Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 24 May 2026

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

Be sure to carve out a little time from your schedule today to consider the significance of what we celebrate this Pentecost Sunday.

On our parish website, at the bottom of the front page, is a line I wrote when I first came to Saint Bernadette. It was something that came to me while I was praying in the church one day of Lent, I think. I wrote, “The Liturgy is the moment of the Cross and the empty tomb, when the public life of Jesus paused, and the public life of his believers began. In Liturgy our life becomes Christ, and we are sent from the altar to fulfill his works, a mission that he received from his Father and that we have inherited by his mercy.”

Today I add to it that the Holy Spirit is our connectedness to our inheritance, the bond of love that is the dynamic relationship of begetting and being begotten of the Father and Son, co-equal and consubstantial, which is poured into our hearts. The Son is “begotten, not made,” and we who were made, are begotten by the Spirit of God, our inheritance. As heirs, we are also responsible for mission, and that mission is not an individual calling. It is for a community.

The Apostles and disciples are together when this decisive change comes suddenly from heaven. The Promise is realized as human gathering anticipates and divine gift fulfills. John Paul II said that Pentecost is a communication of the very vitality of God who gives himself to men for continual sanctification.

In this way, the Spirit does something essential for the Church’s infancy: the witness of the Spirit of truth becomes “one with that of the Apostles,” fusing divine and human testimony into “one saving reality,” and from that one fusion flows the evangelization entrusted to the Church as her mission.

They left that upper room after locking themselves inside for nine days, not knowing what to do next, and went outside. They boldly told their story, and the story of Jesus and what happened to him, and who was responsible for doing it. What happens at Pentecost is not the practiced words of humans, nor is it a kind of prophecy that flows through them like an oracle. It is the marriage of the two, a synergy, a Word that reaches the heart of seekers and touches them in a way greater than knowledge or emotion. 3,000 were baptized that day.

The Holy Spirit is also the principle of unity and order in the Church. The Spirit “dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful as in a temple,” prays and bears witness within them, guides the Church “into all the truth, unifies her in communion and ministry,” and provides “varied hierarchical and charismatic gifts” (John Paul II).

In our study of Divine Revelation, there are three sources, or “fonts,” of how God reveals himself to the world. Sacred Scripture takes first place. It is the Word of God, not in the sense of spiritual dictation, but how God moves the hearts of people to carry forward oral traditions, and later the inspiration and encounters God has with prophets and evangelists.

The Gospels are the most important scriptures, because they are the real-time accounts of God’s Word-made-flesh, Jesus Christ. As a complex human person, however he taught not only by words but also by actions and example. These constitute the second font of revelation called Tradition. Tradition includes communal life, worship, veneration of the Mother of God, and other aspects which happened but were not necessarily recorded in Scripture.

As the Church continues to be guided by the living Holy Spirit for continual sanctification, we value the teaching Magisterium of the Church to carry forward into different cultures and circumstances the perennial faith of the Church in a way that is faithful and true. We do not rely on our own opinions or judgments to guide the Church, because as we have seen in so many instances, often all we find is ever greater division.

For this unity we must pray—for a new Pentecost! Join the Church as we pray for Christian unity this Tuesday night with bishops and leaders, here at 7pm.

The Lord be with you,