Ghost

Hunting in shadows

The ghosts of dreams, and secrets

Poison within me

Softly approaching

The muse captures the mystic

With soothing visions

Tomorrows promise

Transparent, as light as silk

The soft kiss of fate

Adrift in the void

The spirits of samsara sing

The wild, wailing wind

Touching everything

Between the heavens and earth

Specter in the garden

Brush the new flowers

Fingers bruise the dark blossom

Cut by the sharp thorns

A Homily – Matthew 10:26 - 33 ©

The Gospel According to Matthew – 2017.06.25

Do not Be Afraid

The Gospel authors should has left this passage where Jesus left it, with the exhortation to not be afraid.

Do not be afraid.

The Gospel of Jesus is not a weapon fear, it is not secretive, it is not cryptic, it is not a demarcation point, delineating the insiders from the outsiders, and the living from the dead.

The Gospel of Jesus, the good news that we have called to preach, that Gospel is built on a foundation of love of love, hope, and trust.

Jesus called everyone to the table, he did not ask for membership cards, or membership dues.

Do not be afraid.

The body passes and the spirit lives on. God, the creator of the universe, God did not create for the purpose of destroying.

God’s love flows equally to all people, not one of God’s children is outside of God’s plan for salvation.

Declarations and oaths, these are things for human beings, take none, make none, either for against Jesus.

Serve God, through the service you provide to one another, love goodness, seek justice, and exercise mercy in all things. It is through action, not words, that Jesus desire us to express our faith.

The False Gospel, Matthew’s Errors

Jesus instructed the Twelve as follows: ‘Do not be afraid. For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.

‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.

‘So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven. But the one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven.’

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Emergence, In Fifty-five Words - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-three, Prodigy, Collected Chapters

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 169, June 18th, 2017 Chapter One: A Funny Child Kathy loved jokes. Her laughter was the first thing her parents noticed about her. It alerted them to the fact that she was different. Even as an infant she picked up on the punch lines, understanding the spoken words, the inferences that were made. She understood these exchanges months before she had learned to speak. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 170, June 19th, 2017 Chapter Two: A Strange Child Kathy was as quiet as she was observant. She did not flit about randomly like infants and toddlers do. She was focused, balanced, and cautious. She repeated sounds and gestures in patterns that quickly became noticeable to her parents. She was training herself, quickening the pace by which she would learn to walk, and talk. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 171, June 20th, 2017 Chapter Three: A Frightening Child Kathy was crawling within weeks of being born, and walking within a few short months. By her first birthday she was dancing. Kathy practiced and practiced in the quiet moments of her day, at night, in the dark, while her parents slept. She did not speak a word until she was speaking in complete sentences. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 172, June 21st, 2017 Chapter Four: Discipline The direction for her exercises came from deep within herself. Kathy’s memories spoke to her, they guided her, the ancestral voices focused her, kept her calm, allowing her to see her own life and experiences in the context of the collective experiences swelling within her. She formed plans spontaneously, in order to realize her goals. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 173, June 22nd, 2017 Chapter Five: Conformity Whatever her parents tried to teach her, Kathy took to with ease She mastered complex tasks without effort. The only thing that took time was developing muscle memory, which required repetition. She struggled with the skill of blending in, hiding her differences. It was only through the most diligent habits of mindfulness that she succeeded. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 174, June 23rd, 2017 Chapter Six: Quietude For Kathy to get along, she learned to be silent, listen, wait, to let the others around her fail. She could not insert herself into their activity, she could not correct them, or provide the right answer. She learned to experience success as a private affair, only harkening to the applause that came from within. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 175, June 24th, 2017 Chapter Seven: Other Kathy was unique. She was different from every other human being on the planet, different from everyone who had ever been. She was still young when she realized that difference. Understanding it did not help her manage her feelings, or those of others. Her parents were afraid, afraid for her. She was like an alien. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 Section Four, Kathy Part Twenty-three, Prodigy Collected Chapters 01 A Funny Child 02 A Strange Child 03 A Frightening Child 04 Discipline 05 Conformity 06 Quietude 07 Other #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Slip (A Haiku Quatrain)

Tenuous at best

Tenably slipping, this grip

My fragile clasping

Through handfuls of air

Alone, awake and confused

Sanity suffers

Stretched tight and thin

Spirit on a tangled skein

Imperceptible

Desperate wailing

Crying in the dark of night

My faltering hand

A Homily – John 6:51 - 58 ©

The Gospel According to John – 2017.06.18

The Sacrament

The eucharist is not magical food.

