Liturgy and Worship Reflections

In the solemn celebration of Pentecost, we are invited to profess our faith in the presence and in the action of the Holy Spirit and to invoke His outpouring upon us, upon the Church, and upon the whole world. With special intensity, let us make our own the Church's invocation: Veni, Sancte Spiritus! It is such a simple and spontaneous invocation, yet also extraordinarily profound, which came first of all from the heart of Christ. The Spirit is indeed the gift that Jesus asked and continues to ask of His Father for His friends: the first and principal gift that He obtained for us through His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.

Our Paschal Candle for this year is hand-decorated by a small Catholic artist based in Washington state. The primary artwork on the candle depicts the scene of John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River from Matthew 3.

Today, on Mother's Day, we honor our mothers, but an often-overlooked mother to us all is the bride of Christ: Holy Mother Church. The apostles in their writings routinely likened the relationship between Christ and His Church to that of the groom and his bride. Just as God is the father of creation and exercises His authority over it, the Church, as the bride of Christ and flowing forth from Him, is the mother of creation and exercises her nurturing care and oversight of what has been entrusted to her by Him.