The GOSPELof the holy spirit - TAN BooksMeditation and Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles ALFRED McBRIDE, o. praem. Charlotte, North Carolina holy spirit The GOSPEL of the Gospel_of_the_Holy_Spirit_body.indd

Meditation and Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles

ALFRED McBRIDE, o. praem.

Charlotte, North Carolina

holy spiritGOSPELThe of the

Gospel_of_the_Holy_Spirit_body.indd 3 5/10/13 1:31 PM

Nihil Obstat: Reverend Richard J. Murphy, O.M.I. Censor Deputatus

Imprimatur: Reverend Msgr. William J. Kane, V.G. Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Washington July 16, 1991

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pam-phlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is con tained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and im primatur agree with the content, opinions, or statements expressed.

Copyright © 1992 by Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.

Reprinted in 2013 by Saint Benedict Press, LLC.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in articles and critical reviews, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever, printed or electronic, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover image: The Pentecost, c.1305 (fresco), Giotto di Bondone (c.1266-1337) / Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua, Italy / The Bridgeman Art Library

ISBN: 978-1-61890-169-9

Saint Benedict Press, LLC P.O. Box 410487 Charlotte, NC 28241 www.saintbenedictpress.com

Printed and bound in the United States of America.


vii

Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ixIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

THE BOOK OF PETER

Come, Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3A Mighty Wind and Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9The Healing Servant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21The Boldness of Common Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27First Deaths and the Gamaliel Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35Stephen’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43The Face of an Angel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47Terror in the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57Vessel of the Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63The Story of Cornelius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73Mission to Antioch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81Peter in Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87

THE BOOK OF PAUL

Ministers of the Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97Joyful Missionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107


viii The Gospel of the Holy Spirit

Decision in Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113Come to Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121Gospel to Athens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127To Live Like a Corinthian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135Angry Silversmiths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143Farewell, Miletus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149Paul’s Arrest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153I Will Speak of Visions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161Cloak and Dagger Escape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165Defense before Felix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .171Appeal to Caesar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177Agrippa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181Shipwreck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185From Malta to Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197


ix

Foreword

ON THE road to Emmaus, Jesus gave his two friends a Scripture lesson. He took the Bible as

though it were a loaf of bread and broke it open to feed their hearts, minds, feelings, and souls. He explained how the prophets, wisdom speakers, psalm singers, sto-rytellers, and patriarchs sang and spoke of the essential link between the sufferings of the Messiah and his glory. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and so enter his glory?” (Lk. 24:6).

Luke does not give us the details of that remarkable Scripture lesson, other than to say the listeners were so moved that their hearts burned within them. Jesus gave them an experience of Scripture that caused a personal spiritual and moral conversion. The Christian interpre-tation of Scripture ever since has drawn two essential guidelines from that scene. First, all of Scripture illu-mines the meaning and purpose of Jesus Christ’s work of salvation. Second, the biblical words call each of us to a faith conversion to Jesus Christ.


x The Gospel of the Holy Spirit

No interpreter of Scripture ever understood these principles better than St. Augustine. For him the soul was the home of all the feelings in the body. Since Christians were members of Christ’s Body, they could get in touch with the inner life of Jesus, his soul if you will. As Augustine scanned the pages of Scripture, he found in the psalms the record of the feelings of Jesus. The psalms and the gospels were more than two books written in different periods of history, they were the seamless garment of the love story between God and people, one text illuminating the other.

The Christ of Augustine’s sermons on the gospels possesses the quiet majesty of classic art. But in his com-mentaries on the psalms, Augustine comes upon a flood of emotions and applies them to Jesus. The figure of the passionate King David supplies the vision of the emo-tions of Jesus. Hence it is Christ’s voice that is heard in the psalms, “a voice singing happily, a voice rejoicing in hope, a voice sighing in its present state. We should know his voice, feel it intimately, make it our own.” (Commentary on Psalms, 42,1).

At the same time, Augustine wanted to do more than stir up feeling in the listeners to his Scripture ser-mons. He wanted to break bread and feed the multitude. As a boy, he had stolen fruit to share with his comrades. As a bishop, he raided the fields of Scripture to feed his parishioners to whom he ministered for forty years. “I go to feed so I can give you to eat. I lay before you that


Foreword xi

from which I draw my life.” (Fragments, 2,4). He was interested in converting his listeners to Jesus ever more deeply through the Scriptures.

