[00:00] Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. Here we come to the completion of the Paschal Tide with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Pentecost is from the Greek word that means 50, 50 days after the resurrection of our

[00:37] Lord. Here the promise of our Lord is fulfilled, that He would send to them, to the disciples, to the apostles, a blessed lady present with them as well as some other women, would send to them the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Blessed Trinity. And they would be emboldened to go out, in fact we see them in the first reading, going

[01:10] out and preaching the gospel, the way of life, actually what they called the way at that point, the gospel, which comes from an old English word actually, and that word means good news, good news of our salvation, the way of our salvation, and they would go out and boldly preach it.

[01:40] And we see in our first reading, there were people that gathered there, probably thousands, all speaking different languages, and yet they understood everything in their own language. What has been frequently come to know as the gift of tongues, it's not clear that the apostles actually spoke multiple languages all at once like that, but they were certainly understood by all these people in their own languages, and the miracle worked by the Holy Spirit

[02:14] at that point with His coming. And what that points to is the unity of the Church is, the language of the Church is one. What is that language? What is it speaking? Our salvation, this is the way of our salvation, by following the gospel, living as Christ lived, even to the point of necessarily dying as He died, living the gospel.

[02:48] This is the way to our salvation, and that is what our whole life here is about. How do we save our souls? How are we going to arrive at that eternal union with God in paradise? How do we arrive? Because that's our goal. We have to remind ourselves of that. That is our goal. And so over here, the Holy Spirit comes to them, and they go out and they prepare that very goal, that very way, to everyone.

[03:27] And we too, with the coming of the Holy Spirit right now, we won't go out and necessarily speak in all kinds of tongues. By the fact that we live the gospel, live the faith we have, we are speaking the one language that will help save many others. We may never know how many we save, and that's a good thing that we're not puffed up with pride and say, "Oh, look what I do, look what I can do," because it's not you doing it, it's

[03:58] not myself doing it. It's God working through us. It's God who does it, and it's God, and He is working through us by just living our faith, even just a little gesture, like making the sign of the cross, even in public, not being afraid, living our faith. Others see our example, and that's enough, and I've known it to happen. It can convert. We must not think, "Oh, there's no need for conversion," but there is, because if we don't,

[04:42] then how are we going to save our souls? It's not going to happen. It is necessary. Actually, we all have to undergo a certain conversion, all of us, throughout our lives. Why? Because in our weakness, we fall, we offend God, we turn away. We have to convert and turn around, that's really what that means, turn around and go back to God. So we're actually undergoing a conversion constantly, all of us. We also have to recognize that we can't do it alone, we can't do it ourselves.

[05:16] We need God, we need the Holy Spirit to help us, and that is exactly what His role is. You can call that sanctification, that's what He does, and He is with us. He does move us, and if we really stop to think about it, really stop to reflect, we'll actually even feel it, we'll know it, but we have to also let Him do it. We must pray for that, work towards that, work towards our salvation, live for that.

[05:56] Obey what God, what our Lord tells us in the Gospel several times, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Me, follow Me. When He says follow Me, He doesn't mean simply walk behind My footsteps, follow My footsteps, He means live what I have lived, do what I have done. And if we will, then we are surely on our way to our salvation, and by our example,

[06:34] we can bring many others with us, and if we truly live that faith, live that love we have for Him, we will want that. It just doesn't work any other way, we will want that, and it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Let us, let the Holy Spirit work through us, and I might add also, no better place to go and seek that help than before our Lord, really, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Eucharist, living with us day and night, another promise that He made us, that He is

[07:09] keeping, that He will be with us until the end of time. He is with us, and if we will come to Him, He will lead us and bring us to that union with Him, which is our salvation. Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.