Argentinean bishop says Church would lack soul without Pentecost

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jun 1, 2009 / 20:08 pm

Bishop Oscar Sarlinga of Zarate-Campana in Argentina reminded the faithful on Saturday that “without the lasting effect of Pentecost on the Church, she would merely be a human organization, a structure without a soul.”

On the eve of Pentecost, the bishop issued a pastoral message referring to the Solemnity as “a call to evangelize anew, with one heart and one soul, breaking down every wall of division.”

“With the great event of Pentecost, the beginning of the Church’s mission in the unity desired by Christ, the Holy Spirit softly intervenes in the first Christian community, with Peter at the head, and infinitely overcomes the rupture and dispersion which began at Babel and became the cause of confusion in so many hearts.

“Pentecost becomes transformed, therefore, for the newly founded Church, into the sign of communion and divine love that is stronger than the divisions caused by sin and all its consequences, stronger than the structures of sin and structural sin that exist in today’s world as well,” the bishop said.

Likewise, he reiterated that “Pentecost gives soul to the Church and strength to her mission. Without it, “liturgical celebrations would be nothing more than ‘religiously themed performances.’ But the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, infused through the Wind and the Fire of the Upper Room, such that the Church must ‘be converted’ every day, every instant, into what she herself is, the Body of Christ and the People of God living through history.”

Bishop Sarlinga pointed out that at Pentecost, Catholics “renew the charisms we have received,” which he described as “the grace of our Baptism and our call, whatever it is, in concert with the gift of Christian vocation. It is a call to evangelize anew, with one heart and one soul, breaking down every wall of division, giving living testimony to the glorious resurrection of the Lord,” he said.