Eating the bread and drinking the wine does not confer the gift of eternal life,

Christians do a disservice to the memory of Jesus when they use the eucharist to divide people from one another, splitting them into groups of insiders and outsiders.

The eucharist is not the flesh and blood of Jesus. Transubstantiation, consubstantiation, these are ridiculous arguments, based on false premises, and a fundamentally flawed view of the world, cosmologically, soteriologically and teleologically.

The eucharist may only be seen as a sacrament insofar as it fulfills the ministry of Jesus, which is always the fostering of hope, through the loving service we provide to one another.

The bread and the wine are the flesh and blood of the church, literally feeding the members through the gifts of the members, shared at the common table.

The church is the body of Christ, and the communal sharing, the gift of bread, that is the sacrament. It is the visible sign of the sacred mystery of God’s love for us.

The Bread of Life

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world."

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."

3^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Emergence, In Fifty-five Words - Section Four, Kathy; Part Twenty-two, Childhood, Collected Chapters

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 162, June 11th, 2017 Chapter One: Memory From the moment she was born Kathy lived in two worlds: one, her senses; two, the larger world of memory. Her memory spoke to her in word and vision, contextualizing everything she encountered, summarizing each new experience at the speed of light, faster. Every smell, every touch, every sound was evocative. She was often paralyzed. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 163, June 12th, 2017 Chapter Two: Memories There were hidden places within her, deep places she would spend years discovering. There were languages no person had spoken for millenia. There were memories of love, of pain, and the promise of transcendence. Her memories were full of visions, visions of transformation, of her ancestors, where she was always in a state of becoming. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 164, June 13th, 2017 Chapter Three: Remembering Kathy’s memories came to her unbidden. They simply suggested themselves to her in order to frame her understanding of the events she was experiencing in real time. She experienced a dialog with the ancestors living within her, deciphering events, and answering questions in an instant. It was an atavistic process. It happened at light speed. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 165, June 14th, 2017 Chapter Four: Knowledge The new was surreal to Kathy. The more unique the event, the more fascinated she was by it. For her to witness something unprecedented was like watching a movie in a blurry, off-axis context, while the voices inside her attempted to shape her understanding of the event by providing context, offering comparisons, and suggesting similes. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 166, June 15th, 2017 Chapter Five: Knowing For Kathy, knowing things came unbidden. Details of particular points of knowledge filled her mind at quantum speed. She did not have to ponder or search her memory for anything. The meanings of symbols, and of histories, populated her consciousness in no-time. Everything she sensed was filtered through a screen of the complete human experience. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 167, June 16th, 2017 Chapter Six: Understanding For Kathy, comprehension came from beyond time and space. It came from a place within the mysteries of the atom, within the waves that make up the fabric of the subatomic field, from a place in which time and space are concepts without meaning, trillions of points of light drawn into the concrescence of insight. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 168, June 17th, 2017 Chapter Seven: Expressing Kathy played music. There was not an instrument, or a rhythm that she did not master instantly. She sang, with perfect pitch. She spoke in her own voice, all the while sensing the multitude within her, guiding her fingers, her brushes, her pen, and her tongue. She was the living repository of all human knowledge. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 Section Four, Kathy Part Twenty-two, Childhood Collected Chapters 01 Memory 02 Memories 03 Remembering 04 Knowledge 05 Knowing 06 Understanding 07 Expressing #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

The Gift

We are the en-souled

Creatures rising in the dark

Reaching out, alone

We did not choose, life

To come to be, we awoke

A poor creation

Birth is concrescence 

A continuum of fear

In the heat of love

The wheel of life turns

Not one of us asked for it

The imposition

Witness the divine

The sacred obligation

We tiny creatures

The week and condemned

A crown of fire on our heads

Burning hail and coal

My aching spirit

Lift me to another world

Weaving threads, and dreams

The wheel turns again

I could lift it like Atlas

As Hercules did

Hand me the lever

Archimedes will move it

The stars shift again 

A Homily – John 3:16 - 18 ©

A Homily – John 3:16 - 18 ©

The Gospel According to John – 2017.06.11

Hope and Fear

The gift of life is not transactional. It is free. We do not have to ask for it, just as we did not ask to be born, like true love, eternal life comes to us without conditions.