He wrote to Jerome that he could never be a dis-interested Bible scholar. “If I gain any new knowledge of Scripture, I pay it out immediately to God’s people.” (Letter, 73, 2).

Pope John Paul II stressed these same principles about Scripture interpretation in an address to the mem-bers of the Biblical Commission. He noted with satisfac-tion the progress being made in modem Catholic biblical scholarship since the encyclical Providentissimus written by Pope Leo XIII in 1893. He cited the many forms of scientific analysis of Scripture which have developed, such as the study of literary forms, semiotics, and narra-tive analysis.

He dwelt on the “limitations” of the new methods and asked his listeners to avoid the excesses of the swings of fashion in Scripture interpretation, for example, one school totally preoccupied with history and another one forgetting history altogether. He also advised his audi-ence to observe the one-sidedness of some interpreters of Scripture such as those who cite Vatican II’s docu-ment on Scripture (Dei Verbum) in support of the use of scientific methods, but seem to forget the other teaching of the council that interpreters should never forget the divine authorship of the Bible.

His next words deserve to be quoted in full:


xii The Gospel of the Holy Spirit

The Bible has certainly been written in human language. Its interpretation requires the methodical use of the science of language. But it is also God’s Word. Exegesis (Scripture interpretation) would be seriously incomplete if it did not shed light on the theological significance of Scripture.

We must not forget that Christian exegesis is a theological discipline, a deepening of the faith. This entails an interior tension between historical research founded on verifiable facts and research in the spiritual order based on faith in Christ. There is a great temptation to eliminate this inner tension by renouncing one or another of these two orientations . . . to be content with a subjective interpretation which is wrongly called “spiritual,” or a scientific interpretation which makes the texts “sterile.”

—English Edition of L’ Osservatore Romano, April 22, 1991

This commentary/meditation which you are about to read was written with this total vision in mind. You will not find it heavily scientific because it was not meant to be a popularization of the scientific methods of interpretation. At the same time, it is meant to reflect the beneficial results of scientific studies. You will discover it is aimed at opening up the person, message, and work of Jesus Christ whose work of salvation in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit is presented. Therefore, Jesus centered and faith growth envisioned.

It is my hope that these reflections will draw you to


Foreword xiii

love the Bible, and in so doing, love Christ, yourself, and others. We are thus loving more than a book or sacred texts, we are in a total love affair. Perhaps Chaim Potok’s description of the “Dance of the Torah” has something to say to us here. The scene is a Hasidic Synagogue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. A religious festi-val is in progress and the participants have reached a part of the ceremony where scrolls of the Torah are passed around and certain privileged members are allowed to dance with it. We pick up the scene as the principal character, who has been agonizing about his faith and its relation to life, is handed the scroll.

I held the scroll as something precious to me, a living being with whose soul I was forever bound, this Sacred Scroll, this Word, this Fire of God, this Source for my own creation, this velvet encased Fountain of All Life which I now clasped in a passionate embrace. I danced with the Torah for a long time, following the line of dancers through the steamy air of the synagogue and out into the chill tumultuous street and back into the synagogue and then reluctantly yielding the scroll to a huge dark-bearded man who hungrily scooped it up and swept away with it in his arms.

—The Gift of Asher Lev, paperback, p. 351

Should not our encounter with Scripture be a dance with the Holy Word?

There was an old folk custom, now lost in the mists


xiv The Gospel of the Holy Spirit

of history, in which a child was formally introduced to the sweetness of the Word of God. A page of the Bible was given to the child. Upon the page was spread some honey and the child was asked to taste it. Hence from earliest youth, the child would be introduced to a posi-tive experience of Scripture, the sweetness of the Word of God.

What else need be said?

How sweet to my tongue is your promise, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

—Ps. 119:103


The Book of Peter


3

1

Come, Holy Spirit

PREFACE (Acts 1:1–5)

LUKE addresses his work to Theophilus whose name means “lover of God.” Previously, Luke also had

addressed his gospel to Theophilus. This literary device, popular among cultured Greeks, indicates the unity of Luke-Acts and is meant to appeal to the educated of the day. The risen Jesus spends forty days with his apostles, dwelling on the meaning and reality of the kingdom of God. The subject of the kingdom is the original message of both John the Baptist and Jesus at the Jordan river.

