Empowered to Give, Receive, and Be Love: Pentecost Saturday
A blessed Pentecost, friends! May you know the power of the risen and reigning Christ resting on you and working through you today, tomorrow, and always!
Welcome to the Pentecost Daybook series for these 8 days of celebrating (today through Trinity Sunday).
Look: Jae-Im Kim (Korean), The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost, 1996. Collage.
Source: Joy in the Lord: The Collage Art of Jae-Im Kim, vol. 1 (New Haven, Connecticut: OMSC Publications, 2009), H/T: Art & Theology
Listen: You can listen to my playlist for Pentecost in its entirety on Spotify: Pentecost 2020.
Read: Psalm 55; Ecclesiastes 5:8-20; Galatians 3:23-4:11; Matthew15:1-20
Pray: Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful,
and enkindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Amen.
Do: Throughout the week I'll be sharing excerpts from spiritual teacher Henri Nouwen as well as my own brief reflections about the way the Holy Spirit empowers us to live in peace, freedom, and power. Read, reflect, journal, and share your own responses with the rest of us in the comment section below.
Empowered to Receive Love
"The Spirit reveals to us not only that God is "Abba, Father" but also that we belong to God as his beloved children. The Spirit thus restores in us the relationship from which all other relationships derive their meaning.
Abba is a very intimate word. The best translation for it is: "Daddy." The word Abba expresses trust, safety, confidence, belonging, and most of all intimacy. It does not have the connotation of authority, power, and control, that the word Father often evokes. On the contrary, Abba implies an embracing and nurturing love. This love includes and infinitely transcends all the love that comes to us from our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, spouses, and lovers. It is the gift of the Spirit."
The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen
Empowered to Be
"Who are we? Are we what we do? Are we what others say about us? Are we the power we have? It often seems that way in our society. But the Spirit of Jesus given to us reveals our true spiritual identities. The Spirit reveals that we belong not to a world of success, fame, or power but to God. The world enslaves us with fear; the Spirit frees us from that slavery and restores us to the true relationship. That is what Paul means when he says: "All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons [daughters] of God, for what you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you received the spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, 'Abba, Father!'" (Romans 8:15).
Who are we? We are God's beloved sons and daughters!"
Here and Now by Henri Nouwen
So glad to be in this family of love together.
Joyful Pentecost, friends!
Tamara