Cedric Pisegna - The Power of Pentecost
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Welcome to «Live with Passion». I’m Father Cedric Pisegna. Thank you for tuning into the program. This is called the «Power of Pentecost». Comes from Acts chapter 2: «When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Suddenly, a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting, and then there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributed and resting on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit».
The wind blew, the fire fell, people were touched, saved. The world would never be the same. Of course, I’m talking about Pentecost. All of a sudden, things changed, and in your life, I know that you want a new Pentecost, and all of a sudden things can change in your life too, and I’m praying as you watch this program, it will be a new Pentecost for you. Pentecost means 50; pente-, 50; 50 days after Passover, the Jewish festival of the harvest came, and there was an ingathering of the crops. Think about cornucopia, if you’ve ever seen that: abundance, bountiful, full, overflowing, plenty, lavish, outlandish. You run out of words to describe the harvest, and what that meant, the bounty, the bountiful harvest.
Now Pentecost is something new. It has not so much to do with the harvest of vegetables, or fruits, or that type of a thing. Has to do with bounty and abundance and overflow in our hearts. It says in the Gospel of John that God doesn’t ration the Spirit. Jesus said, I have come that you may have life and life abundant, so there’s this overflow, this abundance, that God wants to give us, and that’s what Pentecost is all about, the overflow of the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t ration the Spirit, and then on Pentecost, there was a sound of a whistling wind, a rush of wind. The word in the Hebrew for the spirit is ruach. Onomatopoeia, which means it sounds like what it is. The Spirit, life, blessing, ruach. There was a rush, and it happened suddenly, and I think that’s the way the spiritual life can be too, can be goin' on and maybe feeling some desolation in your life, and then suddenly, things change.
Don’t give up. Keep believing for a new Pentecost in your life. There was a sound of a rushing wind. Remember went to visit my mother one time in Florida, and a hurricane came. It was Hurricane Jeanne. This is in Central Florida, and inside the house, I remember, though, the rushing of the wind. It sounded like a harmonica. It was making such noise. It almost sounded like music, and it was very forceful and that’s what wind is. It’s a force. It’s energy. It drives things, and God doesn’t ration the Spirit. There’s power in the wind.
Think about windmills, how they’re driven by the wind, turbines are driven by the wind, and they actually produce energy. The wind has power to produce, to create. The way I like to think about it is it’s not so much to create energy in electricity that we’re talking about, but there’s power in the Spirit to be strong when you have difficult circumstances. There’s power in the Spirit to have energy when you feel tired. There is power in the Holy Spirit to pray. The first image that I wanted to share with you was that of the wind. Of course, other images for the Spirit, there’s fire and there’s light. There’s breath. There’s all kinds of beautiful images: the dove, the light of God. Pentecost had to do with the end gathering of the harvest, but it also had to do with the giving of the Ten Commandments. You remember what happened. Moses received the Ten Commandments, and they were written by that finger of God on stone tablets.
Now Pentecost reinterprets that. There is a new covenant. This comes from the Prophet Jeremiah, where God says, I will write my laws on your minds and in your hearts. I will forgive your sins, and everybody from the least to the greatest will come to know me. That’s exactly what Pentecost does. Writes God’s laws, God’s ways, not on tablets of stone but the tablet of our heart. You come to know God in a deep, personal way. It’s the Holy Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us holy, and one of the ways that the Spirit does that is by breathing into us understanding about God’s will, and what God wants, especially morally. You have a developed conscience, a form conscience that God brings to us. So, there’s this new understanding, the breathing of the Holy Spirit into us to make us holy and the main reason why the Holy Spirit comes is so that everybody from the least to the greatest will come to know God in a deep, personal ways, so the spirit comes to change us, and the spirit comes to give us a relationship with God.
That’s the meaning of Pentecost, that we would come to know in a deep, personal way the reality of God and allow the Spirit to change us, to right deep in our hearts, the very law of God, the very conscience of God, the very will of God. Pentecost, the power of Pentecost, it was some time ago back in 1964, Pope John XXIII prayed, «Lord, we need a new Pentecost». And I’m hoping that you’re praying that in your own life. We need a new Pentecost, and he said, Lord, renew your wonders in our day. Then Vatican II came. This is back in 1964. It was this ecumenical gathering. All these bishops and the cardinal and the pope, and this is happening in Rome, and the church changed. The liturgy changed. It became more engaging. People could understand it in their own language.