God, the creator of the universe, came to us in the person of Jesus. If you trust in the teachings of Jesus you will find peace in this world, you will understand that the things we endure here: pain, suffering, alienation, uncertainty, hunger, disease and death, these are all temporary.

You will see the world of light and life beyond the veil that is the inheritance of every one of us.

There is no condemnation in God, or in the ministry of Jesus. There is hope, and love, and mercy.

No one is condemned because they refuse to believe in the scriptures, in Christian doctrine, or the dogma of the church. God continuously pours out the divine love on all creation.

There is no magic power in a name, or an article of belief, but rather if you do not trust in the way of Jesus, and trust is the meaning of faith, if you are not able to trust in it, and you are selfish, instead of giving, malicious instead of loving, harmful instead of healing, then you will suffer in this world.

Faith in Jesus, means liberation in the here and now, in the present reality, which is a blessing to everyone who finds it, and to all whom they encounter.

The Gift of Love, and Life

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

‘God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved. No one who believes in him will be condemned; but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already, because he has refused to believe in the name of God’s only Son.’

2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday of the Most Holy Trinity

Emergence, In Fifty-five Words, Interlude – Collected Parts

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 155, June 4th, 2017 Interlude: Part One - Crisis The shock wave that struck the Continuum was all encompassing. It was felt throughout the Empire, on all of the inhabited worlds. Every Observer sensed it, it shook them to the core, most returned to HomeWorld immediately using the wormhole conduits to transfer their consciousness to the central planet. Those with military powers summoned them. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 156, June 5th, 2017 Interlude: Part Two – Vulnerable The Continuum did little for its defenses. It believed itself to be secure in power. In its billions of years it had never encountered another rival. There was Continuum, formed by the Collective, and there was the Empire, formed by the Continuum. The defensive systems were automated, but still required thought. They collapsed in shock. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 157, June 6th, 2017 Interlude: Part Three – Defense Within the Colletive, those who had formerly been members of the Observer Corps, those individuals who were closest to the Empire, they kept some composure during the catastrophe. They held themselves together for a length of time as they tried to stabilize others nearest to them, forming a bulwark, and marshaling what forces they had. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 157, June 7th, 2017 Interlude: Part Four – Discontinuum Observer 92835670100561474 took control. He was now the Continuum. He had absolute control of the apparatus of the Collective. With that, he magnified the agony that each individual member felt, instantiating in them the instinct to flee. In doing so he was able to partition them as long ago, they had once done to him. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 158, June 8th, 2017 Interlude: Part Five – Awakening Consciousness returned to the Continuum slowly. Jim witnessed it, a flicker of lights, a sequence of dim illuminations in the deep. He fought against it, isolating members as they reached out for one another. Isolating them as he himself had once been sequestered. He was relentless, and the Continuum was powerless to work against him. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 159, June 9th, 2017 Prolog: Part Six – Individuation A feeling that had long been forgotten rose within the Collective and its group mind. It was a response to the agony it was feeling. It was an instinct for safety, to flee. It was sheer terror. The Collective felt it as an existential threat, the force of impending doom. Every semblance of unity collapsed. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 A Novel – In 55 Words a Day Day 160, June 10th, 2017 Prolog: Part Seven – Schizophrenia The Continuum collapsed, it was lost. Those members who were able to retain their sense self, retreated from everything. As individuals they erected mental barriers to shield themselves from the din of voices that remained in the Collective, each becoming a singularity in the quantum field. Those who could not do this dissolved in chaos. #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Emergence 2.0 Interlude Pt. 01 Crisis Pt. 02 Vulnerable Pt. 03 Defense Pt. 04 Discontinuum Pt. 05 Awakening Pt. 06 Individuation Pt. 07 Schizophrenia #Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi #55Words Like it, Follow it, Share it!

