or self-aggrandizement; to do so, is a blasphemy and a sin against the Holy Spirit for it is destructive of that unity for which the Lord Jesus prayed on the night before He died. Indeed, power plays and antagonism between persons and groups within the Church sadden the Heart of Christ and gladden the heart of the Evil One.

Ecclesial unity or communion, my dear people, is not just a pleasant concept or a sociological nicety which makes for the smoother running of the ship; it is an absolute necessity, as Jesus Himself saw it: “That they may all be one.” But why? He goes on: “That the world may believe that you sent me” [Jn 17:22-23]. The miracle of Pentecost occurred due precisely to the unity of the apostolic college, especially as that unity was manifested in and under Peter, and the formula is the very same today: Would this not also be an appropriate moment to whisper a grateful prayer to the Lord of the Church for the recent gift of Pope Leo XIV?

The guarantee of Catholic unity and apostolic fruitfulness comes from intimate, loving communion with Peter’s successor, our Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome. In the lovely preface for this Solemnity, the Church asks for the gift of having “one voice to profess one faith.” When the priest strengthens the bonds of ecclesial communion, he builds up the Church in love and thus helps “renew the face of the earth.”

The priest is the keeper and the bearer of the flame of fidelity and commitment. When the Risen Christ appeared to His Apostles on Easter night, the first thing He did was to “show them His hands and His side.” How strange, you say? Not really, for He was offering them the evidence of His saving love, which love is everlasting. The love of Christ, which was a love unto death, is epitomized in those wounds of His which He retains even in His risen life of glory. And those tokens of sacrificial love beckon His sons in the priesthood to be as faithful in their sacrifices as He. Fidelity seems so hard–even so impossible–to the vast majority of our people.

Fidelity to promises, to contracts, to friendships, to marriage is so seldom seen anymore. But we all know, in our heart of hearts, that life without commitment is hardly a life worth living at all. St. John Paul II said it so well when, in Philadelphia in 1979, he recalled to our minds and hearts that “priesthood is forever–tu es sacerdos in aeternum–we do not return the gift once given. It cannot be that God Who gave the impulse to say ‘yes’ now wishes to hear ‘no’.” And so it is that onto the scene of massive infidelity, the priest comes with his promise of faithful and lasting service. In this way, he becomes an example worthy of emulation as well as a beacon of hope, and yes, this is how he helps “renew the face of the earth.”

The priest is the keeper and the bearer of the flame of chastity. Ours, my dear friends, is a sex-saturated culture, which has made an idol of sexual gratification–an idol more pernicious than the golden calf of the Hebrews of old, more dangerous because it is so all-consuming. I can scarcely make a trip on public transportation and not find myself approached by someone who has a question or comment about some aspect of human sexuality. The adage has it that the Victorians tried to fall into love without falling into sex, while we moderns try to fall into sex without falling into love.

Yet once again, the Church sends out her contemporary apostles as signs of contradiction, challenging the prevailing wisdom, by asking them to be chaste and celibate for the Kingdom, reminding all that there is indeed more to life than sex and that once one has truly encountered God, every other human attraction–even things good and holy in themselves–must be judged as but temporary and transient. As Cardinal Newman put it in one of his later poems:

UNVEIL, O Lord, and on us shine
In glory and in grace;
This gaudy world grows pale before
The beauty of Thy face. . . .

And thus, when we renounce for Thee
Its restless aims and fears,
The tender memories of the past,
The hopes of coming years,

Poor is our sacrifice, whose eyes
Are lighted from above;
We offer what we cannot keep,
What we have ceased to love.
(“The Two Worlds,” 1862)

Interestingly enough, even the Rabbinic scholars teach that after Moses encountered the Almighty on Mount Sinai, so powerful and moving was that event, that he never again had relations with his wife. This does not say that conjugal love is bad or ugly, by no means; it does say that the eternal puts it all into perspective. And the celibate priest is in a unique position to assist married couples who struggle to live Catholic marital morality, by his own joyful witness of celibate love. He likewise shines forth as a model for the unmarried and even the unhappily married or, more tragically, the separated or divorced, as well as for those who experience same-sex attraction. The priest living celibately in this world points the way to eternity where, the greatest celibate Lover told us, men “neither marry nor are given in marriage” [Mk 12:25]. And thus, the priest helps “renew the face of the earth.”

To be sure, we priests have been given a tall order, some might think, but our faith informs us that “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” [Ph 4:13], and so we are told, “do not be afraid” [Acts 18:9]. Every priest has become a new man. The Directory for the Life and Ministry of Priests stresses this:

In priestly ordination, the priest has received the seal of the Holy Spirit which has marked him by the sacramental character in order always to be the minister of Christ and the Church. Assured of the promise that the Consoler will abide ‘with him forever,’ the priest knows that he will never lose the presence and the effective power of the Holy Spirit in order to exercise his ministry and live with charity his pastoral office as a total gift of self for the salvation of his own brothers. [n. 8]

Yes, a priest is a “marked man,” interiorly but also externally. That same document repeats the traditional and wise discipline of the Church in this regard as it notes the importance of being clearly identifiable at all times and under all circumstances as a priest of the Church. It states: “[A cleric’s] attire, when it is not the cassock, must be different from the manner in which the laity dress, and conform to the dignity and sacredness of his ministry.” And yet more strongly, it warns that “a cleric’s failure to use this proper ecclesiastical attire could manifest a weak sense of his identity as one consecrated to God” [n. 66]. Therefore, while never a

clericalist, a priest must always feel honored to be a priest and to see in even the externals the Lord’s way of making him a constant and consistent instrument of the Holy Spirit.

As we prepare ourselves to move into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we must remember that “Eucharist” means “thanksgiving,” and so it is our bounden duty to give thanks. Here, in particular, I want to offer a prayer of gratitude for all those who brought me ad altare Dei–especially my parents, along with the priests through their ministrations and, in a most important way, the Sisters through thirteen years of a superb and inestimable Catholic education. I think this would also be a good moment to invite all of you to thank Almighty God for the priests who have brought you the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hundreds or, even thousands, of sacramental encounters.

One more person must be mentioned, and that is Our Lady. The Directory for Priests highlights the necessary relationship between every priest and the Mother of our great High Priest:

Like John at the foot of the cross, every priest has been entrusted, in a special way, with Mary as Mother. Priests, who are among the favored disciples of Jesus, crucified and risen, should welcome Mary as their Mother in their own life, bestowing her with constant attention and prayer. The Blessed Virgin then becomes the Mother who leads them to Christ, who makes them sincerely love the Church, who intercedes for them, and who guides them toward the Kingdom of Heaven. [n. 68]

Now Mary once more stands at the foot of the cross, inviting us to the altar of this church. She who is the Spouse of the Spirit readies the hearts of all here present through the ministry of an unworthy priestly vessel of clay to beg that same Spirit to enter our midst and overtake the elements of bread and wine, bringing the life of Heaven to mortals here on earth. In the most profound way possible, then, God will have sent forth His Spirit to “renew the face of the earth.”

As Monsignor Giussani of Comunione e Liberazione used to pray, “Veni, Sancte Spiritus. Veni per Mariam. Come, Holy Spirit. Come through Mary.” Amen.