07 June 2025 – Pentecost Vigil

by Rev Fr Cyril Mannayagam

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are going to celebrate Pentecost tomorrow, the Feast of the Holy Spirit. And you being the Mother Church to the Diocese, Cathedral, sometimes when we ask where you are coming from, they said we are coming from the Holy Spirit, the Church of the Holy Spirit. So you are the one housing the Holy Spirit in you. So everyone received the Spirit of the Lord.

So you know better than me about the Holy Spirit. Because why? Every year you celebrate the Feast of the Holy Spirit and you listen to many preachers. Now I think we can recommend for the Doctorate for all of you.

So I am not coming from the Church of the Holy Spirit. So I want to learn from you. Is it okay? Very good. Good spirit.

So Fr Raymond has chosen three days, today is the fourth day to prepare ourselves to celebrate the Feast of this Parish. 

The very first day, we are gathered in our vernacular languages in our particular groups in our churches. So we reflect on the theme. What is the theme for the first day? FAITH & TRUST.

Second, PEACE & SERENITY.

Third, CONVICTION.

Are we all convinced? Are you all convinced? Very good. No point for me to preach today. Since they have given me the topic of EMPOWERED, so what do you understand by empowering?

Since you already have conviction what is the meaning of empowering? The power from the Holy Spirit. For what? To burn the church because the fire of tongue, tongues of fire? To give the Good News.

So the Holy Spirit empower each one of us to give the Good News. Are we giving the Good News? Yes or No? We are supposed to. That is our call.

So today the First Reading is taken from Joel. And what is that reading saying to us? Don’t know? Then how to empower you? 

I am a very good teacher. I always ask question according to the text. First Reading – Joel.

“Fr, I am a Chinese. I don’t understand Tamil.”

The First Reading is Tamil. Am I right? But the screen shows every languages.

“I will give you the Spirit to all mankind.”

To all mankind. Not only to you, not only to me, not only to Catholic. To all mankind. Very good. The Spirit of the Lord is given to everyone – young, old, bedridden, everyone.

So why is the Spirit given to every mankind? Mankind, not only Catholics only.

If the Spirit is given to only Catholic, we are the only good ones in the world. Other mankind they don’t know the goodness of God. Because every good thing comes, regardless of any religion, from God.

Everyone. God created every human person in His image and likeness and the Holy Spirit is given to every mankind, empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we will reflect the goodness of God to other human being.

Do you feel that you are empowered with the Holy Spirit?

Catholics, our Holy Spirit is not the aggressive Holy Spirit. We don’t believe in the aggressive Holy Spirit. Am I right? Ours is very passive. We don’t know whether Holy Spirit is working or not working but we say, “Yeah….maybe.”

But the Holy Spirit, whether aggressive or passive, is driving every human person to reflect the goodness, the goodness of God. That is why in Joel, God says,

“I pour out the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to every mankind.”

And do you remember when Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, when He had gone back to his own village, Nazareth, He attended in the synagogue. The scroll of Isaiah was given to Jesus to read. What did he find in that scroll? The passive or aggressive Holy Spirit?

Am I talking to the Christians? Don’t know? The scroll of Isaiah was given to Jesus. He opened and he read the first word,

“The Spirit of the Lord upon me.”

Today I am asking you, whether the Spirit of the Lord is upon you? How many agree or not agree? Still not yet.

“Fr, you haven’t prayed over us yet. So the Holy Spirit is not here.”

When do you receive the Holy Spirit? We receive the Holy Spirit when we are baptised. And we must have conviction in our faith. We must say, 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”

Upon me. For what? To sleep? To ask whatever I want? What is the Good News?

Christ is the Good News.
When you have Christ, you give Christ to others.
When you give Christ to others, Christ will work miracles through you.

If that person needs healing, Christ will give healing to the person through you.

That is why the Spirit is given to us, empowered us, so that we are bearers of the Holy Spirit. You have power but most of the time, you say,

“We have doubt about ourselves, Fr. I don’t think so we have the power. Can you bless?”

That is true. Sometimes you are looking for priests for blessing. And also as we are sharing a common priesthood, the grace from the baptism, and you and I are empowered by the Holy Spirit and the Spirit which is working in me, the same Spirit is working in you.

As parents, who is the best blessing givers to your children?

Every day you get ready your children, sending them to school. Have you blessed your children? Lay your hand on your children and say, “God bless them?“

Because you must believe in the empowerment of Christ, who has given the Holy Spirit to each one of us to be the leaders. We are the leaders in the church. You are the leaders in your family. The children are subjected to you. 

You have the power, husband and wife. You are departing your power of the Spirit to your children. So they must also feel that I am blessed by my parents. The Spirit of the Lord is in me.

So my dear brothers and sisters, today I am not talking a new thing to you but today we are called to be conscious of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our life.

So the Spirit is given to everyone so that we always have the drive in our life to do good.

The Second Reading taken from Romans. And Paul says,

“In this world, like child birth, you have to go through suffering. You have to go through many hardship and always you have to go through a kind of pain in your life in order to have a new birth.”

But, sometimes we don’t know what to do with our lives. Sometimes we don’t know how to pray, what to pray. Sometimes we are confused. The most we say, “Haiyah. I want to pray but I don’t know how to pray. Easy way is to take the rosary and just say the rosary.”

I don’t say that is not good. It is good but what is prayer meaning to you? What is prayer?

A loving relationship with God.

