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parishes we should hope to expect more than
five-hundred responses to this appeal. If you
have not as yet been able to make your pledge,
please consider doing so in the near future.
Again, I am grateful for your faithful
generosity and important Church support. Thank
you to all who have given their time to
volunteer at the tables and work on this
campaign. Tables will no longer be set up in
the back of church. Please complete your pledge
card, with your gift, placing it in an envelope
and putting it in the regular collection basket.
The Feast
of Pentecost signals the end of the Easter
season and the beginning of our life in the
Spirit, empowered by the Risen Christ to fulfill
the work of redemption in the world. You and I
in the power of the Spirit have been
commissioned by the grace of baptism to bring
forth the Kingdom of God promised and initiated
by the Lord Jesus.
The
scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments
are filled with passages and references to the
work and action of God in the Holy Spirit. With
the introduction of the new Missal, the feast of
Pentecost now has its own Vigil Mass, complete
with a full set of readings similar to the
Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday. This should alert
us to the importance and divine action present
in this feast of the Church.
Our first
reading is the familiar account from Ezekiel in
his vision of the dry bones. This vision is
imageful, effective, and timeless. The context
is the dejection of the Israelites in the trauma
of their exile into Babylon. They have lost
their spirit, hope, and trust in the Lord God.
The immediate context of their woefulness only
serves to identify the propensity of all human
nature to carry discouragement, doubt, fear, and
shallow hope. It
conclusion to this
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