Have you ever felt a surge of courage that inspired you to step out and make a difference? Season One's final episode takes you back to the origins of such bravery, to the Pentecost, where the disciples' transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit ignited a fearless proclamation of faith. We delve into the rich symbols of that historic day—the roaring winds, the tongues of fire, and the unifying gift of languages. You'll discover how these signs go beyond mere spectacle and speak profoundly to our unity and purpose as believers. Peter's leap of faith into his apostolic role serves as a clarion call for us to embrace our own mission, demonstrating service, charity, and truth in today’s complex world.
This reflective journey discusses how today's believers can draw strength from these narratives, stepping out to live a faith that's as authentic as it is attracting. With an eye to the future, we ponder the vibrant life Jesus promised and how, through the Spirit celebrated at Pentecost, we are called to breathe life into our surroundings. This episode promises not only to enlighten but also to stir the soul, inviting you to embark on a path of service and meaning, guided by the divine breath that sustains us all.
Have you ever felt a surge of courage that inspired you to step out and make a difference? Season One's final episode takes you back to the origins of such bravery, to the Pentecost, where the disciples' transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit ignited a fearless proclamation of faith. We delve into the rich symbols of that historic day—the roaring winds, the tongues of fire, and the unifying gift of languages. You'll discover how these signs go beyond mere spectacle and speak profoundly to our unity and purpose as believers. Peter's leap of faith into his apostolic role serves as a clarion call for us to embrace our own mission, demonstrating service, charity, and truth in today’s complex world.
This reflective journey discusses how today's believers can draw strength from these narratives, stepping out to live a faith that's as authentic as it is attracting. With an eye to the future, we ponder the vibrant life Jesus promised and how, through the Spirit celebrated at Pentecost, we are called to breathe life into our surroundings. This episode promises not only to enlighten but also to stir the soul, inviting you to embark on a path of service and meaning, guided by the divine breath that sustains us all.
Speaker 1:
You're listening to the Catholic Accent Podcast. In this podcast, we discuss the acts and miracles that Jesus performed that stunned his disciples. Today's topic, Pentecost. We're here in a locked room.
Speaker 2:
For 50 days we haven't lost any weight. Surprising, I just brought change of clothes.
Speaker 3:
That's why I'm wearing different shirts. We're still waiting for the fire.
Speaker 1:
So, to that point, the disciples have themselves locked in the upper room for 50 days. When the time for Pentecost came, why were they still so afraid?
Speaker 2:
Well, they might have been waiting on the Lord to tell them exactly where to be led, what to do, and so for 50 days.
Speaker 1:
Did they have enough?
Speaker 2:
food.
Speaker 3:
You know that some of them went in and out, like Thomas wasn't there at one point so I'm sure that there was some movement, but very carefully right, they weren't all out because still they were seen as this group of rebel Rousers.
Speaker 1:
So they were still hiding.
Speaker 3:
They were still hiding.
Speaker 2:
They had code names and stuff For the like. That's why Peter was the rock.
Speaker 3:
He sat by the door and Thomas was called Didymus.
Speaker 1:
So the first signs of the Holy Spirit are a noise like a strong wind and tongues of fire which rested on each of the disciples. Then, all of a sudden, these guys, these uneducated men, are able to speak many languages. What do all these symbols of the Holy Spirit mean?
Speaker 3:
Well, jordan, maybe we should ask you back to your time of confirmation, when the Bishop asks these questions before he imparts the sacrament, and we can't take it back if you get it wrong.
Speaker 1:
So you're okay. I don't remember the Bishop being there. Well, we might have to look into that one, but that's valid I don't think I knew who the Bishop was. I was like eight or nine years old, so I have to thank for a moment. But what are?
Speaker 3:
some symbols of the Holy Spirit that you remember. I know fire.
Speaker 1:
What was it like? Talking something, something with language.
Speaker 3:
Common language Common language.
