Psalm Reflection: Pentecost Sunday - Cycle C

“Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.” - Psalm 104

Ever since last week, the news of the elementary school shooting in Texas has haunted me. I look at my two young children and think about the fact that they are growing up in a world where school shooting drills and trainings are the norm. I look at all the ways we continue to experience what Saint Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death,” and my heart wants to cry out in the words of the Psalmist this week: 

Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

We are broken and, as a result, so is the world that we live in. We cannot renew ourselves, we desperately need God to do it. When left to our own devices, we can do nothing but continue the cycle of brokenness and sin. As the saying goes: “Hurt people hurt people.” Broken people continue to break and sin, because we cannot fix ourselves anymore than a shattered pot could glue itself back together. The pot needs the potter to fix it. We need our Creator to send His Spirit and renew us.

This Sunday, we celebrate Pentecost, the day when God sent His Spirit. But if His Spirit is already here, why are we all not renewed? Because the Spirit will only go where He is invited. If we close ourselves off to God, He will not force Himself upon us. If we put up walls, He will not knock them down unless we ask Him to. 

The only person standing in the way of your complete renewal and transformation today is you. 

You can try and struggle all you want to fix everything in your life on your own, and one of two things will happen: You will either fail and realize that you cannot do everything on your own, or you will succeed in achieving a bunch of meaningless possessions or goals that do not ultimately make you happy. 

Either way, you will fail.

But either way, that is where you can start. 

Start with your emptiness, and bring it to the only one who can fill it.

Start with your brokenness, and bring it to the only one who can fix it.

Start with your sin, and bring it to the only one who can forgive it.

Where in your life do you need renewal?

Where are you experiencing hopelessness or a lack of fulfillment and purpose?

This week, invite the Holy Spirit to come into your life, into those specific places, and bring renewal. The power of the Holy Spirit took twelve broken, fearful, uneducated men and renewed them so profoundly that they built a Church that has lasted for two thousand years with over two billion Christians in the world today. The Holy Spirit can do powerful things in you too.

Simply pray the world’s most dangerous prayer with complete openness and surrender: “Come Holy Spirit.”

The adventure of a renewed and transformed life can begin today.

I am praying for you, please pray for me, and I will see you in the Eucharist.

Matt