Enjoy these two musical treats for the Solemnity of Pentecost, one more spiritual, one more performance oriented, one in a house of worship, the other in a secular opera house; both are stunning:
This Sunday's bulletin letter from St. Joseph Church in Macon with some minor embellishments:
Unfortunately,the modern Roman Calendar calls the days after Pentecost Sunday, Ordinary Time. But there is nothing ordinary about the time after Pentecost. It is extraordinary time! Ever since Pentecost Sunday, the Church has been living in that time after Pentecost but before our Lord's Second Coming.
These last two thousand years have been exciting and whatever time after Pentecost the Church has before the Lord returns will be equally as exciting. Civilizations have come and gone, but the Church has remained these last two thousand years. By the power of the Holy Spirit which descended upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, the living symbol of the Church, and the Apostles, the Church received her Lord through the outpouring of His Holy Spirit. Nothing and no one, not from within the Church or from out side of the Church, will destroy the Lord’s Church, Saint Peter and the other successors to the Apostles or the priesthood, or the laity. The Church which lives in the power of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit will outlast anti-Catholic bigotry, godless secularism and blatant immorality of her members just as she has outlasted pagan emperors hell bent on persecuting the Church, communist regimes, Nazi and fascist fanaticism, dictators and the dictatorship of relativism. The Church will survive lawyers out to get us, priests who have gone berserk and bishops who have mismanaged. The apostles survived Judas after all.
Do you really think that any "one" perverted priest, clueless bishop, reporter for the New York Times or secular indifference could bring down the Divine Institution that is the Church? That would imply that human beings are more powerful that the Divine Persons of the Most Holy Trinity who imbued the Church with Their Spirit. How silly can you get than to believe that humans have more power over the Church than Almighty God!
These are exciting times. I predict, much to the secular world’s absolute horror and disbelief, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will see a new springtime for the Church in the future. Vocations to the priesthood and religious life will blossom. Catholic parishes will grow stronger. Appreciation,reverence and love for our Lord and His Sacrifice celebrated in Mass will be strengthened. Catholics will be proud to be Catholic, proud of their bishops, priests, religious men and women.
The world may hate us, but God loves us! The world doesn’t believe in the
Resurrection of our Lord or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Too bad for
them! They miss out on so much that is and is to come. The world thinks that the Church is like Enron or the Financial Corporations of Wall Street, gone out of business because of scandal and mismanagement. The secular press and the enemies of the Church both inside of the Church and outside, just don't get it. They don't know of the power of the Holy Spirit unleashed that Pentecost Sunday 2000 years ago. But one day they will get it and that Day of the Lord gets closer everyday. Come Lord Jesus, Come Holy Spirit! God bless you and happy Pentecost in these days of the Church after Pentecost, the "Days of our Lives" in the Holy Spirit.
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