Farewell to Fear!!

Yesterday at Mass our pastor gave a rousing homily that I really loved.  It was about Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, but it was about a bit more.

The house shook and the wind blew the small crowd of first believers in that upper room on that first Holy day of the Church's birth.  The tongues of fire appeared on all in the room and the Holy Spirit made them new fishers of men.  Frightened, humbled, and possibly overwhelmed with the rather large task at hand, but they were the first pioneers to bring Christ into the many corners of the world and the Church grew!  Nearly 2000 years have come and gone, the Church is still here, still guided by the Holy Spirit, and the writings of these first believers, preachers, teachers, scholars, scribes, and leaders at Christ's command.

Except for Mary, the mother of God, none in this room were of extraordinary breed, none were geniuses, or with great leadership qualities, but behold! they did what was expected of them before they even knew that they could.  They had gifts of the Holy Spirit to take them where they needed to go and do what they needed to do. We are no different!  Fr. told us of a time when he was needing surgery, it was a pretty serious situation.  The surgeon, who was not Catholic, questioned Fr. about his fears.  "What are you afraid of?" the surgeon asked, "I guess I'm afraid that I won't get better." "What's the matter with you? What are you really afraid of, what's the worse that could happen to you?" The surgeon grilled.  "That I'll die" the priest answered.  "Is that the worse that could happened to you, Fr.?" the surgeon commented, "That's not the worse that could happen to you, what is?"  The surgeon was getting to him, now, "Well, that I'll fail, sin, and fail God somehow."

You see, not only are we not perfect, but we are not expected to be perfect.  Not only are we not confident that we can do God's will, but we are expected to trust in God and not ourselves in all that we do for Him. No it's not rocket science, but it's not easy either.  We need to keep a constant line open for God and our conversations with him throughout our lifetime.

We are not expected to be totally prepared, trained, and experienced enough to handle God's calling.  We are only human, and humanity calls us to be an ever changing, constant learning process throughout our lives so that we can be examples to others of how the Holy Spirit works in us...the common man.

Farewell to Fear!!  Farewell to Fear!! we are not alone, the Holy Spirit is with us at all times guiding us and mentoring us. Alleluia, alleluia!!