The point here is that the message of the earthly Jesus and that of the risen Lord is precisely the same. The life and power of God is available through faith, conversion and a baptism that startles the consciousness to the real-ity of the Spirit’s indwelling.


4 The Gospel of the Holy Spirit

ASCENSION (Acts 1:6–14)The apostles’ question about the kingdom of God shows they still think of it in terms of politics. It is also reminis-cent of their earlier queries about the destruction of the temple and the end of the world. As he did before, Jesus again leaves the time of disclosure wrapped in mystery.

The important thing is that they possess a radical openness to the coming of the Spirit who will flood them with power and courage to be his witnesses to all the world. The mentioning of the sequence Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the end of the earth, which will mean Rome, is a forecast of the actual way the church expanded. The apostles must assimilate the “great expectation of the Spirit.” In so doing they will loosen their resistance to the real kingdom of God, namely, the dynamic power of the Spirit.

The account of the Ascension echoes Easter. While clouds of glory image the exaltation of Jesus, two angels, as they had done at the tomb, advise the apostles to quit staring into emptiness. Jesus is no longer behind them, but ahead of them, awakening their hopes and expecta-tions and urging them to rediscover him in the gift of the Spirit.

So they make their Sabbath’s day journey (one half mile) back to the Upper Room in Jerusalem. In that Eucharistic chamber, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, and with other brethren—120 in all—they enter


Come, Holy Spirit 5

into prayer and retreat, gradually opening their hearts to the power of the Spirit.

ELECTION OF MATTHIAS (Acts 1:15–26)The tragic history of Judas is reviewed. The thirty pieces of silver are used to buy a burial ground for strangers. They name the place “the Field of Blood.” Matthew (27:3–10) has the priests buying it, while Luke asserts Judas had purchased it. In any event, Judas commits sui-cide and his money cloaks the purchased field with the blood memory.

The election of Matthias offers Peter an opportunity to define an apostle as one who had been an eyewitness of the historical and risen Jesus and had participated with him in the ministry of the Word. Paul modifies this definition, declaring that he is a real apostle so long as he, too, is a witness of the risen Christ, even though not of the historical Jesus. In passing we should note that the ministry of the original eleven apostles plus Matthias had been confined to the Jewish community, while Paul had carried the Word to the gentiles. The word apostle is from the Greek angellos meaning messenger.



REFLECTION 1. Jesus spent the forty days after Easter explaining the

kingdom to his disciples. Do I understand how the kingdom should have an earthly fulfillment? How is this earthly kingdom manifested?

2. Am I equally aware that the kingdom has a heavenly fulfillment? How is this awareness manifested in my life?

3. What do I mean when I pray, “thy kingdom come”? 4. Some people think the kingdom of God is a political

reality in which church and state are united with the church in charge. Is this the kingdom of which Jesus spoke?

5. Do I see similarities between Easter and Ascension? 6. During the novena in the Upper Room, the 120 dis-

ciples were in close quarters with Mary, the mother of Jesus. How might her faith witness have affected them?

7. In what ways have I recognized the presence of the Holy Spirit after sustained prayer?

8. Why did the apostles elect Matthias? 9. The words apostle and angel mean messenger. What

do I expect of a messenger? 10. The church was born in a praying community. Does

its regular rebirth happen in the same way?


Come, Holy Spirit 7

PRAYER

RISEN Jesus, help me to have a proper faith in the kingdom of God. I will work for a kingdom of

love, justice and mercy. I will maintain my faith in an ultimate kingdom of love in eternal life. I join Mary and the disciples in the Upper Room and pray and hope for the coming of the kingdom.


9

2

A Mighty Wind and Fire

PENTECOST (Acts 2:1–12)

IN JEWISH liturgy Pentecost was the feast of Mount Sinai. It celebrated the giving of the ten command-

ments to Moses and the sealing of the covenant of God with his people. A mighty wind and fire swept the slopes of Sinai evoking the awesomeness of the moment. The wind was the breath of God and source of all life. The fire was his glory manifesting his presence to the people.

