The Holy Spirit of Shalom

(The 25 Shades of Shalom)

Introduction

Jewish Pentecost

Pentecost (a Greek word meaning five or fifty) happens fifty days after Easter. Originally it was a Jewish feast which took place fifty days after Passover when a devout Jew was expected to make a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem to give thanks for the harvest.  It’s referred to in the first reading today: “When the day of Pentecost had come, the believers were all gathered together in one place” (Acts 2:1; Ex 23:14-16). It was on the occasion of that Jewish feast that the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus before ascending into heaven, was poured out upon the disciples.  That’s how a Jewish harvest feast became the great Pentecostal feast of Christians.

 

Christian Pentecost

On that first Christian Pentecost, Jews from all parts of the world were in Jerusalem to celebrate the harvest feast. As the little community of believers was huddled together in one place in the midst of all those visitors, a strong driving wind blew upon them and tongues of fire came to rest upon then, and the little company of believers started to speak the various different languages of all those visiting Jews. This amazed many who asked, “Aren’t all these people who are speaking Galileans? How is it then that we, who are Jews from every nation under the heavens, hear them now speaking in our own native tongues?” While many were amazed at this, others simply thought the little group was drunk either with wine or with some sort of religious experience (Acts 2:1-11). 

 

For Christians Pentecost is a feast of universality. Listen to the first reading today: “We are Jews from every nation under the heavens. We are from Parthia, Media, and Elam; from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia; from Pontus and Asia, from Phygia and Pamphylia, from Egypt and Libya, from Rome and Crete and Arabia” (Acts 2:9-11). 

 

It is a feast of variety. Listen to the second reading today. Paul writes, “I would remind you that there are all different sorts of spiritual gifts, but it’s the same Spirit who gives them; there are all different kinds of service, but it’s the same Spirit who is served; there are all different ways by which God works in our lives, but it’s the same Spirit who is working” (I Cor 12:4-6).

 

Pentecost is a feast of openness.  Listen to the prayer of the day.  “With the power of a mighty wind and by the flame of your wisdom open up the horizons of our hearts and minds.”

 

The spirit of fear

Nazi fear

But the gospel for Pentecost says the doors of the early Church were closed. They were locked “out of fear of the Jews” (Jn 20:19, 26). A week later they’re still closed up "out of fear of the Jews." That fear of the Jews would hang on for centuries right down to our very own times. Out of some inexplicable fear of Jews the Nazis rampaged through all of Germany on the eve of the 9th of November, 1938, and in one night destroyed 7000 Jewish businesses and burned down 191 synagogues. That date goes down in history as Krystallnacht, The Night of the Shattered Glass. The Holocaust was spawned out of some inexplicable fear of Jews. See the mischief that fear can work.

 

 Islamist fear

During the Dark Ages (5th to 11th century), Islam was the center of the universe.  It eclipsed Europe in the fields of medicine, chemistry, mathematics, art, poetry, spirituality and physics.  But Islam, for two centuries now, has been on the losing side of history because of all the modernization and secularization closing in on it from the West. Out of this very explicable fear of us Western infidels Islamic fundamentalists on 11th of September, 2001, in the name of Allah, slammed their 747’s as weapons of mass destruction into the World Trade Center. With one grand slam they laid low two immense towers and three thousand innocent human beings. At the end of the day, it is out of fear that Islamic fundamentalists terrorize us 24/7 and have us vacillating up and down between yellow, orange and red on the terrorist alert thermometer.  See the mischief that fear can work.

 

Catholic fear…

It was out of fear of the Protestant Reformation in the Sixteenth Century that the Church summoned the Council of Trent in 1545. Summoned out of fear Trent, wrote us a theology of fear which locked up all the teachings of faith into prisons of certainty and put them all into deep freeze. For four hundred years nothing ever changed in a Church that was living in an ever-changing world. This is not so much a criticism as it is simply the story of action and reaction in human history. The freeze lasted four hundred years until the great thaw of Vatican II.  Many of us were raised on that deep freeze and some of us are still in it.

… of the vernacular

Some time ago a group asked to rent out this church of Old St. Mary’s to celebrate a Tridentine Mass. That’s the Mass that was formulated for us by the Council of Trent (1545). That ‘s the Mass we were using right up to the very opening of Vatican II on the 11th of October 1962. That’s a Mass which, out of some inexplicable fear of the vernacular language, is said entirely in the only language which God understands and recognizes: Latin. Such Latin Tridentine Masses are officially frowned upon if their hidden agenda is to exclude all the beautiful Pentecostal languages of the world, like Italian, French, Spanish, German, Polish, and Arabic. More profoundly they’re frowned upon if their hidden agenda is to reject the Pentecostal winds and fires of Vatican II which blew open the windows and doors of the Church and which burned away the chaff. See the mischief that fear can work.

 

…of women

I was recently mesmerized by the media’s coverage of the funeral Mass of Pope John Paul II, the conclave of election and the inauguration Mass of Benedict XVI. I was mesmerized by the Pentecostal throng which Bernini’s colossal colonnades could not contain in St. Peter’s Square. There were people from Parthia, Media, and Elam; from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia; from Pontus, Phygia and Pamphylia and from Rome, Crete and Arabia” (Acts 2:9-11).  It was almost a perfect Pentecostal scene, but not quite. Substantially locked out and excluded from both the funeral and inauguration Masses and from the conclave that elected the new pope were women.  Out of some inexplicable fear the Church, in consonance with society down through the centuries, has substantially locked women out. On second thought that fear of women isn’t so inexplicable; psychiatrists have a whole bag of theories about that.

