“I Will Pour Out My Spirit”

1. “I Will Pour Out My Spirit”

2. “I Will Pour Out My Spirit” • Monday: “What does the Holy Spirit have for us?” • Tuesday: “Common Questions” • Wednesday: “Where do we go from here as a parish?”

3. St. Mary Parish Vision Statement “Saint Mary Parish is a passionately Catholic, Spirit-filled, loving family. Her members are sacramental, evangelical, prayerful, merciful disciples who invites everyone to a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.”

4. Navigating the waters of history • Sometimes forgets • Sometimes remembers • Sometimes develops

5. How did we get here? • Adult learning seen as optional • Literacy in the faith, theology, and scripture lags far behind • The past 50 years has seen the most accelerated social changes • Pastoral change did not take place as quick in response • Culture used to support faith and church attendance • Build it and people will come • Not good at making disciples, just “practicing Catholics” • The 60’s, sexual revolution, mass media, new media, post-modernism, materialism, relativism, individualism, hedonism, and now socialism, and every other “ism.” • Thousands of Catholics carry the burden of their children and grandchildren who have abandoned “the faith.”

6. How did we get here? • These same Catholics blame themselves for the situation we find ourselves in, but are unsure about what they did wrong • The bottom line: the rules have changed • We no longer have cultural support like before • The social currents have turned against us • The only solution is to return to what Jesus asked of us 2,000 years ago • We are not to just make “practicing Catholics,” we are to make disciples. • That’s it!!!!!!! • Everyone else is evaluated through this lens: How does this make disciples for Jesus?

7. What is a “disciple” of Jesus? • A disciple is someone who is intentionally engaged in a lifelong process of entering into deep communion with the heart of Jesus Christ in a vital and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This process includes growing, maturing, and learning that the believer eagerly enters into, if truly evangelized. They are concerned for their own human, spiritual, and doctrinal formation and see them as necessary.

8. What did Jesus ask of us 2,000 years ago? • God loves you and wants you to live a full, haply life • Sin separates us from the Lord, and when we sin we cannot know His love and share that love with others. • Jesus Christ is the only one who can give us power to live this life. • We must accept Jesus Christ into our lives as the King and Lord and then we can experience the divine infusion of Living Waters promised by Jesus and receive power to live a new life.

9. What did Jesus ask of us 2,000 years ago? • John 1:12 says, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” • In all four Gospels John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mk 1:8) • Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to His followers (Jn 16:12-13, Jn 14:16-17). • In Acts 1:5, just before His ascension He said, “You heard from me that John baptized with water, but before days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

10. Power of the Spirit in the early Church • Pentecost • Acts 2:1-4 says,“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” • Boldness, power, unity, love, effective preaching of the Gospel, conversions, etc • Manifestations of the Spirit

11. Power of the Spirit in the early Church • After Pentecost • Philip in Samaria (Acts 8) • Paul and Ananias (Acts 9) • Peter and Cornelius (Acts 10) • Paul at Ephesus (Acts 19) • St. Paul (Gal 3:1-5; 1 Thess 1:2-10) • Bottom line: experiencing the power of the Spirit in a variety of manifest ways was normal in the lives of the early Christians. People were really changed by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the changes were such that both they themselves and other people could tell that they were different.

12. Historical decline • Times of slackening • Today, there is a growing spiritual renewal • Pope St. John XXIII: “Renew in our day, O Lord, your wonders as in a new Pentecost.” • Noticeable release or renewal of Catholics in the Spirit • Millions continue to experience the same power of the Holy Spirit that marked the Early Church.

13. Today • Providential rediscovery • “[The Holy Spirit] distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these gifts He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the Church” (LG, 12).

14. Pope st. Paul vi • “In our day, what has happened to that hidden energy of the Good News, which is able to have a powerful effect on man’s conscience?” • “It must be said that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization: it is He who impels each individual to proclaim the Gospel, and it is He who in the depths of consciences causes the word of salvation to be accepted and understood. But it can equally be said that He is the goal of evangelization. . .” • “We live in the Church at a privileged moment of the Spirit. Everywhere people are trying to know Him better as the Scripture reveals Him. They are happy to place themselves under His inspiration. They are gathering about Him; they want to let themselves be led by Him. . . .It is not by chance that the great inauguration of evangelization took place on the morning of Pentecost, under the inspiration of the spirit.” (75)

15. Pope St. john Paul ii • “The Church’s self-awareness (is) based on the certainty that Jesus Christ is alive, is working in the present and changes life…With the Second Vatican Council, the Comforter recently gave the Church ...a renewed Pentecost, instilling a new and unforeseen dynamism.” • “The institutional and charismatic aspects are co-essential as it were to the Church’s constitution. They contribute, although differently, to the life, renewal and sanctification of God’s People. It is from this providential rediscovery of the Church’s charismatic dimension that before and after the Council, a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities…You present here, are the tangible proof of this ‘outpouring’ of the Spirit.” • “Today, I would like to cry out to all of you gathered here in St. Peter’s Square and to all Christians: Open yourselves docilely to the gifts of the Spirit! Accept gratefully and obediently the charisms which the Spirit never ceases to bestow on us!”

16. Pope benedict XVI • “Let us pray to God the Father, therefore, through our Lord Jesus Christ, in the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that the celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost may be like an ardent flame and a blustering wind for Christian life and for the mission of the whole Church…Upon all of you I invoke an outpouring of the gifts of the Spirit, so that in our time too, we may have the experience of a renewed Pentecost. Amen!” • “Christ’s entire mission is summed up in this: to baptize us in the Holy Spirit, to free us from the slavery of death and ‘to open heaven to us’, that is, access to the true and full life that will be a ‘plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy’ (Spe Salvi, n. 12).

17. Pope benedict xvi • “Together we shall invoke the Holy Spirit, confidently asking God for the gift of a new Pentecost for the Church and for humanity in the third millennium.” • “Today I would like to extend this invitation to everyone: Let us rediscover, dear brothers and sisters, the beauty of being baptized in the Holy Spirit; let us be aware again of our baptism and of our confirmation, sources of grace that are always present. Let us ask the Virgin Mary to obtain a renewed Pentecost for the Church again today, a Pentecost that will spread in everyone the joy of living and witnessing to the Gospel.” • “Let us implore from God the grace of a new Pentecost for the Church in America. May tongues of fire, combining burning love of God and neighbor with zeal for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, descend on all present!”

18. Baptism in the holy spirit • Jesus baptized the Church with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:1-4). The experience of Pentecost is so significant that the Apostles are regularly concerned that each new group of disciples experience what they did. Since the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the release or actualization of the graces of our baptism and confirmation, and since apostolic zeal is a fruit of the release of the Spirit, we as a parish seek to share and spread the grace of the baptism in the Holy Spirit in our ministries.

19. The holy spirit makes a difference • Prayer life • Scripture • Telling others about Christ • Christian community • The gift of the Spirit • The fruits of the Spirit • Hunger and love for the truth awakened

20. A new Pentecost: why now? • The current condition of the Church • Evangelization • To prepare for proclaiming the Gospel • Renew the Church’s life and activity in the contemporary world • To carrying out the missionary nature of the Church • To live the charismatic and contemplative dimensions of discipleship • To endure difficulty with joy • The tradition of experiencing the Holy Spirit in response to rationalistic skepticism • The Church seems weak with Christendom collapsing • We need God!!