The Exodus was the first decisive act of love of God for Israel. A testing period of forty years, during which the people made a pilgrimage from the waters of the Red Sea to foot of Sinai, preceded this second critical deed of love. Now in the transcendent ceremony of Sinai, God finalized the pledge of his love for Israel.

The Upper Room of the Christian Pentecost is a new Sinai. Once again the mighty breath of God and the fire of his presence sweeps through the human commu-nity. Just as Easter had been a new Exodus illustrating a decisive act of love, not just for one people, but for all



mankind, so now Pentecost is a new Sinai in which the Spirit of God is set as a seal on the whole universe—a declaration of irrevocable love for all people.

They were filled with enthusiasm (a word which means the God within) and experienced ecstasy (a word which means standing outside oneself ). They knew the seizure of the Spirit. The Bible has many accounts of God seizure. Note the story of Samson. His friends bind him with ropes and betray him to his enemies, the Philistines, as a hostage to stop war. His captors tor-ment and taunt him beyond reason. Hence “the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him: the ropes around his arms became like flax that is consumed by fire.” ( Jgs. 15:14).

With such Spirit power, Samson seizes the jawbone of an ass and slays a thousand Philistines of this world. “With the jawbone of an ass, I have piled them in a heap, With the jawbone of an ass I have slain a thousand men.” ( Jgs. 15:16).

A further account of Spirit seizure occurs in the story of Daniel imprisoned in the lion’s den. The prophet lan-guished there six days without food. God noted the hun-ger of Daniel and relieved him through the services of the prophet Habakkuk.

“The prophet Habakkuk was in Judea. He mixed some bread in a bowl with the stew he had boiled, and was going to bring it to the reapers in the field, when an angel of the Lord told him, ‘Take the meal you have to Daniel in the lions’ den at Babylon.’ But Habakkuk


A Mighty Wind and Fire 11

answered, ‘Sir, I have never seen Babylon, and I do not know the den!’ The angel of the Lord seized him by the crown of his head and carried him by the hair with the speed of the wind, he set him down in Babylon above the den.” (Dn. 14:33–36).

These Old Testament stories of the seizure of the Spirit argue that such events were intermittent, rare and happened only to special people. The story of Pentecost and the remainder of New Testament teaching maintain that the seizure of the Spirit is a normal experience of the members of the church. Such occasions are not meant to be rare, but rather the daily bread of Christians.

One hundred and twenty people were gathered in that Upper Room at Pentecost. According to the law of Israel, this was the number needed for an official litur-gical gathering. It was a classical number for the ideal worshipping community. It was in the midst of their prayer and worship that they knew decisively the power of God’s Spirit.

They began speaking in tongues (glossalalia) a language phenomenon that sometimes accompanies profound spiritual experience. Armed with the fire of the Spirit, and with ecstatic speech on their lips, they flowed out of the Upper Room into the square where pilgrims from over fifteen nations were gathered for religious obser-vance. The crowd responded with positive astonishment, negative cynicism and finally honest truth searching.

In wonder, the crowd vibrated happily with the



contagious enthusiasm and excitement of the Spirit-filled community, and they identified with the linguistic miracle. There was a fleeting moment when the nations of the earth paused from their strife and profound com-munity took place.

The artists of the Middle Ages loved to contrast the babbling and alienated mob of Babel’s tower to the loving, linguistically united community by the tower of the Upper Room. Babel symbolized the fundamen-tal divisions of people caused by selfishness and sin. Pentecost stood for the glorious assurance that such division was no longer a tragic necessity of mankind. The seizure of the Spirit was a guarantee that the horizons of human unity are not merely a dream, but an achievable reality.

But such unity was not easily won, and certainly not by human vision alone. After the first glow, some in the crowd began, defensively, to accuse the apostles of being drunkards. Still, that was an insufficient response. Taunting gave way to questioning. “What does this mean?” It was Peter who replied.

PETER’S DISCOURSE (Acts 2:14–41)This is the first missionary sermon. It is addressed only to Jews. Peter says that his people are not drunk because it is too early in the morning. Like any good rabbinical preacher, Peter fortifies his opening argument with an



authoritative citation from the Scriptures, in this case, the prophet Joel.

