{"id":21389,"date":"2022-06-06T09:48:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T13:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21389"},"modified":"2022-06-06T09:50:22","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T13:50:22","slug":"21389","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21389","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l0xhhG1Hyos\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Baptism of Fire and Spirit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.&nbsp;And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.&nbsp;Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.&nbsp;All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability<\/em>. \u2014Acts 2:1\u20134<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In this Pentecost homily, Father Richard Rohr encourages us to recognize and call upon the Holy Spirit, a gift God has already given us!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a shame that the Holy Spirit tends to be an afterthought for many Christians. We don\u2019t really \u201chave the Spirit.\u201d We tend, I\u2019m afraid, to simply go through the motions. We formally believe, but honestly, there isn\u2019t much fire to it. There isn\u2019t much conviction. There isn\u2019t much service. We just sort of believe. That\u2019s why in the Gospels there are two baptisms that are clearly distinguished. There\u2019s the baptism with water that most of us are used to, and there\u2019s the baptism \u201c<strong>with the Holy Spirit and fire\u201d (Matthew 3:11); that\u2019s the one that really matters.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The water baptism that many of us received as children really demands little conviction or understanding.<strong> Until that water baptism becomes real, until we know Jesus, and we can rely on Jesus, call upon Jesus, share Jesus, love Jesus, we\u2019re just going along for the ride.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can recognize people who have had a second baptism in the Holy Spirit. They tend to be loving. They tend to be exciting. They want to serve others, and not just be served themselves. They forgive life itself for not being everything they once hoped for. They forgive their neighbors. They forgive themselves for not being as perfect as they would like to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though we so often pray, \u201cCome, Holy Spirit,\u201d the gift of the Spirit is already given. The Holy Spirit has already come. You all are temples of the Holy Spirit, equally, objectively, and forever! The only difference is the degree that we know it, draw upon it, and consciously believe it. All the scriptural images of the Spirit are dynamic\u2014flowing water, descending dove, fire, and wind. If there\u2019s never any movement, energy, excitement, deep love, service, forgiveness, or surrender, you can be pretty sure you don\u2019t have the Spirit. <strong>If our whole lives are just going through the motions, if there\u2019s never any deep conviction, we don\u2019t have the Spirit. We would do well to fan into flame the gift that we already have.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God does not give God\u2019s Spirit to those of us who are worthy, because none of us are worthy.\u00a0<em><strong>God gives God\u2019s Spirit in this awakened way to those who want it.<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0On this Feast of Pentecost, quite simply, want it! Rely upon it. Know that you already have it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Palpable Reality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In 1971, Richard was assigned to be in charge of the youth retreat program for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio. For most of the very first retreat, Richard tells that he thought all the boys<\/em><em>\u2014<\/em><em>\u201ca bunch of jocks\u201d<\/em><em>\u2014<\/em><em>were just tolerating him. But as Richard finished preaching on the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11\u201332), \u201ca perfect story of how Jesus saw God,\u201d the boys began to cry and embrace each other. Here\u2019s Richard in his own words:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I moved back; I didn\u2019t know what to do with this. You\u2019d think I\u2019d be grateful that one of my sermons worked! And then they began singing in tongues. I\u2019d never heard someone speaking in tongues before. My mouth fell open. What did this mean? I\u2019d never heard anything so beautiful, and no one was orchestrating it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I endured it for about ten or fifteen minutes. Although I was delighting in it, I was also scared. I didn\u2019t know what to do; I didn\u2019t know how to join in, so I just watched. Finally, I broke in and said, \u201cGuys, I\u2019ll put the pizzas in the oven next door. Come over in twenty-five minutes.\u201d No one paid a bit of attention to me. I put those pizzas in the oven. Twenty-five minutes later, I took them out and there were no boys. I couldn\u2019t understand why they were not on time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ll never forget walking back across the parking lot into the chapel and opening the doors. Now they were all kneeling around the high altar of St. Anthony\u2019s Church (where I had been a novice), still singing in tongues. They never left the church the whole night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was the birth of the New Jerusalem Community. The next Friday, many of these boys brought their girlfriends and it grew quickly by word of mouth. Soon the girls were singing in tongues, too. The next month they brought their parents and grandparents. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Andreas Ebert (1952\u20132022) and Patricia C. Brockman, editors of the book&nbsp;<\/em>Richard Rohr: Illuminations of His Life and Work,<em>&nbsp;summarized the Spirit\u2019s work through this period of Richard\u2019s ministry:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The young people he taught and led on retreats were overwhelmed with the gospel message. They gathered around this enthusiastic young priest, hungry for Scripture, increasingly eager for the shared life described there. Their weekly prayer gatherings began with fervent charismatic prayer and expanded from a group of teenagers to, at times, more than a thousand persons of many ages and diverse backgrounds. All the signs and wonders of the early church flourished among the prayers. It eventually became clear that enthusiasm was not enough, and among those followers some desired to live in a closer bond and within the discipleship of Christian community. Thus, New Jerusalem came into being, a laboratory-church where many came to commit themselves to the dream of a church that follows and trusts Jesus. This was now no mere ideal, but a palpable reality. [2]<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"339\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image-500x339.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21390\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image-500x339.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image-300x204.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image-768x521.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/image.png 1806w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baptism of Fire and Spirit When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.&nbsp;And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.&nbsp;Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21389"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21389"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21392,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21389\/revisions\/21392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}