Dear Friends in Christ
The celebration of Pentecost - fifty days later - completes the celebration of Easter and the resurrection. It not simply completes it but fulfils it because the promised Holy Spirit is sent so that the Church may be born. It was a dramatic moment, as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles. The coming of God the Holy Spirit was accompanied by the phenomena of wind and fire. Today in our Parish, and in many places throughout the Church, the Holy Spirit is given to young people as they are Confirmed. This is the third Sacrament of Initiation and makes their membership of the Church - the Body of Christ - complete. We pray for those in our Parish who are being Confirmed, for their Sponsors and families that, promoted by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they will feel empowered to bring Christ to our world.

Pentecost calls each of us to renew the grace of our Baptism and Confirmation so that we can proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Christ risen from the dead and glorified in Heaven is the essence of what we tell the world. It is the only sign of hope for mankind. In a world that is so sunk in violence and despair at the present time, the definitive victory of Christ gives us confidence that we have the Truth. There is only one Truth about God and that has been given to us, revealed, by Jesus Christ. He is The Lord of history and looking at Him the world will be saved. This Pentecost the Holy Spirit again gives us the fortitude to make Him better known and loved so that mankind can be saved through Him. Let us pray, and live, in the words of the Sequence of the Mass of Pentecost:
Light immortal, Light divine,
Visit Thou these hearts of Thine,
And our inmost being fill...
Give them comfort when they die,
Give them life with Thee on high;
Give them joys that never end!

With every blessing.

Msgr Kevin Hale

Priest@LourdesLeigh.org ✚ 01702 478078 Homily available at LourdesLeigh.org