Collect for Pentecost, Mass during the Day

Thank you for joining me, this week, we Lectio the Liturgy with the Collect for Pentecost, Mass during the Day.

O God, who by the mystery of today’s great feast sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation, pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit across the face of the earth and, with the divine grace that was at work when the Gospel was first proclaimed, fill now once more the hearts of believers. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Let’s start with a quick look at a theme of the prayer: transcending time. We ask God come upon the believers today just like he did when the Gospel was first proclaimed. When was that exactly? At the time of creation? At Jesus’ birth? At his Baptism? At Pentecost? The answer is yes.

When was the Gospel first proclaimed to you? At a religious education class? In your home? The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel. God sent his son to exchange our sins for eternal life, and we can be free to leave our former lives behind and live for Christ. If you haven’t heard the Gospel message before, you have now, and I invite you to join me in living in the Kingdom of God.

We also have some great verbs in the prayer:
Sanctify (sanctificas): to make holy or treat as holy, consecrate
Pour (defunde): pour out, pour down. Ok that one is not the most fun, but this one is:
Fill (perfunde): to pour over, wet, to steep, dye, to imbue.

I was caught off guard with the the definitions of “fill” because to pour over isn’t the same as dye, but imbue seemed to tie the two definitions together. If something is imbued it is saturated.

Then I got to thinking, at Pentecost, we pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but are we dyed with the Holy Spirit?

Dyeing first seemed like a different process than filling. When we dye fiber, or cloth, the colorant is dissolved in the water and the fiber or cloth is added. The fibers then absorb the color from the water, changing the color of the fiber. The fibers are now imbued or filled with new color.

My next question is this, “How deeply are we dyed with the Holy Spirit?” We could be tie-dyed, with some parts of us bound up that we don’t want changed. We could be dip-dyed, saturated for a while but getting more diluted as time goes along. Or we could be all-out immersed, imbued, and completely dyed by the Holy Spirit, new creatures, sanctified, filled with the gifts that God has for each of us to carry on His mission on earth.

I think that filled and dyed are not either/or. It’s both/and. We should be both filled and dyed with the Holy Spirit. Why? Because our world need another Pentecost. There were no believers in the crowd outside when those few people in the Upper Room changed the world after they received the power of the Holy Spirit. That day, 3,000 people heard the Gospel and came to believe, they repented and were baptized. God poured his gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the world. This Pentecost, I pray that all believers use the Spirit’s gift of courage to say “yes!” and jump headfirst into the dye that is the life of the Spirit.

Lectio the Liturgy: As we Lectio the Liturgy this week, have an honest conversation with yourself about the role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your life. Can you name the gifts? (wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord) Are they so deeply imbued in you that they have they become part of who you are?
How deeply are you dyed in the Holy Spirit? Tie-dyed? Dip dyed? A light pastel shade? Make it your goal to be that same deep, rich shade that matches the Apostles and Mary when they left the Upper Room.

Thank you for praying with me. Have a blessed Pentecost,
Julie