 

Those magnificent all-male performances in the Vatican remind me of another performance. After attending an ordination Mass in St. John’s Cathedral some years ago, Barbara Marion Horn, a feisty lass from Ireland, who took up theological studies at St. Francis Seminary and Marquette University wrote to Archbishop Weakland:

Your Excellency, the beauty of the music, the power of the liturgy and the ancient tradition of the laying on of hands, at moments, left me breathless.  The palpable joy and strength of that occasion will always be with me. But, as is the case with a growing number of Catholics, a great sadness arose in my heart; a feeling of how wrong everything was amid the beauty, the power and the strength.  The procession of male clergy across the altar reverberated throughout my body: the visible reminder that the oldest, deepest exclusion, the one we are all too accustom to, is alive and well in the bosom of my faith community.

 

I believe with every fiber of my being that Pope John Paul II is profoundly convinced that Jesus did not, and therefore does not, welcome women as His apostles. I have no doubt that the Holy Father is sincere in his belief that the matter of opening all the locked doors of the church to women is not within his power. This grieves me greatly. I am convinced that if Jesus were at St. John’s last Saturday, he would have whipped through the place as he did with the money changers at the Temple on another Saturday.”

 

You really can’t dismiss her as a  cantankerous feminist, because she isn’t one. Though she speaks very clearly from where she stands, she is also very gentle and loving.  She concludes her letter saying,

My prayer is that this letter is received in the same spirit in which it is sent.  Originally from the East coast, I am forever grateful to have landed in Milwaukee.  This archdiocese has introduced me to a Catholic Church heretofore unknown.  Sts. Peter & Paul Parish here has fed my hunger for Christian formation with their abundance of programs and a pastoral team including the likes of Monica Meagher and Fr. Jack Kern--people who believe in their parishioners.  This is the neighborhood parish where I first personally encountered a Bishop with whom I have had many friendly and encouraging interactions.  St. Francis Seminary educated and affirmed me in ways I never dreamed possible.  At the present moment, All Saints Parish ministers to my need for diversity and gospel music.  It is hard to be despondent or in doubt when singing full force  "All is Well" and  "God has Smiled on Me." 

 

So here I am, simultaneously holding gratitude in one hand and deep discontent in the other.  The real angst is this: we are Jesus' disciples. They will know we are Christians by our love, but where is there love in exclusion? (We are speaking of Pentecost—the great feast of inclusion.)

 

…of a holy conversation

There is some church chatter going around at the present moment to which you, the people of God, perhaps are not privy simply because you’re so busy out there in the real world trying to make a living and trying to protect your little ones from some sex deviant in the neighborhood and trying to cope with the gas prices at the pumps. The chatter is all about Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese, editor of the America magazine, a notable publication of Catholic thought and opinion. He resigned recently at the request of his Jesuit Order following years of pressure from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith once headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict  XVI.

 

The Vatican objected to various editorials in the America magazine under Fr. Reese’s leadership. There was an essay exploring the moral arguments for the approval of condoms in the context of HIV/AIDS. There were critical analyses of a document entitled Dominus Iesus, published in 2000, which underscored the absolute uniqueness of Jesus and of the Catholic Church and which seemed to cancel out all the gains made in ecumenism the last forty years.  There was an editorial about what the magazine called a lack of due process in investigating theologians. In every instance the magazine was careful, in good Jesuit style, to present opposing points of view. Out of some inexplicable fear hearing the other side out was forbidden. Out of some inexplicable fear holding “a holy conversation” was forbidden. We are speaking of Pentecost—the feast that beseeches the Holy Spirit to come and open the horizons of our hearts and minds.

 

The Spirit of Shalom

Into an atmosphere of fear the gospel of Pentecost has Jesus breaking through locked doors to wish the disciples peace not once, not twice, but three times, in verses 19, 21 and 26, chapter 20 of John’s gospel.  When Jesus said “Peace” in his Hebrew language, he said “Shalom.” The word is so rich in meaning that it’s difficult to find a one-word translation to do it justice. In fact, the seventy men who translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek used twenty-five different Greek words in different places to express the many shades of Shalom. Shalom can mean “Peace! Take it easy! Relax! Calm down!” Shalom can mean “Peace! Stop your worrying and fretting. Let go and let God!” Shalom can mean “Peace! Take courage! Coraggio!” Shalom can mean “Peace. Put away your fear, and open the horizons of your heart and mind.”

Conclusion

Dismissal with Shalom

To the  Church which, out of  fear, refuses to hold “a holy conversation” and take on the difficult issues facing it, like the ordination of women, married clergy,  birth control, divorce, homosexuality and, especially the shortage of priests—to that Church Jesus’ Shalom says, “Peace! Take courage! Coraggio! I’m with you; you’re not alone. I haven’t left you orphans in my Ascension.” To the Church and to all of us who, out of some inexplicable fear, refuse to hold a holy conversation and hear out both sides of an issue or story, Jesus’ Shalom says, “Peace! Fear not! Open the horizons of your hearts and minds!”

 

Many were jubilant at the election of the Chief Enforcer of the Church, Cardinal Ratzinger as pope, because they had hopes he’d put the Church back on track by closing the doors and windows blown opened by the Pentecostal winds of  Vatican II. To them Jesus’ Shalom says, “Peace! Let go and let God! Open the horizons of your hearts and minds!” On the other hand, the hearts of many of us fell in total disbelief when we heard that Cardinal Ratzinger, known by us also as ”Cardinal No” to everything and as “God’s Rottweiler,” had been elected pope. To us Jesus’ Shalom says, “Peace! Be patient! Give this German Shepherd a chance. Open the horizons of your hearts and minds.”

 

Shalom is the dismissal of Mass today. Ite Missa est! Go in peace, the Mass is ended! Go with the Shalom of Jesus. It has twenty-five different shades of meaning to it, and there’s one that’s just for you and for whatever fear in you is closing the horizons of your heart and mind.