Criminal Regime - Part I

Editorial, The Week in Review – Analysis, Commentary, Opinion

06.10.2017

The fake president Donald Trump, T-Rump is operating a criminal regime.

He may be occupying the White House lawfully, as the duly elected President of the United States. However, it is increasingly clear that intuition of the majority of the voters was correct, T-Rump does not belong in public office.

He arrived at the Oval Office through a wide variety of criminal, possibly treasonous, and fraudulent activities.

He and his family have been operating outside of the law since the day he took office, they are in violation of laws against nepotism, but more importantly they are in violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution.

Donald Trump is in debt to, and in the pay of foreign powers, Russia (perhaps others), a geo-political adversary who worked tirelessly to attack our democracy in the 2016 election, and through a variety of hostile, criminal engagements successfully threw the election in his favor.

He personally owes them billions of dollars, and he is in debt to them for his political victory as well. They have incriminating evidence on him, and they have been using it to extort political favors from him: in the Ukraine, in the Crimea, against NATO, and our European allies.

T-Rump is operating a criminal regime. It is the duty of every American to stand against him, call for his resignation, and by any lawful means remove him from power.

He is unfit for office.

He has no allegiance to anyone but himself, and his family who he views as an extension of himself.

He is a profiteer.

The Trump regime is a threat to the Republic, Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to the United States of America.

There is a growing chorus of voices, which everyday are speaking out in recognition of the fact that T-Rump is mentally unsound and emotionally unequipped to handle the pressures of the office he occupies.

Along with that chorus you can hear his apologists echoing that recognition, as The Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan did yesterday in his attempt to make excuses for T-Rump’s mistakes, claiming that they are all the result of him being unprepared, inexperienced, a political novice and so on, and so on…what is not being denied is that the errors are profligate, and mounting.

T-Rump must go.

Dawn

Lost, and losing light

The world spins beneath a shroud

Veiled, these are not clouds

The turning world waits

Hopes, losing warmth bit by bit

Waiting for the dawn

A Homily – The Gospel of John 20:19-23 ©

The Gospel of the Day – 2017.06.04

The Gospel of John 20:19-23

Gospel Acclamation

Second Reading 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12, 13 ©

Psalm 103(104):1-2,24,27-30,35 ©

First Reading Genesis 11:1-9 ©

Faith, and Beginnings

It is the feast of Pentecost.

Christians throughout the world celebrate this day.

It is the commemoration of the gift of the Holy Spirit, given by Jesus, Joshua son of Joseph, to the church that was founded in his name.

For the Church, this moment marks the beginning of a new era. Jesus has gone, the care for community of believers is now in the hands of his disciples

The departure of Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit, this is the beginning of the age of prophecy in the early church. It is a time of discernment. It is the Apostolic age.

In this time, the Church evolves. It becomes a new creation. It is no longer merely a sect of Judaism. It becomes an international movement, transcending Palestine, it spreads throughout the Roman Empire.

The way of Jesus, the new way, is preached in new languages, in new tongues, and told through new stories. In this stories Jesus became something new, a myth, a man of power, godlike, God’s own self, the creator of the universe.

Jesus preached the way of love, of service, of caring, of justice, of mercy. The way of Jesus can be lived in silence, it does not require words.

The myth of Pentecost, as related here in the Gospel of Saint John, narrates some of the struggles of the early Church. It was written more than one hundred years after the death of Jesus, and decades after the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. It was written for the Church, for John’s community, in an era when the differentiation among Christians and Jews had concretized, when the leaders in the new Christian movement were trying to establish their bona fides, as the true heirs of Jesus’ ministry.

These new Christians imagined the gift of the Holy Spirit, released in a breath of ritual remembering, they imagined it as something new, new to them, but they were wrong. The Holy Spirit was always with them, has always been with humanity, it was not at this time the reception of something new.

As Paul taught, God is the creator of the universe, the eternal God is the first source and center of all things. The infinite God engenders all potentialities, and yet interferes with none of them, having created the universe in freedom. The universe that God created, God created free from coercion. God does not coerce creation. And yet the entirety of what is moves according to God’s eternal purpose, and there is no contradiction in this mystery.

