Pentecost, Part One

As the Easter season comes to a close we celebrate two important events in the Life of Christ: His Ascension into heaven 40 days after Easter, and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles 10 days later, or 50 days after Easter. Christians are familiar with these events, but may not realize that Pentecost was also celebrated by the Israelites for centuries before the arrival of Jesus. The Jewish feast of weeks (Shavuot) celebrates God giving Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments, 50 days (7 weeks) after their Exodus from Egypt.

Jesus short life and public ministry are the culmination of divine revelation and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In the Exodus, God released His people from slavery and they were saved from the Angel of Death by the blood of the lamb sprinkled over their doorways. This was a great foreshadowing of the passion and death of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who saves us from the slavery of sin. He established a “new and eternal covenant” in His own Body and Blood, and in doing so, He fulfilled God’s promise of redemption despite that fact that God’s people were unable to adhere to the Sinai covenant which had given them the Mosaic law. Jesus did not replace or change God’s law, but perfected it in His self-sacrifice and in His new command to love one another as He loves us.

The word Pentecost means “50 days” the time between the Exodus and the reception of the Ten commandments, and between Jesus resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The New Covenant Jesus established on our behalf will never be broken because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are with us always in ways that was impossible prior to Jesus life, death and resurrection.

Sadly, our world seems to have forgotten all this, or cast it asides as the antiquated belief from the time when people believed in the reality of the spiritual life. Modern science and technology have replaced belief in the spiritual realm with the mistaken notion that all our problems can be addressed scientifically by one means or another, whether it be medical science, psychiatry, or the genius of mankind in establishing a Utopia where man’s reason prevails over all of societies problems. This was clearly the thinking of Marx, Lenin and the other founders of communism. They thought that belief in the spiritual realm held man back from his full potential and therefore needed to be rooted out, by force if necessary.

Nowadays it seems no force is needed, as our world has become increasingly secular and assumes that faith and reason are separate realms, and that religion is more often than not the cause of political and economic strife. In fact, the opposite is true. Faith without reason is sterile, because our faith reveals the real truths about life. Reason applied to faith enables us to understanding the meaning and purpose of life. Intellect without faith is subject to all sorts of misunderstandings. Pope Benedict recently commented on this situation, explaining that:
“Modern man is dazzled by technical efficiency and therefore forgets the essential question of meaning, thus relegating the transcendent dimension to insignificance. When meaning is lost and the transcendent forgotten, thought becomes weak and an ethical impoverishment gains ground. This techno-practical mentality generates a risky imbalance between what is technically possible and what is morally good, with unpredictable consequences.”While that may sound like a mouthful, consider the recent news that scientists now believe that they can clone human eggs from embryonic stem cells. The plan is to fertilize these cloned eggs in experiments designed to create designer people with more desirable traits. One such desirable trait they hope to achieve is smaller people who would have a lesser carbon footprint.

We live in an age when forced sterilization still takes place in rural India and China, where the one-child policy has led to a lopsided imbalance between the sexes, and that in turn has resulted in huge increases in crime and human trafficking. The World Bank, collaborating with the United Nations Population Council and Planned Parenthood International, sends millions of dollars into countries where abortion is still illegal, and merely rename abortion “emergency contraception” even when it is performed with high powered suction. These are all examples of human reason unguided by faith and morality. Not only are these practices immoral, the consequences are completely overlooked or vehemently denied. Low birthrates will catch up with China and Japan in the next half century and the economic and political consequences will be catastrophic. The same thing is happening in Europe where they seem to take great pride in having shed their Christian roots and are well along in their efforts to create a secular society. Despite the dire implications of these flawed practices, most liberals in America advocate that we emulate these practices.

Greece and France have elected Socialists who will speed the process in those countries, despite what it will clearly do to their sustainability as nations. Socialism advocates for more central power in the government and the ruling class. The Nazi’s were “National Socialists” who believed that their enlightened thinking would perfect humanity by eliminating undesirables. In contrast, our church and the U.S. constitution both assert belief in the principle of ’subsidiarity.’ Under this concept, governance takes place at the lowest possible level, starting with the family, the township, city, county or state, and federal governance should be minimal. This preserves freedom, including the freedom to practice our religion. The so-called “progressive” movement is a return to socialism which promises to establish a perfect society because the ruling elite know what’s best for everyone and impose their ideas on everyone else. That’s what Lenin believed when he led the Bolshevik to implement Marx’s ideology; it’s what Hitler believed when he initiated world war to create a Utopia. Modern day progressives would have us shed our unhealthy belief in God and in the spiritual realm, and replace it with belief in central government and equality created by the redistribution of wealth. Our current president believes he knows what’s best for all of us, and despite his promise at the Notre Dame commencement speech to ensure a strong conscience clause in health care, he now demands that every employer provide chemical abortions, sterilization and contraception, even if these services violate the employers’ religious beliefs.

Now more that ever, we need to restore our belief in Pentecost, in the Real Presence of Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. With their aide and a return to both Faith and Reason, we can reveal the truth and work toward putting our country back on the path to true freedom which can only be the product of justice based on an understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, and belief in the author of all life.