Joel predicts that in the final age of mankind the Spirit will be available to everyone. The Spirit experience will be normative in our global village. The visions of the young and the dreams of the old mean the same thing, namely, a God-given insight into the real meaning of life. The imagery of Joel, with its blood-soaked moons and blackened suns, is a poetic way of describing an age in crisis. Such a crisis should precipitate basic questions about ultimate meaning. The wonder of Pentecost is a crisis event calling people to abandon superficial reflec-tion and come to probe the deep things of God.

Once Peter has established that Joel’s prophecy is finding fulfillment today, he proceeds to show how that foresight takes shape in the person and ministry of Jesus. Every missionary from this moment on will follow Peter’s example. The call to conversion can only be in terms of adherence to the person and work of Jesus. Cultural pre-liminaries may indeed be brought to bear, as Paul will show in his Athenian preaching, where he builds up to Jesus by first designating the implications of Greek poets, singers and philosophers and seeing them as the condi-tion for the possibility of understanding the Lord.

Peter’s talk on Jesus is the classical bare-bones of the Christian message. God does many mighty works and wonders through him during his ministry. An innocent lamb, he is delivered to death. But God shall not let



him remain in the bonds of death. Then, with a touch of preacher’s drama, Peter gestures toward the tomb of David and quotes from the sixteenth psalm, “You will not abandon my soul to the nether world, nor will you suf-fer your faithful one to undergo corruption.” Obviously, David’s body had seen corruption. Hence, it must be a text that applies to the expected Holy One, the Messiah, who is the Jesus that Peter preaches.

God has raised up his son Jesus and placed him at his right hand. David speaks of Ascension in psalm 110 also, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand.’ ” David did not ascend, but Christ did and has sent the Spirit who has caused the marvels which arouse such ardent inquiry on this day. Thus the substance of preach-ing Jesus includes the disclosure of God’s prodigious actions in his son, the redeeming passion and death and the saving power of the resurrection and exaltation—all of which appears now in Christ’s Spirit.

Jesus is thus Lord and Christ. The word Lord, nor-mally meant to apply to political sovereigns, now testifies to Christ’s reign over all the universe. The Christ signi-fies Messiah.

Peter’s sermon shakes his listeners. He is not preach-ing a detached recitation of dry facts, but rather a per-sonal testimony designed to change the hearts of his listeners. Peter had much more at stake than presenting a neutral view of Christ. His own soul now knows the glory, and he is anxious that all the world should share



his own vision and joy. Good news in the heart calls for a compelling message on the lips.

Small wonder then the listeners say they are pierced to the heart. Peter’s talk had served as a supreme consciousness-raiser, driving to the surface the funda-mental thirst that God plants in all human hearts. This is no whiling away the hour with curious discourse. People’s lives are at stake and the course of future his-tory is the gamble of this hour. Thus the central question takes shape, and the cry is heard on all sides, “What shall we do?”

Peter calls for repentance. This word basically means conversion. It is not easy to appreciate in our day which favors the psychological view of gradual and develop-mental decision making. Striking decisions and radical conversions are somewhat out of fashion. One ought to resist any temptation to such breathtaking and daring commitments. Our prejudice is to pre-analyze away such possibilities.

The slogan is, “Leave your options open.” This approach is not without its own wisdom. But when it is exaggerated to the point that decisive options are never taken, that every imaginable avoidance technique is used to defend against any crisis that would provoke a deci-sion, then Peter’s call is not going to make much sense.

It is popular in some religious circles to speak of radical commitment. Yet an examination of those who propose this often uncovers the sad fact that fear and



timidity, under the guise of psychologically prudent cau-tion, has canceled the adventurous daring that commit-ment implies. But as Peter says, the gift of the Spirit stands before every human heart promising the greatest human fulfillment that any person can really know. Certainly the God who made the fiber of humanity, knows how to summon every nerve to its out-reaching hope.

Peter’s admonition, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation,” rings uncannily true in our time when values can find no honored place in the public order. The example of that first congregation should be an inspiration to the possible hearers of the Word today. On that first great day, three thousand opened their hearts to God’s Spirit, and celebrated the event with baptism.

THE GREAT COMMUNITY (Acts 2:42–47)The isolation, loneliness and alienation of modem peo-ple could find great hope in the communal effect of the Spirit upon the lives of the first converts. They touched the Spirit at the point of his love and found how sweet and good it was to reach out to others and know the mar-velous joy of community. They touched the Spirit at the point of his wisdom and drank in the basis of all the reli-gious teaching that poured out from the apostles. As love bound their hearts, wisdom united their minds so that as Augustine would say later to his community of priests at Hippo, “They were of one mind and heart in God.”