Let us say every time your child comes to you, writing on a paper, “Dear father and mother, I am going to school.“

Every day, he is following script, only talking to you by script. How do you feel?

It is not wrong. Isn’t it wrong? No. But all the time? He is taking the notebook every time and coming and reading to you. How do you feel?

You would feel boring. “Hey, why you don’t know how to speak? Then why are you going to school?”

So sometimes we don’t know what to say, we don’t know how to pray. So the Holy Spirit is given to empower us so that the Holy Spirit will help us to pray. And teach us how to pray. But we always say,

“Holy Spirit, you don’t disturb me because I am not free like you. You don’t have other works. You are all the time very busy with all these very pious things and all that. But I am not free. So I will pray what I know. I make the sign of the cross, I make Our Father, Hail Mary. Then I say “Oh Lord, listen to my prayer.” But you don’t talk. I don’t have time to listen to you. You listen to my prayer.”

If urgency, okay. We accept. Not every day!

So the Spirit is empowering us in order to have a loving communication with the Creator. Sometimes we don’t know what to pray, how to pray. That is why the Helper is given to you and to me to pray to our loving Father.

Praying means not only by words. Sometimes keeping quiet, you can communicate. The soul can communicate to the Supreme Soul. Without words.

The best communication is without words.

Sometimes we surrender ourselves, say,

“I don’t know how to pray. I don’t know what to say but I believe the Spirit is given to me. I am anointed with the Holy Spirit. Let the Spirit pray.”

When in the moment you surrender yourself to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit will pray from within and you will get insight for your problems. That is why the Second Reading says there are many problems in our lives. You don’t ask advise from other people because they don’t know the real problems of your life. But who knows better?

The God who is living in you. The Holy Spirit who is living in you. He is a Counselor, an Advocate, Jesus said. But we most of the time are not conscious about the fruit of the Spirit who is helping us to pray for our problems. And enlightenment comes from the Spirit. Why do we need to feel scared?

That is why the Holy Spirit is the best gift Jesus has given to us. That is why He said, “Better for me to go back. No point for me to be here in this world so that my Father will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.“

Not only the Holy Spirit given to us to only speak in tongues but is a Companion in our journey. He is always with us. Sometimes we can’t see but we can experience. 

Allow the Spirit to pray in us to have the right channel.

Sometimes you want to listen to music in radio. What are you supposed to do? Can we just on the radio and you can listen to any songs? You must choose the frequency. Tune to the frequency. You have right frequency, you have a clear song to listen and entertain yourself.

Prayer is the same.

Sometimes our own frequency will tell us to pray for this and this and this and that. Sometimes we are using our own. We don’t tune the frequency. We pray as like what we want but we need to take time to adjust the frequency.

That is why the Holy Spirit is given to you and me to pray, to put us in the right channel so that our soul can reach out to the Supreme. All gift is given to us but we are lazy to use it. We are known to be very lazy to use it. How fortunate we are.

Others they know they must do good but they don’t know how to tune the frequency. But for us, Bible is given. Holy Spirit is given. But we don’t want to make use of the channel.

That is why the empowerment is very, very important. Christ says,

“You are empowered by the Spirit”.

So we must take effort to read, to know and ask the Holy Spirit to teach us. Holy Spirit will teach you because, not my word, Jesus says, “The Spirit will come and teach about who? Teach about Fr Cyril? About who? Fr Raymond? He will teach about Jesus Christ and He will remind you every word of Jesus Christ. He won’t speak about His own thoughts but everything comes from my Father and myself. 

How beautiful!

And the third, Gospel reading says the Spirit is the Living? John’s Gospel? The Holy Spirit is the Living Water.

You can live without food. Can you live without water? Without food you can survive for one week or two weeks but you cannot survive without water. Food is important or water is important?

Water is much more important that the food. Sometimes we are fasting. We say fasting but we won’t take any solid food but we drink water. When you are hungry, you wallop one glass. When you are hungry wallop one glass then you say, “I am fasting today.”

But without water? So Jesus said, “The Spirit of Lord equal to water. Lifegiving.”

Whoever thirsts for this water, come I give you water, living water.

All free gifts. When free gifts, that is a problem. I don’t know why Jesus doesn’t charge us for the living water. Very freely He gives the Holy Spirit. That is why we freely get, we freely keep. We don’t make use. If you spend money, then you will say, “I spend so much money. Better for me to use.“

If you buy a Mercedes, you spend a lot of money. You cannot keep the car in the garage. You will say “Hey, I spent so much of money not to keep in the garage. I must use the car because I spent money.“

Free gift, we don’t bother about.

So my brothers and sisters, not only talking about you. For me also, I  am also gently reminded by the Holy Spirit Am I thirsting for the Living water? Am I having the experience of drinking the Living Water? If I drink the Living Water, I must become lifegiving factor to other people.

Sometimes we are not lifegiving. Because why? We ourselves are not convinced. We ourselves have not experienced drinking the Living Water.

So God is a very beautiful God, very simple God. And He has given the Holy Spirit to empower us to do good to others, to give life to others. For this in this Holy Eucharist we pray.

I hope that you and I always must have the consciousness of empowered by the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit is given to everyone, not only to me, to my family but to every human person.

And the Holy Spirit always give us the power to pray with us and give us the channel to communicate with the supreme reality of God. The Spirit to Spirit. For what? To give life to others.

For this we pray in this Holy Eucharist.

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