Speaker 1:
And dove. And then there's something else that I can't remember. The wind, wind, yes.
Speaker 2:
The cloud, the pillar of cloud that led them through the desert in the Exodus. And then we see the cloud at the Transfiguration signs, then, of of course, the Holy Spirit, the dove, at the baptism of Jesus and at the Noah's.
Speaker 3:
Ark the dove.
Speaker 2:
But one of the interesting things, too, is this common language that they're all speaking at Pentecost is something that really like shines through in this passage. Why, why, common language? What does it have to do with anything? Well, of course, god wants us to be of one mind and one heart, and in some sense, that's language that we share in common. But go the whole way back to the book of Genesis. What happens whenever the people take things into their own hands and they want to build this great tower? What's that tower called Babel? Babel, right, just like the app.
Speaker 1:
Like baby babel.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, or the app babel Because they're like— Right, because it's named after. They at that time could understand each other, all in the common language, and they were building, literally, this tower in a way that was to siege the gates of heaven. They were trying to overtake God in heaven by their own will, and then we're told that God scattered them and he confused their language, and that's where we get the great idea of the tower of Babel. And so Pentecost, now coming back into the Spirit of God and in his unity and in the unity, gives common language back to the people, now not working as adversaries or enemies to God, but rather what Christ says, which is I came to make you a friend of God, to be in the mission of God, the Father.
Speaker 1:
So the crowd, when they're speaking these languages, are accusing them of being drunk, right?
Speaker 3:
They are.
Speaker 1:
And then Peter, my guy Peter. He refutes the claim by saying it's nine o'clock in the morning, like how could they be drunk already?
Speaker 3:
He wasn't in Margarita, though it's about the clock somewhere.
Speaker 1:
So Peter begins to quote Scripture to the people. And so why is Peter so engaging with the crowd?
Speaker 3:
Well, I think he's carrying out Christ's mission already, because we're you know, jesus told them go and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and part of that is that missionary reality and the reality that he learned at the last supper of service. So immediately he's taking by God's strength in the Holy Spirit and now he's being able to live out the call of Christ in his life, just like each of us are called to do. We're not called to only be in the church for mass, which is the most important thing we can do in our life, but at the end of mass it's go and there's doors open. We have to go out, and in going out, that's when we're able to live out, through the strength of the Holy Spirit, this great gift and share God's love and mercy and conversion and forgiveness.
Speaker 2:
So how can we be engaging today? I think in this way, peter, standing up for the truth of the goodness of the church and what's happening and to show people the spiritual fruits and goodness of what the church is doing, really engages the world. It's not that just we're going to Mass on a Sunday and we're hunkered down in our churches, but people can look around and actually see the good work that the church is doing in the world, serving those that are underserved, you know, feeding those that are hungry, going out into communities that are not our own to really assist them and aid them in their time of need. But I think Peter is so engaged here as well because he's kind of taking the forefront of defending the church in a way, and defending the truth and the goodness of the church as he is the first pope.
Speaker 2:
You know that was what he was supposed to do that Christ charged him with.
Speaker 1:
So these men who have been so afraid for such a long time 50 days now they're going out and proclaiming in front of everyone the resurrection of Jesus. They are sharing the gospel in a clear and direct manner. They are calling people to conversion. Why was their message so attractive?
Speaker 3:
Well, I think we have to think about, you know, what the, in philosophy and even in theologies, called those transcendentals the good, the true and the beautiful, and those three realities are what allows a person to see God's goodness and in his creative power in the world. And so the hallmark of good preaching is that it has to be true. It should be a beautiful, eloquent reality, and it's good. It's good. And so they're sharing the Evangelium, the good news, the gospel, and they're doing it in a way that's both attractive but also calls people to a challenge. Everyone likes a challenge.
Speaker 3:
You know, if we keep, oftentimes well you know nobody wants like Jordan, if I want you to get more active in the church and I'm like here's a lollipop, but now you're going to heaven, you're like, okay, great, thanks for the lollipop.