They found in the “breaking of the bread,” an expres-sion for the Eucharist and in their prayers a divine cele-bration of their new-found lives and a further enrichment and strength for its future possibilities. God’s boisterous love had prayed them from their dullness. Now their enthusiastic prayer prayed forth God’s continuing gift of himself in the Spirit.

The text says that “fear” had come upon them. This must be understood in terms of awe and reverence. It is not a fright so much as a wonder that stirs them to hold their gift gingerly. Anyone who is “by love possessed” knows what fear really means in such a situation. No longer are they terrorized by an angry law-giver, for they are in con-tact with generous and unending love for the first time in their lives. In our own idiom we might be prompted to say, “What a way to wake up in the morning!”

It is clear that the Spirit prompted them to live the common life. They sell their possessions and share all things in common. Their prayer life alternates between the temple and the home. It may seem odd at first to us that they continue to go to the temple, but we must recall that no great opposition between the temple and their new life had yet occurred, though, of course, it would happen soon enough. Still, even with that, they had had no reason to forsake the ancient hours of prayer which their ancestors from time immemorial had offered at the temple, and which Jesus himself had been faithful to throughout his life.



In a sense, the temple served as a kind of interme-diate stage, a kind of cocoon, while the infant church formed itself into an independent structure. Once the temple was destroyed and its shadow, both comforting and possibly restricting was removed, then the new peo-ple of God sensed quite clearly their identity. Of course, other elements facilitated this as well, especially the cir-cumcision controversy as we shall see.

The natural locale for the Eucharist was the home and would remain so in all New Testament accounts, and indeed for some centuries until Constantine offered Christians basilicas for Eucharist.

The setting of a home evoked a special style for lit-urgy. Of necessity it was more informal, though never irreverent—at least in the ideal. Paul would comment on unruly house liturgies in Corinth. (1 Cor. 11:22).

The house liturgy urged the president of the Eucharist to be skilled in the art of hospitality, for of all tables, that of the Lord should evoke the warmest of welcomes. Obviously this kind of celebration testified to the closeness of God to the people. It spoke of his immanent presence to creation. Later on, the majestic churches would witness to God’s transcendence, his oth-erness from creation. Both witnesses are necessary for a real appreciation of God.

If there is only his closeness, then there is a familiar-ity that breeds banality. We reduce God to our size. If there is only his distance, then we find it too difficult to



imagine he is real and interested in us, and so we reduce him to an unimportant something on the edge of the real world.

In the first flush of the ideal community, the break-ing of the bread rode this tension well.

REFLECTION 1. What are some matching details between the Sinai

covenant and the Pentecost event? 2. What does the word enthusiasm mean? 3. Have I heard people speaking in tongues? And my

reaction? 4. Artists have portrayed the Tower of Babel alongside

the “Tower” of Pentecost. What message do they impart?

5. What is the numerical significance of 120 disciples? 6. Peter says that in this new event, people will

have visions and dreams. What is he trying to communicate?

7. Peter’s sermon did not leave people indifferent. They were moved, even “stung.” Should homilies do that for us?

8. Peter calls the listeners to repentance, faith in Christ, baptism, and the reception of the Spirit. How often do the homilies I hear call me to repentance?

9. Peter says, “Save yourselves from this crooked gen-eration.” Could he say the same today?



10. Why is it important to note that a Christian com-munity is the first outcome of the Pentecost event?

PRAYER

HOLY Spirit, Creator of the church and renewer of the world, renew my heart and recreate our

church. My world is a Tower of Babel where ambition and impersonalization dominate. I want a life that hon-ors the person and strives for community. Call me to repentance so that any change I seek will begin with me. Save us all from whatever is crooked in this generation. Breathe on me, breath of God, and make me as new and fresh as the dawn.


Documents

The GOSPELof the holy spirit - TAN BooksMeditation and Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles ALFRED McBRIDE, o. praem. Charlotte, North Carolina holy spirit The GOSPEL of the Gospel_of_the_Holy_Spirit_body.indd