Homily from the 2012 Mass of the Holy Spirit
Rev. Stephen A. Privett, S.J., President
St. Ignatius Church
As I look out at you student athletes, I
am reminded of the recent Olympic games.
While watching the games, I heard a TV commentator talk about the 1936
Berlin Olympics, which were hosted by Hitler and viewed by him as an
opportunity to demonstrate to all the world the alleged “supremacy” of the
so-called “master race” over presumed “inferior” persons of color, ethnicity
and non-Nordic cultures.
Nazi hopes were dramatically dashed by
the great African American track and field star, Jesse Owens. Owens won four gold medals. In the long jump, he defeated the second-place
German and Nazi “great white hope,” Karl “Lutz” Long. When Jesse stepped up to the winner’s podium,
Hitler angrily stormed out of the stadium; when Owens stepped down from the
podium with the gold medallion around his neck, Lutz put his arm around Jesse’s
shoulders and the Black American and Blond German walked arm-in-arm off the
field. This simple gesture of
admiration and friendship was an act of inexplicable courage and daring at the
time. Owens later said, “you can melt
down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn’t be plating on the
twenty-four carat friendship that I felt from Lutz at that moment.”
More recently, the African American Mayor
of Newark, Cory Booker, pushed his security team aside and ran into a flaming
building to save his neighbor. He said afterwards,
“we have to fight … the narcissism and me-ism that erode our moral
culture. We can’t put shallow celebrity
before core decency. We have to have a
deeper faith in our human spirit.”
USF Professor Julio Moreno recently sent
me an autobiographical essay about his harrowing passage from the grinding
poverty and brutal violence of rural El Salvador during the 1980 Civil War to
the United States, where he lived without documents for over a decade. He successfully struggled against
overwhelming odds to support his family and ultimately graduate from college
and earn his Ph.D. It is a compelling story
of unparalleled courage, hope, self-sacrifice and determination. This is the story of countless numbers of
undocumented brothers and sisters in this country today.
You may have less dramatic but equally
compelling stories about our human spirit at its best. My point is simple: we human beings are
capable of doing what is remarkably noble and selfless; we may also do what is petty
and selfish. We can do the right thing,
even at great cost to ourselves; or we can ruthlessly pursue our own gratification,
no matter the cost to others.
I believe with the Gospel that the human
spirit at its best – whether in “Lutz” Long, Cory Booker, Julio Moreno or
someone you know – is the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised would be with us
forever. Our first reading insists that
when we act according to “the better angels of our human nature, “ we are
responding to the promptings of the good Spirit, the Holy Spirit; when we act from
base, selfish motives, we are seduced by the bad spirit, the Spirit of
evil. The reading tells us what we already
know: two forces are battling for our
hearts and minds. Those forces are
diametrically opposed to each other; we cannot follow both at the same
time. At any moment, we are free to
follow either the human/holy Spirit of God or the inhumane/evil Spirit. However you choose – and choose you will –
your choice will make all difference for you and for others in your life. Today, we pray that we may all choose wisely
and that our lives may bear witness to the power of God’s Holy Spirit abiding within
us.
One final observation: the first reading
talks only about the effects of the Spirit because the Holy Spirit is like the
wind that blows across our lower campus.
We never see that wind but we feel its effects and we know it is there. We cannot see the Holy Spirit but we
certainly feel the effects. This Spirit
is not unique to Christians. Let’s be
clear about that. In fact, our sacred texts clearly teach that wherever
there is love, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, truthfulness, there
the Spirit is at work. Those qualities come from somewhere. They cannot come from nowhere. Recall the ancient Latin chant, “ubi caritas
et amor, ibi Deus est” – wherever there is goodness and love, there is
God. We do not see God but we certainly
feel the effects of God’s presence in the love and the goodness we experience and
share – the very love that makes our lives worth living.
At this celebration let us reaffirm our
desire to be guided by the human/Holy Spirit whom we invoke at this liturgy,
and let us further pledge to support and encourage one another’s efforts to be responsive
to the Holy/human Spirit of truth who is with us and in us now and forever.
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Archive of Fr. Privett’s homilies from previous Masses of the Holy Spirit:
