Archbishop Donnellan delivered the following homily to delegates to the Catholic Health Assembly on Pentecost Sunday:

“You will be hearing a goodly number of speakers during the course of the Convention. Therefore, my reflections on the Feast will be brief. Indeed, my temptation was to limit myself to advising you to simply spend more time listening to and discovering the Spirit.

“Today’s three readings provide a rich variety of ideas about the Holy Spirit. The reading from Acts could be called the accounts of the birth of the Church. The passage from Saint Paul is part of his great exposition of the varied work of the Spirit in the Church, and the reading from John’s Gospel represents John’s vision of the mission of the Apostles in the Spirit.

“Pentecost is the first sending of the Spirit.”

“The Church is the second sending of the Spirit. Sent – as the Second Vatican Council suggests ‘that he might forever sanctify the Church.’ Sent – as Paul notes in today’s second reading; … as Father Burkhardt points out in a convention talk on the Theology of the Health Apostolate. Sent to inflame ordinary people into Apostles … transforming their pedestrian mediocrity into the shining brilliance of loving service.

“The Holy Spirit is still being sent – in the sending of each of us as apostles, as those who serve. That general statement offers no new theological insight. Today’s Gospel, however, gives it an application that is consonant with your convention, and with the Holy Year theme of reconciliation. Jesus refers to sending the Apostles: ‘As the Father has sent Me.’

“How did the Father send Him?”

As one – Who emptied Himself; Who lived for others; Who bore our infirmities; Who destroyed the separation between us; Who constantly sought new ways to flesh out the serving love alive in Him, and Who finally commissioned people like us to go out after having received His Holy Spirit, and forgive men their sins.

“His ministerial charge to them was to heal by reconciling.

“His ministerial sending of them was to heal with forgiveness.

“And for us today? There is no difference. He sends us the same way. Healing and hospitals would seem to be an obvious and harmonious pairing. But the truth is that your ministry cannot be confined to the hospital ward by its example, reach out to heal moral wounds inflicted on the soul of a nation by the ragged edged knife or ethical compromise in high places. It must, by its voice, raised strong and clear, reach out to heal the social wounds carved into the dignity of any man or woman by the callousness and indifference of our times.

“That is the service of reconciling. That is the ministry of healing. That is the sending of the Spirit in the coming of the Apostles. I pray that these days of your convention will be charged with the presence of the Spirit, and that, like the people in the first reading, no matter what your enthusiasm or interest or camp or position, you will hear the Word in your own language and will live it all your days in holiness and integrity of life.”