MASS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 2024
It might be tempting to lock up when we are afraid, want to be by ourselves because we are going through a crisis, feel so alone and left out, or when feelings of frustration, anger, and despair overwhelm us.
We opened the school year 2024-2025 some weeks ago, and now we are gathered in prayer as a community of disciples to ask the Holy Spirit to come down upon us and give us the strength and courage to open our closed doors. To open our closed doors is an invitation for all of us at all levels and at all times.
What does this mean to us?
To open the doors means to allow Jesus to be with us and among us. Let the Risen Lord stand in our midst as He offers His peace to us and allows His presence to rule our hearts and minds. As we welcome each new day, we have to open the doors of our hearts for Jesus to enter as He reveals Himself to us. This is done through our personal and sincere prayers. The doors of our hearts are opened when we actively participate in the sacraments of Jesus’ love, especially in the Eucharist. The daily masses we offer in our school chapel and the big communal celebrations of the Holy Eucharist should never be burdens to us but opportune moments of opening our hearts to the Lord who comes and lives in us. Let the doors of our hearts be opened to Christ as we affirm our faith that Jesus is our Lord and Savior.
Second, to open the doors means to allow our hearts to be moved by Christ’s presence and experience the joy of His presence in the same manner that the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. This manifests how our hearts have to be opened so that we may be moved by Jesus’ will. We may be tempted to be passionately moved only when circumstances are easy and fun. We must be open to love, care, understand, and embrace others, even in difficult moments. Joy has to be experienced even though realities seem unfavorable. Such an experience of joy is possible when we can see Christ’s presence and thereby discover the meaning of life’s challenges as we unite these to the passion of Jesus.
Lastly, we are invited to open the doors as we reach out to others in the mission. We are called to be agents of renewal in the world. We have the mission to make the world a better place for each one to live. This is possible when we open the doors of our hearts to be urged to do more for others. In concrete ways, we are sent to offer acts and words of reconciliation to others. Every time we communicate the language of love to others, we bring MASS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 2024 everyone to the fold of Jesus and establish a community. We may have varied dialects and languages around the globe and even in our small communities. Still, when we know how to speak the language of God, which is the language of love, we shall be able to reach out to everyone and bring them together in the spirit of synodality.
As we prepare for the Jubilee of the Church in 2025 and walk together as pilgrims of hope, let us keep our doors open. Let our doors be open for Jesus to enter, for our hearts to be moved in joyful compassion, and for our lives to be shared with others.
May Jesus, in this celebration of the Holy Eucharist, through His Spirit, continue to abide in us and walk with us this school year as we become witnesses of the Gospel Joy to everyone. Amen.
