I remember the first time I saw Les Miserables. It was memorable. The singers were inspired, the dancing energetic, the pathos heart-wrenching.
“Red, the world about to dawn,
Red, the color of desire,
Red, I feel my soul on fire.”
This was what the students sang before they made their stand before their foes. And as Jean Valjean lay dying he sang to his adopted daughter, Cosette, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
At the end of this electric production, the whole cast came to the apron of the stage. They reached their arms toward the audience and sang, “Will you join in our crusade? Will you be strong and stand with me?”
Like one person, the audience surged to its feet, cheering and singing with the cast, saying with our bodies and voices, “Yes! We will join you! We will stand with you!” Even now, I cry when I remember how I felt as we were invited with such direct and poignant words.
Today, Pentecost, the liturgical color is red. That day, the world of the ancient Church was about to be born. Caught up in the moment, the disciples desired that it be so. Their souls were on fire. To this day, right now, the early disciples invite us to join them, be strong with them. The Holy Spirit has been given and it will never desert the followers of the Word Made Flesh.
In this pandemic time, when we can grow irritated at the absence of the ordinary in our lives, when jobs, money and food are scarce for many, will we still turn to the Spirit of God, be faithful to the Risen Christ and find ways to encourage others to “keep the faith?” This is the day that renews in us the companionship of the Holy Spirit who is our helper, advocate, strength, comfort and healer.
After Pentecost, the disciples were able to face and resolve difficult questions, stand up to the authorities that would crush them. They could do these things and more. Because their belief in the Risen Christ had become conviction. All they said and did depended on their conviction.
Conviction means I will. I will be. I will join my efforts to those of others. I will hold fast to belief even though naysayers will challenge me. I will go. I will do. I will minister to others in whatever way I can in Christ’s name.
We see reflected in the daily news, people’s hardships because of this pandemic, but we also see examples of others who want what they want without regard for the virus which they might receive or carry to one another without knowing it. If we let it, Pentecost can be for us also a feast of conviction – the conviction that when we treat one another lovingly, we see the face of God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