The Spirit of God animates all living beings, sustains all of creation, and has sustained it throughout all time. Pentecost is a feast that celebrates the acknowledgement of this reality, not the instantiation of it at this point in time.

The mission and ministry passed on through this revelation is the heard in the calling, to love and care for, to serve those in greatest need, to love justice and be merciful in the face of the world’s horrors.

As the Psalmist wrote:

God’s salvation is close. Have no fear.

The glory of God does not come and go according to our deeds and merits. God is always present, in all times and all places.

Have no fear. God’s salvation reaches everyone.

God, the creator of the Universe, the God of Jesus Christ, is the God of all people. Pentecost reveals this. The Feast of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the ritual of baptism are rites which tie the members of the church to an affirmation of this revelation. They tie us to Jesus, and his mission in symbolic way, binding us to his life, his death, and his ascension.

These are ritual of reflection, acknowledging the actuality of our unity prefigured in creation. It celebrates our divine unity as children of God.

All of those things which we imagine, which we hold in hearts and minds, that divide us one from another, these are illusions born of fear, a lack of trust (faith) in our neighbors, in ourselves, and in God.

Our fears bring us back to, or keep us locked in a place of toil, and division, such as is reflected in the book of Genesis, in the story of Babel.

This is the story of the beginning of agrarianism. It details an understanding about how cities came to be built, and became large agricultural centers.

This marked the beginning of the caste system, slavery, and all of the hierarchical structures of social sin.

Where the agrarian life was established, larger and larger population of people came to be supported. As such, they were able to build larger communities, sustaining greater populations, hoarding more wealth.

To protect themselves against others they were able to build walls around their cities, and other monumental structures.

The narrative surrounding the construction of the first tower, marks the beginning of state sponsored religion.

In Mesopotamia these towers were called ziggurats. A ziggurat served a variety of purposes. They were built as granaries. They functioned as temples. They were under the management of a priestly caste, and from the top of these towers the astronomers watched the movements of the heavens. From that they planned the seasons, the planting and the harvest.

The move to agrarianism created divided the social order. The division of labor ensued, a caste system came to be, people were separated into stations; laborers, merchants, priests and royal warriors. As time passed these castes became increasingly more rigid, and movement between them became nearly impossible.

We are still burdened by these systems, they are rife with social injustice.

Jesus confronted these injustices in his day, he taught his disciples to do the same.

First Reading Genesis 11:1-9 ©

Throughout the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire.’ (For stone they used bricks, and for mortar they used bitumen). ‘Come,’ they said ‘let us build ourselves a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered about the whole earth.’

  

Now the Lord came down to see the town and the tower that the sons of man had built. ‘So they are all a single people with a single language!’ said the Lord. ‘This is but the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard for them to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language on the spot so that they can no longer understand one another.’ The Lord scattered them thence over the whole face of the earth, and they stopped building the town. It was named Babel therefore, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. It was from there that the Lord scattered them over the whole face of the earth.

Psalm 103(104):1-2,24,27-30,35 ©

Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

or

Alleluia!

Bless the Lord, my soul!

  Lord God, how great you are,

clothed in majesty and glory,

  wrapped in light as in a robe!

Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

or

Alleluia!

How many are your works, O Lord!

  In wisdom you have made them all.

The earth is full of your riches.

  Bless the Lord, my soul.

Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

or

Alleluia!

All of these look to you

  to give them their food in due season.

You give it, they gather it up:

  you open your hand, they have their fill.

Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

or

Alleluia!

You take back your spirit, they die,

  returning to the dust from which they came.

You send forth your spirit, they are created;

  and you renew the face of the earth.

Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.

or

Alleluia!

1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13 ©

No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

  There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose.

  Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink.

Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia!

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful

and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Alleluia!

The Gospel of John 20:19-23

As the Father sent me, so am I sending you: receive the Holy Spirit

In the evening of the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.

‘As the Father sent me,

so am I sending you.’

After saying this he breathed on them and said:

‘Receive the Holy Spirit.

For those whose sins you forgive,

they are forgiven;

for those whose sins you retain,

they are retained.’

(NJB)

1^st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Pentecost)