Fr. Aidan’s sermon 08-06-2003: Pentecost Family Mass.

So we celebrate today the birthday of the Church - Pentecost. Nice to know the Holy Spirit is alive and with a sense of humour..You may have noticed, we have a rather Heath Robinson adaption here for the PA system; the hand mic has gone on the blink, so, I haven't got a micrphone this morning. That's why I've been shouting.

If you care to look sometime at Pentecost round the baptismal font here there are various pieces of work which have been done by some of the children at St Peter's School and they have been doing a recipe for the Holy Spirit and I'll read out one or two of them. The ingredients are: 1 cup of love, 2 litres of wisdom, one teaspooon of tranquility, four jugs of energy, three full teaspoons of peace, one bowl of intelligence, two tablespoons of confidence. First, stir the wisdom and tranquility together 'till it boils over in the pan; put and add to the mixture the peace and intelligence and the confidence carefully; mix together the rest of the ingredients and mould them into the shape of me. So, that's one recipe. That was, the last line, in a way was perfect. Mould them into the shape of me.

So the Holy Spirit is given to each of us in Baptism and today, we become more aware of that. And the sign of the Holy Spirit is unity. The opposite of the Holy Spirit is disunity. It's
unity first of all in ourselves, and unity with God. So, today, during this Mass, just think about yourself and union with God. And another word for union with God is: prayer. Remember the old Catechism, the definition of prayer - raising the heart and the mind to God. So, just bringing God into our consciousness and into our hearts; he's there all the time, but, becoming aware of Him - that's prayer. So, if we become aware of God, if we get that right, the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they'll show themselves in our lives. By dividing ourselves into, perhaps, what we are. A lot of you grandparents may be retired people, well, that's wonderful, retirement and being a grandparent is given us as a gift from God. And we use it well and we use it to deepen our union with God. That's what it's
given us for. To deepen our union with God, because, very soon, people of my age, very soon, we're going to be with God forever. So he gives us this time in old age when we can actually focus more on that. And so, we are the people in the family who have the time and the leisure to be united with God. So, just to think how many times we are united with God. During the day, all sorts of ways, just look at your timetables - maybe you can get up a little more leisurely and build God into the daily timetable - daily Mass; a lot of people
come to daily Mass, morning prayer, prayer of the church, in the quiet of our homes; just going out into the back garden on a lovely morning in June is a prayer. We can raise our minds above and our hearts to God.

Parents - you've got a good excuse for not praying. You're busy people. Very often the man and the wife are working. As well as bringing up the family and trying to do everything else. And, sometimes, today, one of the anti-Holy Spirit things , the evil spirit things - if you're working you probably have to work 16 hours a day, instead of eight, which is, more than enough anyway. So, the pressure is on. So, how on earth do you pray? And, you've got to, again, look at your timetables. Very often, you drive children to school, you spend your time
taxi-driving when they are teenagers. Well, you're taking them there and you are picking them up, but, very often on the return journey, you are on your own, and that's a chance to be on your own with God. That can be a prayer. A prayer for your children, just to raise them in your mind and heart to God. And it won't distract from the driving!

Somebody had a beautiful article recently about the computer and how the computer can be a source of prayer, can be a source of cursing as well, if you're like me! Why? because one of the qualities we need in prayer is, at times to be away from people and with a computer we can shut off the world and just focus on the computer. If you look at the St Joseph's Parish website you can click on to other websites and one or two of them are wonderful prayer websites. So, if you should go on the computer do take the opportunity of five minutes to be with God, and to reflect with God. It can be a form of prayer. So, just look at your busyness of the day, and just see where God comes into that. He gives us oportunities every day.

And children, some of the work you've done at school is here. Whenever you go to school, you start the day with prayer, and usually, you end the day with prayer and there are opportunities for prayer and constantly you are being asked to think of other people and pray for them. And I'll read you another recipe for the Holy Spirit, because this talks about being united with God but then how we are called to be lights in the world - flames of the Holy Spirit, to enflame the world with the love of God. A recipe for the Holy Spirit - the ingredients are: four teaspoons of kindness. 1 jug of caring. 1 tablespoon of languages. 4 teaspoons of love. 1 tablespoon of sign languages. 1 wooden spoon of energy. And a pinch of courage. And the method is - Get a bucket, pour the kindness into the bucket, with the caring to make it gentle caring. Put the caring into the bucket, mix it together. Put in the sign languages and other languages into the bucket. Mix the love in the bucket, sprinkle in the energy to make it light. Gently throw in the courage, mix it together, pour it into a
cup, drink it and shake yourself about . You are now full of the Holy Spirit. Use it to help people.

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