Good morning dear brothers and sisters! Peace be with you. I hope I can get your attention for my preach. We listened to the Gospel that Jesus repeated his greeting “peace be with you” two times to his disciples. Do you know why Jesus repeat these words? Okay. Before answering this question, now, let us imagine that situation. Imagine that all of us now stay inside this church and we lock all of the doors and windows. We just sit and stay quiet. If we speak to others, we just whisper to others so that there will be no people notice that there are people inside. Why do we do this? It is because there are many people outside who are looking for us to face the trial. After all, we follow a person to whom we believe as our savior. Unfortunately, the savior was punished to death and society want to get rid of his followers. We are their prey.

Suddenly, there is a person that you have never seen since you enter the church who stand in our midst and speak loudly, “Peace be with you.” What do you feel? What comes out to your mind? At first, we keep quiet because someone just showed himself and shut out. You might get angry and want to shut up his mouth, or you get shocked and keep silent. Then, this guy shows us his wounds, and his wounds are the same wounds that pierced the person we believe as our savior. There, we recognize that he is Jesus. So, how do we feel when we recognize him. Once more he said, “Peace be with you.”

He greets us so that we have peace in our hearts. We are in a state of fears. Jesus comes into our midst to create peace in our hearts. The repetition itself has important meanings. First, it pulls our attention to him. Second, it helps us to be aware of our situation. Third, it helps us to internalize the message that we receive.

I believe that the greeting ‘peace be with you’ is an important greeting to the disciples at that time. They were afraid and lose hope. So, to be at peace and to be free from fear is the most urgent and important things that they need. Moreover, only in the state of peace and aware of what they are facing off, they could understand what Jesus said in the past. Everything that he was said during his teaching is fulfilled by his resurrection. And as we celebrate today, Jesus gives the Holy Spirit as our guide in our lives so that we could achieve the salvation that God has promised us.

We do believe that the Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to receive the grace of God. We can imagine that the Holy Spirit likes the light that enables us to see. A voice or a sound that speaks in a language so that we can communicate and understand. The Holy Spirit is a helper that makes us know who God is, know what he wants us to do, and guide us to God. As we can see, we are not able to see Jesus face to face, but by the grace of baptism, we receive and believe in God. In this vision, we might say in a simple way that God is our Father, Jesus as our Lord and savior, and Holy Spirit as our guide to both of them. 

As we know this grace – the grace of the Holy Spirit, do we know what St. Paul say about grace? If we read Paul’s letter to Romans 5:1-21, we will find that Jesus is the best gift from God. He is the best grace that does not only forgive our sins but also the grace that redeems the world, brings us salvation, and reunites our relationship with God. We can say that Jesus is the ultimate grace because He is God who incarnated himself as a humble person and lived among us. So, if we realize this thing, what is your feeling? Are you feeling blessed or not? Or is it just a normal thing?

We should be joyful, grateful, and happy because we know this fact. I will give you an example. When you have a person that you admire, you love, or if you have difficulties finding someone you admire, let us put our beloved president, Joko Widodo. I think all of you chose him during the election. Is that right? (People answer “yes”). Can you imagine what kind of feeling you will have if our humble president comes to your house? You will be surprised. You will be in awe and admire him and you will be so happy that you might invite your neighbors to come to your house to see that the president visits your house. Then, you will prepare the best thing you have for him. This might be the grace that we receive by his visitation.

Now, I am asking you. Will you be happier if Jesus comes to your house? Will you invite your neighbors to come to your house to see Jesus even though many of our neighbors are Moslem? Will you offer him the best thing you have for him? Jesus is the best grace that we have ever had and I ask you to ask yourself what you will do if he comes into your lives.

We should be ashamed if we cannot feel the joyfulness when we meet Jesus. It is pity for me, for us if we cannot welcome him in our house. But, do not worry because Jesus can enter your house without you noticing him as it happened in the Gospel. Moreover, he will enter into your lives and guide you to receive grace. So, all that we need is openly welcoming him into our lives.

If we welcome him and accept him in our hearts, the next thing to do is to live in it. We live out the grace and the values that help us grow in love, faith, and hope. Acceptance to the grace also brings us to the spirit to give. The grace of God is not only for us, it is about our lives and the lives of others around us. The Spirit does not only enable us to recognize and understand who Jesus is, but also to push us to act according to the goodwill.

I repeat what I said before. First, we receive the peaceful greeting from Jesus not only once, but twice. Second, we recognize him as our Lord. Third, we look into ourselves what kind of feeling we have when we meet him. Now, I would like to invite you to recognize also the will of the Holy Spirit. The will of the Holy Spirit is the will of God that urges you to do something, to act, to share the grace that you or we have received.

In this part, we will reflect on Jesus’ words, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” When we receive the Holy Spirit, we open to God’s grace. Then, the power that we attain by receiving the Holy Spirit is to forgive sin. How wonderful this grace. Why this grace is so wonderful. First, we believe that only God can forgive our sin. Second, the purpose of incarnation, Jesus came to this world, is to redeem our sin, to forgive our sin. Third, if we have this ability, it means that we are similar to God. Wow! Is that true?

I believe it is true because God created us in his image. As God had sent Jesus into the world to take away the sin and restore our relationship with God, so are the disciple. We are also sent by God to continue his mission. The simple things that we can do are to forgive others who have done something wrong against us. Moreover, we also have the sacrament of reconciliation or confession. The priests have the service to listen to the confession and through them, we are reconciled with God. Sin sets us apart from God. Just with the reconciliation and through this grace, we can maintain our relationship with him.

Jesus grants us the Holy Spirit so that we can receive grace in our lives. This grace must help us to be free, free from fear and free from sins. Grace helps us to maintain our freedom. We are not bound with the anxiety, fear, turmoil, or addiction to sin, but we are bound to the joyful relationship with God.

In the last part of my homily, I want to remind you again that today, the Pentecost, is the last day of the Paschal season. We celebrated Lent with fasting and abstinence. We commemorated the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. We live with the resurrected Jesus. Now, at the end of this season, Jesus grants us the Holy Spirit to guide us and continue his work of redemption on earth in ordinary time.

We have already experienced this cycle several times in our lives. It is not a matter if we made mistake in the past. God is merciful. He gives us another shot. The important event is now. We are renewed by his grace. Through this celebration, the Church reminds us that God is always giving us his grace as we repeat this liturgical cycle every year. His grace will never end, and every time we ask, God will give us his grace.

So, dear brothers and sisters. After we receive the Holy Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday, are we willing to continue his mission in this world? Remember that the mission is not only for the missionaries but also for all of us who receive the grace of baptism. I have my mission to take care of the parish and to give guide the spiritual lives of all of us. You have missions in your families, workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods.

The mission is not about converting people who have different faith to join our Church. It is about making ourselves live like Christ and making people around us see that we have Christ in our lives. We might be a minority in our place, but let us not be discouraged by number, moreover, let us show to them the happiness to be a Christian so that we could illuminate people’s lives by our action and our deeds. If we follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I do believe that others will receive the grace of the spirit. The flowing of the grace must not stop in us, but let them flow through us so that others will receive the same grace.

In the end, let us share the grace that we receive from God with each other.

May the peace of the Lord through the solemnity of Pentecost guides us to be more like Jesus.

AMEN.