Speaker 3:
I see what you're saying, but if I'm challenging you to change your life and really work hard. Then it becomes attractive and these people would have seen the apostles walking with Jesus and they would have seen them almost as like a group of bombs who were fighting with each other, couldn't understand, you know, didn't know languages, a bunch of fishermen. And now there's something different about them. And the same thing happens to us when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, first in baptism, and then strengthen it, renewed in confirmation that something in us changes in a way that gives us the power of God in our own lives, that then we live out.
Speaker 2:
And I wanted to like just break in there as well. Why was it attractive? Because they were witnesses. So Saint Pope Paul the sixth, he said that people in our age listen to witnesses, not necessarily teachers. It's important to be a good teacher of the faith, but you have to live the actual thing that you're teaching, and if you don't do that, then there's a breaking up of the congruency of like the message and then people don't really want to live that out and find it.
Speaker 2:
But you saw these guys that like they gave everything to follow the Lord and they were still doing this even after their Lord had been killed. And they're going out into the world to preach this message, even at the cost, maybe, of their own life.
Speaker 3:
They did it to their own witness and in their own shedding of blood and death.
Speaker 1:
So it was so attractive, because they were so excited, because they witnessed, they believed and they were ready to get everybody else on board. They wanted more people.
Speaker 2:
And people saw a peace that they had even in the midst of struggle and difficulty. I mean, this was not an easy life to have, but they had a true peace. One of the great lies of the the ancient world at this time was called the Pox Romana the Roman peace.
Speaker 2:
The Rome, by being in charge of all these different regions, brought a peace where there wasn't war and all these other things. That might have been true in some sense, but there was still oppression and no morality. And people were oppressed by this great, false peace of the world. And Christ came to usher in the true peace of God which is bringing nations together, not because I'm going to stomp you into the ground if you don't listen to me, but rather out of love and understanding.
Speaker 3:
And that's when the great persecutions of the Christians started to begin. Then the Romans thought, well, if we just kill them all and torture them in public, then people will be too afraid to join them. But the opposite happened, and the more that they persecuted them, the more Christians joined because they saw this faith, that they were willing to go to their death for this Jesus guy singing to their death, and they were totally filled with God's Spirit because they knew then, they knew the resurrection, they knew the bodily resurrection and that, by their unity with Him and in the Holy Spirit, that they too would return to the Father and so really everything that they even today, the Christians across the world are the largest denomination of believers that are persecuted worldwide, and yet we're still here. We move forward.
Speaker 2:
We have more modern martyrs than in the history of the church. Like in the last two centuries, there's more martyrs together than in the previous 18 centuries of the church. People don't realize that because we live in the United States with a lot of freedoms here and so forth and not religious persecution. But you go to different places in this world, especially in the Middle East and there are a lot of. Christians who are killed for their faith.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think it's like 1% and the Holy Land is still Christian.
Speaker 2:
Still.
Speaker 1:
Christian. So did it work, did the disciples.
Speaker 3:
God always works.
Speaker 1:
Did the disciples get people to join when they went out and started talking like this in different languages and saying all this stuff about Jesus rising from the dead and everything?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 2:
It was wildly attractive, it seemed, in the point that 3,000 people were being baptized just in the midst of this instance, at Pentecost, and then far beyond.
Speaker 2:
That doesn't mean that whenever you don't see massive amounts of people that you preach to getting baptized immediately or coming into the Catholic Church or something that you're failing, that's not necessarily the case, but the Lord will work as long as you're willing to work with Him and you don't know even the seeds that you plant by just being outgoing in your faith. How often do we go to restaurants, my brothers and sisters, and we don't even make the sign of the cross before we eat something, because somebody will look at us a weird way or give us a side eye or whatever it will be? I wear clerics for almost all of my public encounters and sometimes I think it would just be easier not to put my clerics on today and just go in anonymous clothes. That's not living the gospel. We're out there so that people can witness and see us witnessing to our faith, and from those small things that you don't even have to say a singular word to a person, you might change their life and they might actually start thinking about Christ again in His Church.
