View from the pew
We’ve come to the end of the longest annual celebration of our faith. After months of a penitential Lent and a joyous and glorious Easter season, we’re back to the liturgy of Ordinary Time.
But not before we celebrated the birthday of the church, Pentecost Sunday, May 24. It’s a feast day that rings my spiritual bell the most of all our holy days. I guess it’s partly the optics, as the current saying goes, that grab me. It was also the music of that day that wrung my tear ducts dry and has stayed in my head ever since.
I remember a pastor from back in the day who, with the aid of an athletic Sacred Hearts brother, climbed into the high ceiling of St. Patrick Church to hang a flight of red cloth “tongues of fire” over the sanctuary for Pentecost Sunday. Not so dramatic today, it’s red vestments on the celebrant and, in some churches, red wall hangings to signify the Paraclete.
So many times in my life, I have pondered and envied the miracle of the Holy Spirit, coming upon the apostles as Jesus had promised them. It brought them the courage and the knowledge to take up his challenge to spread the good news of God’s love to people beyond themselves.
I always feel like a silent cheerleader for whatever lector has the challenge of reading from the Acts of the Apostles that long list of the diverse crowd that heard the apostles preach in their own languages. Hard to pronounce the names of those foreigners, yeah? “Parthians, Medes, Elamites … from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius, Phrygia, Pamphylia.”
I also wanted to cheer when Father Quy Tran began his homily by pointing out to the congregation that we reflect similar diversity, people with roots in Polynesia, Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, Europe and, indicating himself as Vietnamese and the choir of Samoans.
Hawaii’s Catholic history puts the Portuguese at the top of the list of people celebrating the Holy Ghost (aka the Holy Spirit). When the first group of immigrants from Portugal came to Hawaii in the 19th century to work on sugar plantations, they brought a traditional Holy Ghost festival, which involves feasting and music. It dates back to the 1300s, created by Queen Isabel who became St. Elizabeth of Portugal.
There is still a Holy Ghost parish on Maui. There also used to be Holy Ghost chapels on all islands, owned by Portuguese communities, not necessarily part of the Catholic diocese.
The first hymn of the Pentecost Mass was an oldie, which the Portuguese friend behind us, and most of us did not need to follow in the hymnal. With gusto, we sang:
Come Holy Ghost, creator blest, and in our hearts take up thy rest.
Oh comforter, to thee we cry, thou heavenly gift of God most high.
Thou font of life and fire of love, and sweet anointing from above.
To every sense thy light impart … thy strength supply, unfailing courage from on high.
Grant that we, through thee, may come to know the Father and the Son and hold with firm, unchanging faith, that thou art Spirit of them both.
You may have read my past lamenting that some of our centuries-old hymns are ponderous messages. But I’m all in with this one, written by a Benedictine monk and bishop in the ninth century. Its Latin title is “Veni Creator Spiritus” and it is sung at ordinations of priests, consecrations of bishops and papal elections.
Before the Pentecost Mass was pau, we embraced the multiethnic theme with “Pan de Vida, cuerpo del Senor,” a mixture of English and Spanish celebrating the “bread of life, body of Christ.” Aha, my kind of post-Vatican II hymn — by a married couple of composers, Bob Hurd and Pia Moriarty. I also heard it as an affirmation of inclusion to the Spanish-speaking immigrants who are the target of official bullying these days.
After Mass, the Samoan choir went outside of liturgical and sang “Happy Birthday to You.”
As for “Come Holy Ghost,” they should make that into a holy card. Wait, is there still such a thing? Certainly not available in Hawaii since the Daughters of St. Paul closed their bookstore in downtown Honolulu.
I am so old school that I actually carry a couple of holy cards in my purse. One is St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer for peace and the other, a prayer to the Holy Spirit. Before I start writing anything, including my view from the pew, I say the shorthand version: “Come Holy Spirit, enlighten my mind and strengthen my will to do good and avoid evil.” That dates back to days of pre-test prep at Marquette University.
Pentecost was a day of continued musical mental meandering. We ended the day watching the annual Memorial Day concert on the U.S. Capitol lawn filmed by the Public Broadcasting System. Although the theme is patriotic, there was a prayerful thread in the program headlining several entertainers including Scotty Hasting, an Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient turned country singer, who sang his composition “I’m America” with lyrics that include “I’m the prayer ‘In God We Trust.’”
The events celebrated were a mix of cheers and tears, starting with the 250th anniversary of the 1776 victory of the American revolution, another epic birthday.
But this year is also the 85th anniversary of the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
And we relived the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers with country music star Alan Jackson singing his award-winning lament, “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)?” If the song didn’t bring tears, the memory of that September day still does.
He sang “Did you shout out in anger, in fear for your neighbor…or did you just sit down and cry? … Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer and look at yourself and what really matters?”
The concert traditionally involves American military participants, currently serving as well as veterans being honored. I was pleasantly surprised to see that tradition continued, considering the current political climate in which federal funding for public television and public radio organizations has been erased.
But there they were, all of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, joining in a musical medley of songs from all military branches. Chairman Gen. Dan Caine spoke of the 1 million people who have served in the U.S. military throughout our history, said “God bless those who are now serving and their families,” and “God bless the United States of America.” The program can still be found online.
My sister and I, in our quiet corner of Hawaii, sang along with the Washington, D.C., crowd of thousands in singing “God Bless America.” The song is still streaming in my head.
Above: Soldiers from the U.S. Army Third Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard, participated May 21 in the annual “Flags-In” event, where U.S. flags are placed at service members’ gravesites in advance of Memorial Day, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. (Matt McClain / Reuters / OSV News)