Leaving the Room

I was a full-grown adult before I realized that Pentecost is known as “the birthday of the Church,” and it only resonated with me because someone showed up to a church function with cake and candles. Leave it to buttercream frosting to drive home a theological reality I had been missing for 25 years.

I knew what Pentecost was, of course. It simply went over my head that, despite all the incredible, world-changing things that had come before the moment of Pentecost, prior to this day, the Apostles were just a group of guys in a room. It wasn’t until Pentecost that they became the Church.

So what makes the Church…well, the Church, capital C? What makes it more than just a group of guys in a room?

It’s true, they were a very special group of guys. They had the Truth — capital T. They had borne witness to Christ’s miracles, to his life and to his passion and death.

But they were still in that room.

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they received graces and gifts that made them fit to carry out the Great Commission. The Truth wasn’t enough, even with a capital T. They needed the Spirit — capital S — and more than that, they needed to receive it with the courage and faith necessary to do what needed to be done.

To get up and leave the room.

Because what good is any of it unless they leave the room? What does it matter, the tongues of fire and the miraculous bilingualism and, frankly, the coming of the Spirit, if no one ever hears about it?

The mission is what made them the Church. It’s what makes us the Church. Without it, we’re just a bunch of guys in a room.

©LPi