Speaker 3:
The other day I was in an elevator and I got in, I was in my clerics and this kid said to me I've never seen a priest or you a real priest, you know, and it's as simple as that. But I think also you were trying on a Halloween costume earlier.
Speaker 1:
No, it's not October.
Speaker 3:
But if we see the success of the apostles and of those early Christians. But now it's also our task to continue that. And it's not the task only of priests and religious sisters and brothers or bishops. It's the task of the lady to live out their Christianity in the world, because they're the ones in the world, in the workplace, in the schools. And if they're not willing to witness to Christ, then this doesn't work.
Speaker 1:
You know so how can we make our witness exciting today and attract others to join the church?
Speaker 2:
By listening to the Catholic Accent Podcast, I think knowing your faith, which hopefully this entire podcast series has been for people is coming to know more about Scripture, our faith and why you should be really excited about it. I think sometimes we think faith can be very shallow, that we already kind of know everything we went through catechism or this or that but I think that that's not true whatsoever. As I've looked more and more into the faith, it's a deep well that continues to bring up great riches as I delve deeper into that great font of wisdom and from that it excites people. Why do we do what we do? Be able to explain that to people. But then, beyond that, just go beyond where you're comfortable, break out into new areas where you haven't been. Maybe Go down to a soup kitchen and help there, if that's not been one of your experiences. You're called to be a well-rounded, multi-dimensional Christian and it's a personal relationship with Christ.
Speaker 3:
We hear that so often and sometimes people think it's too hard to become personal with Him first. Right, but we don't worship a dead God. Our God is alive and because of that we're the only religion that has a living God that we've encountered and we've seen His face. And that's what really is exciting. And I think that's where, if people are looking for a way to get more involved or to begin to encounter Christ, and maybe it seems like it's too hard or too difficult to go to Christ first well, start light, go to the saints, make friends with the saints, because they're already with God in heaven and they're going to walk with you and lead you to Him. Go to the Blessed Mother. She'll take you right to her Son and when you see Him and encounter Him, everything changes and everything around you no longer matters except for the joy of the gospel and to bring others to encounter Him and see that love.
Speaker 2:
And always be careful to look at religion and say well, it's the things I have to do, it's obligations, right, that's not love, that's not a relationship. That's not going to last long. If it's like I just have to do this thing because I have to do it as a duty, it has to move beyond that. In the Gospel of John we hear from Jesus this is one of my favorite quotes that I came to give life and to bring it and give it more abundantly. Right, and do we really believe that that religion, a relationship with our God, gives us more abundant life? Or is it just begrudgingly we have to do it because we've got to get to heaven that way?
Speaker 2:
And that doesn't inspire.
Speaker 3:
And that life comes from the Spirit, because later in Scripture here it's the Spirit who gives life, and we see that happening here in Pentecost, where the Spirit comes and gives life to the people, True life, not the life of the world, but the life of God.
Speaker 2:
Ushered in the Ruah right, the Great Spirit.
Speaker 3:
And the Great Noina yeah.
Speaker 2:
Breathe into us, to give us life.
Speaker 1:
I do hope that people listen to this podcast, like you were talking about Father Andrew and Father Chris, that they enjoy it. It excites them and engages them and they go out and do acts of service and they want to come back to see what we're talking about and everything.
Speaker 2:
They came for the three handsome men, but you know Right well, maybe people aren't even watching.
Speaker 1:
They don't know.
Speaker 3:
Well, next season, hopefully we start bringing some guests on. And what?
Speaker 1:
I was going to say is hopefully people like this and we are told by Bishop and others to come back.
Speaker 3:
Hopefully they Hopefully we're not canceled after one recent contract, actually just one episode.
Speaker 1:
They're like you know what we got to take these down.