Pentecost: Drenched In the Spirit
by Paulist Fr. Rich Andre
May 23, 2018

Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on Pentecost Sunday, May 20, 2018, at St. Austin Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; and John 15:26-27, 16:12-15.



Woohoo! It’s Pentecost! It’s the birthday of the Church! But more importantly, we celebrate that the Holy Spirit has abundantly showered each of us with gifts!

When we think of Pentecost, we most likely think of the Acts of the Apostles’ account of the first Christian Pentecost. But today, we will focus on the second reading, in which Paul appeals to the bickering Corinthian Christians to be united to one another.

The Holy Spirit does not just give gifts to each of us individually. The Spirit also gives us gifts as a community. The Spirit is the “glue” that binds us to one another within the Body of Christ!

As we are drenched once again with the waters of baptism, let us celebrate that we all continue to be drenched in the Holy Spirit!


We are very familiar with St. Paul’s metaphor of many people making up the parts of one body. The people of Paul’s time were also familiar with this metaphor, because it alluded to a famous fable by Menenius Agrippa. In the fable, the hands, the mouth, and the teeth of a body are jealous that the belly has the privilege of digesting the food. They decide to go on strike and stop helping the belly procure food. Of course, the hands, the mouth, and the teeth suffer as the belly starves.

The moral of the fable was a classic principle of Stoic philosophy: accept the hand that is dealt to you. Some people are superior to others. Shut up and do your job. Seneca, the great philosopher, was fond of pointing out that in the Roman Empire, the head of the body was Nero. He was the most important.

Paul took this analogy and turned it upside down. All the parts of the body are important, Paul says. All are interdependent on one another.

If we are all parts in the one Body of Christ, my friend Dr. Ruth Queen Smith was definitely part of the lungs. She breathed the Holy Spirit more fully than anyone else I have met. Many of the most significant events we celebrated together occurred in various years during the third week of May, a week that often includes the great feast of Pentecost. I first met the remarkable Ruth 12 years ago this weekend in Queens, New York. Poised, articulate, filled with insight. Because of where I was sitting, I heard her voice and her ideas before I saw how different she looked from everyone else in the room. At a meeting dominated by white-haired Catholic priests, she definitely stood out: a visually-impaired African-American woman. Two years later, when we were looking for someone to proclaim this very passage from Paul for the 150th anniversary convocation of the Paulist Fathers, I knew that this was the woman to invite!

Four years later, when I moved to Tennessee, I became Ruth’s pastoral colleague on the staff of St. John XXIII Parish. Six years ago this weekend, she came to New York to joyfully proclaim a reading at my ordination: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” Two years ago this weekend, I presided at her retirement party Mass, and sadly, almost exactly one year later, Ruth died much too soon from the complications of multiple sclerosis, lupus, blindness, and dementia.

The Holy Spirit told Ruth when she was eight years old, “You will be an evangelist.” Remarkably, Ruth didn’t learn what the word “evangelist” meant until a year later. Despite such a clear calling, Ruth’s journey took many twists and turns along the way. Even when she still had her sight and worked as a photojournalist, she came to her parish church every week, ready to lead a Bible study… but no one joined her for over a year. As her sight deteriorated and her health problems multiplied, she moved to another city to her pursue a PhD in adult learning, and she eventually became a full-time pastoral associate. In the last 25 years of her life, she led some of the most dynamic Bible studies in the nation, often to huge groups. She was one of the few laywomen who has given retreats for priests! I have taken 6 classes on Scripture and 3 classes on preaching, but the person who has most helped the Scriptures come alive for me is Dr. Ruth Queen Smith. The woman who was blind did the most to help me see!

There are many gifts from the one same Spirit. Ruth was just one small part of the Body of Christ, but she has blessed generations of people. In the past year, when I’ve faced a challenge, her sister Nancy assures me that Ruth is fervently praying for me in heaven. I don’t think it is that the Spirit gave Ruth more gifts than others. I think she simply was willing to make the maximum use of the gifts the Holy Spirit gave to her!

Why were there Judeans, Medes, Mesopotamians, Arabs, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Parthians, Cretans, Capadocians, Elamites, Egyptians, Libyans, and Romans in Jerusalem? Ruth suggested that it may have been a year of Jubilee, when more people were able to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which was called “Pentecost” in Greek. And what had the disciples been doing in the 9 days since the Ascension? Gathering in the Upper Room, telling their stories about how they had come to know Jesus. For example, this was probably the first time Peter, James, and John told everyone about their experience of the Transfiguration. In other words, this was when they became evangelists.

And then on that day of Pentecost, they were ready. The Holy Spirit came down upon them and it was like a chemical reaction. The doors of the Upper Room blew open, and the disciples could no longer contain their joy.

Friends, if we want to celebrate Pentecost the right way, it’s simple. We need to be evangelists. We need to tell our story to anyone who will listen. (As Ruth famously said, “All you have to do is tell your story of faith. You’re the expert. No one is going to tell you that you’re telling it wrong.”) Ruth may have been part of the lungs of the Body of Christ, but she has helped to deliver the Holy Spirit to all of us, no matter what our respective roles may be. As we leave this place today, let us make it a new Pentecost. As members of the Body of Christ, we have received the gifts we need from the Holy Spirit  — both the individual gifts we need, and the gifts we need as a community. Let our joy explode outward from this place. Let us set the world on fire with God’s love!