Reflection by Rev. Leonard N. Peterson

Every now and then my TV remote takes me to one of those many cooking shows. Given the chef with the right personality working on a dish that intrigues me, I won’t hastily move on to another program. I note how these professionals like to highlight the ingredients they are using so that we amateurs will have our taste buds tempted and our minds uplifted with new facts. We might even consider making the dish if not ordering it on our next restaurant outing.

The Holy Spirit is the inspiration for the “meal” which is the Scriptures that feed our appetite for the truth which is the Gospel. Often enough He conjures up a delightful Reading for us, rich in detail. Today’s gospel selection is one of the best. It presents that eternally memorable day when the Holy Spirit comes into the special Upper Room with full sound and fury not to frighten the Apostles, our Blessed Mother and the other women gathered but to fill any emptiness in their faith with the delights of truth and beauty, courage and the power to be witnesses for Christ Jesus, risen and with us always.

This Pentecost fulfilled Our Lord’s promise that He would send the Spirit to them to enlighten them with the fullness of truth. This in turn will make them the first missionaries of the Church, empowered by new insights and stronger conviction than ever before. The Church, so to speak, will truly “be born” in a setting where all the languages on earth will speak the one great Truth of the Gospel. Praising God with a harmony never heard before.

The even greater joy of this feast is its reminder to us that we are meant to not only possess the Gospel, but also to preach it. To spread its essential truth to the world of 2026, which is so hungry for it, even if it does not know it. Or that it looks everywhere but the right place for it.

Are you ready for the task? Convinced of its truth and its power to liberate? If not, come to this Eucharist today to be fed and energized with the Bread of Heaven and realize it is the best recipe and the greatest meal ever prepared. Be newly aware of your place in God’s plan. A place only you have and nobody else. You have been chosen by a God who truly loves you and never gives up on you.

Every Christian occupies some kind of a pulpit and preaches some kind of homily every day. But remember that you can preach a better homily with your life than with your lips.

God love you and give you, His peace.

Rev. Peterson’s Reading & Gospel Summary

Reading I: Acts 2: 1-11

This feast celebrates the dramatic coming of the Spirit to the infant Church. He is the founding gift of the New Covenant, here using multiple languages to communicate the Gospel.

Reading II: 1 Corinthians 12: 3b-7, 12-13

All are baptized in the one Holy Spirit. We can say “Jesus is Lord” because the Spirit empowers us. We are truly united with Christ by the Sacraments of the Church.

The Gospel: John 20: 19-23

Jesus is raised not simply with a body, but with the same body that was crucified and died only days earlier. He distributes His forgiveness through the Apostles and their descendants the bishops and their helpers the priests.