Fr. Cipolla’s Pentecost Sermon

Sermon by Fr. Richard Cipolla delivered on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, at St. Mary Church, Norwalk

Remarkable. The Medes and the Parthians and the Cappodocians and the Romans: they all heard the same thing. They understood what Mary and the apostles were saying at the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church even though they were not speaking their language per se. The point is not that at Pentecost diversity was canonized by the Holy Spirit. The point is that in the power of the Holy Spirit human language is transcended. We have to remember that the Old Testament understanding of the fact that there are many languages is negative: it is understood as God’s punishment on the pride of man and the many languages of the world is a symbol of the confusion of the human race, on the non-understandability that lies at the heart of human language. Now this scene at Pentecost has to be understood in this context. It has nothing to do with some pious effusion that made language irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the birthday of the Church, as if the Church, the body of Christ, did not exist in utero before the creation, as if the Church did not pour forth from the crucified body of Christ on the Cross. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church is the event we celebrate today; and it is this Spirit that leads the Church into all truth, and it is this Spirit that transcends culture and language and that is able to bind all men into one. The oneness of mankind does not issue from some program or from some basic common denominator. It issues from the heart of God in the person of the Holy Spirit who binds all things into one. This has nothing to do with social or political programs, although such programs are not to be dismissed as irrelevant in the Christian life. This has to do with the God who is three in one within himself, drawing all mankind, drawing the whole creation into that unity that is at the very heart of God.

Does this make any sense to you? Have you already tuned out, hoping that this priest will not talk too long, and we can get out of here and fulfill our obligation to be here? Now this is not altogether a bad attitude, for sermons are not the point of the Mass. You don’t come here to be talked to. You come here to worship the almighty God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. To worship. For so many people, including Catholics, this is a strange word. The highlight of the Catholic’s week is what we are doing here right now. Is this the highlight of your week? Now, that is not a fair question, for worship cannot be compared to other things we do and enjoy and which are fine and good. But do you at least know and believe that what goes on here is in fact, whether we understand this or not, is the most important thing we can do as Catholics?

This question will have to hang in the air for a few minutes and it has to hang so it can dry and be cured like a fantastic prosciutto and we hope it does not get damaged by too much hot air coming from this side of the church. Much time and energy and angst has been spent in the last month on Notre Dame’s graduation. College graduations are usually normal, happy occasions, not much to think about, parties after for the graduates, the beginning of the lull of summer, time to move on, all these things. And yet this graduation at a school that so many people see as the symbol of the Catholic university has caused not only a media stir, but has stirred up in a deep way the Catholic Church herself in this country. But this stirring up has nothing about it akin to the stirring up of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Quite the contrary. It has exposed the deep divisions within the Church in this country, a division that is contrary to the oneness in the Holy Spirit that is the heart of the celebration of Pentecost. Now remember the reading from the Acts of the Apostles that we heard: the point is not the different languages, the point is certainly not diversity of what was heard: what was heard was common to all for it was the truth: I will send you the Holy Spirit and he will lead you into all truth. A Church divided against herself cannot be the Catholic Church. For the Catholic Church is one, holy and apostolic and the oneness at its very heart includes and demands that oneness and clarity of faith that is a bulwark against the tidal wave of relativism that destroys everything in its path. And that is what was playing out at Notre Dame. What was playing out is much deeper than the cast of characters, namely Fr Jenkins, the president of the University and Barak Obama the president of the United States. And because what is at stake is beyond personalities, T\there is no need to demonize Fr Jenkins or President Obama, as if they were the cause of what is happening. For their own personal sins against God and their neighbors they will be judged, not by us but by God.

No Catholic can ever understand history as irrelevant to the Church and our faith. There are sects who believe that human history has nothing to do with Christianity. But they are totally wrong, because God entered into human history with the birth of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, and therefore human history cannot be separated from God. God became man for us in history, so we cannot ever think that we are above human history, existing in some sort of special place that is impervious to the mixture of tragedy and heroism that is human history. There is no little house on the prairie with appropriate costumes for Catholics. What we saw at Notre Dame is but the continuing trajectory of a phenomenon that is an integral part of American history. It is true that a similar phenomenon can be seen in Europe, but that cannot concern us here today. The phenomenon is what I have called for so many years the great American steam-roller, that huge, seemingly irresistible, force that flattens anything in its path, that steam roller forged of that strange but potent amalgam of individualism and conformity that has flattened American Protestantism, sucking from it any faith with specificity and transcendence and reducing it to a moralism that has ended up as a reflection of the contemporary society. One cannot distinguish most mainline American Christianity today from whatever cause is advocated by the New York Times or Oprah Winfrey. The sting of Christianity is gone, dead, buried. There can be no martyrs to the faith any longer, for the faith has been sold out to the most telegenic personality of the day.

Now the question is on this Pentecost Sunday is whether the Catholic Church will allow herself to be flattened out by the American steamroller. I must insist at this point that one can be a good American and not be part of the steamroller—let us not worry about the specious issues of patriotism. What happened at Notre Dame was a sign that the American steamroller is indeed pressing down on the Catholic Church in this country. That many Catholics, including the president of Notre Dame, clucked approvingly at President Obama’s plea with respect to abortion for tolerance and understanding and middle ground, shows how far we have been flattened. It is not a matter of not engaging the world with the weapons of reason and humanity. We must do this and at the same time we must, once again, never demonize the opponents. But what has been given up is the absolute commitment to life that is based both on the natural law and on Christian revelation. Come, let us reason together, says God to the Jews in Isaiah. But this does not mean what made Fr Jenkins face glow with pride and happiness. For the rest of God’s line in Isaiah is as follows; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be whiter than snow, but if you refuse and rebel you shall be devoured by the sword….it is the Lord calling his people to repentance and a change of heart.

And yet, and this must be said, that what happened at Notre Dame is not the heart of the matter. The greater danger is allowing the world to reduce Catholicism to moralism. We must never allow ourselves to think that the abortion question is at the heart of what is at stake. If to be Catholic today means only to be against abortion, we have lost the battle, we are reduced to moralism. No, it is much, much more than this, for being pro-life points to the heart of the matter; being pro-life is not the heart of the matter; the heart of the matter is the person of Jesus Christ, the sign and the reality of the love of God for us and for all men. And it is the Mass, what we do here, that is the ground in this world for that Pentecost that is never a mere feast and once and for all thing. For here by the power of the Holy Spirit bread becomes the living God, wine the source of all forgiveness and heavenly delight. Without this, there is nothing. Without this, there is only talk, there are only competing opinions. On this Pentecost let us not sing Come Holy Spirit as if he never came. He has come and he fills the world with his goodness and truth, the truth that saves. He fills this parish church and seeks entrance into our hearts, our lives, our very beings, he comes to breathe life into our lives deadened by sin, he comes to refresh, to comfort, he comes to lead us into all truth.