We were encouraged to read the Bible, to spend time in the Scriptures, and to listen to God’s voice. We reached out to other denominations. That’s called ecumenism. We recognize, the Catholic Church recognized that we aren’t the only ones who can be saved, that God saves other people and other denominations, and then of course evangelization. We reach out. It’s a catholic church, because we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth and the Spirit came and changed so many different things. and there was a filling. We heard at Pentecost, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
I want to concentrate on the filling because I want you as you’re watching this program, wherever you are, could be in prison, could be in your living room, could be in a hotel could be in a hospital wherever you are right now or are listening by radio, as you hear my voice and as you watch this program, I’m praying that you will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and the filling of the Holy Spirit isn’t just a one-time thing, happens over and over and over again. Go to a gas station, another word that they had for gas stations is a filling station. You know what happens. Your tank gets empty. You put gas in. You fill it, and that gas propels the car. You get that illusion.
The spirit comes to fill us, to propel us, to move us, to lead us and to guide us, and then what about an empty glass? We’re thirsty. You got an empty glass. You fill it with water. You fill it with soda. You fill it with milk, and it slakes your thirst, and the same way, the Spirit comes to fill us, to slake our thirst, and we are all thirsty for more of God. If you’ve ever seen a sailboat on a non-windy day, the sail just kind of limps, kinda hangs there, but when the wind comes, it fills the sail and drives the vessel. In the same way, sometimes we can feel desolate, or empty. Our sail is there, but it’s kinda limp. Then the wind comes, fills our sail, and drives us, gives us creativity, gives us dreams and visions.
That’s part of Pentecost, and then I was thinking about an empty stomach. You can get hungry. You could feel it growling. Then you fill it with food and the food gives us energy, that’s exactly who the Holy Spirit is. The Spirit of God that comes with power, with energy, with passion, and I’m praying that you will be filled, motivated, living with passion, having a new creativity. Dreaming dreams, and seeing visions, realizing your potential. Live with passion. That’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes as a force, as a power, motivation, energy, drive, creativity, passion, but I want you to understand the Holy Spirit is more than a power. The Holy Spirit is the person of God living in you and me. The very person of God. Come to be with us, to live in us, and to help us.
I remember on Pentecost. There was this great filling, and all the people there started talking in tongues, and they had this new energy, and then the first thing that they did was they went out and evangelized. They were a witness, and 3,000 people, 3,000 people heard them that day and were converted. Came to Jesus. It was an amazing, miraculous happening. The world was turned upside down. The acts of the apostles, we’re all familiar with it, the 28 chapters of the Acts of the apostles and all that happened. Some Scripture scholars call it the acts of the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit is inhabiting people, indwelling people, and using people as instruments to reach out to the world. They turned the world upside down.
Pentecost is for individuals, but it’s also for communities. I already talked about Vatican II and what happened there. It’s for people that are gathered together. Remember the original Pentecost didn’t just happen to one person, happened to the whole group of disciples. There has been outpourings of the Holy Spirit all down throughout the ages, many councils. Vatican II council was one of many ecumenical councils that happened where the Spirit moved in the Catholic Church, but I’m thinking about, in particular, about something that happened back in 1967.
This happened at Duquesne University, where a group of college students got together. They weren’t just going on a retreat, about 30 of them, and during the retreat, nothing seemed to be happening, and somebody wrote on a chalkboard. We need a miracle. Maybe that’s how you feel in your life. I need a miracle. Well, suddenlies happen. God is the God of the miraculous. As they were praying in the chapel, gathered that night, all of a sudden, just like Pentecost, something started to happen. A new joy happened, peace.
Some people started talking in tongues, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and from that beginning, in 1967, at Duquesne University, the charismatic renewal spread like wildfire: Notre Dame, other colleges, millions upon millions of people claim to have received the Holy Spirit, a new relationship with God, and one thing that I want to say, and I want to make it clear, the Holy Spirit isn’t just for the charismatic renewal. It’s not just for Pentecostalists. It’s not just for Protestants and the Azusa Street Revival. It’s for everybody. It ought to be mainstream. The Holy Spirit is what Jesus came to bring. Remember what he said in John 10:10? He said, «I have come that you may have life and life abundant». This is the abundant life, the zoe life, that Jesus came to bring, the sweet Spirit of God.
You can expect to be filled with the Holy Spirit when you seek the Spirit, and I love it the Acts of the apostles, it says that the Spirit came upon the apostles not just once but several times. Paul put it this way in Ephesians 5, he said, «Be ever filled with the Holy Spirit». In other words, there’s not just one filling, not just one Pentecost, rather there’s several fillings, over and over and over again. I went to a restaurant one time. They gave me a glass of soda, and right there on the glass it said, free refills, and I was glad about that. I said that’ll preach. There are free refills. When you get thirsty, when you get tired, when your prayer life doesn’t seem to be working, you pray Holy Spirit, fill me.
As you watch this program, this episode, about Pentecost, I pray that you will be filled with the Holy Spirit in a new way. Free refills. Back in 1986, Pope John Paul II now Saint John Paul II wrote an encyclical, and it was an encyclical about the Holy Spirit. It was called «The Holy Spirit: Lord and Giver of Life». First of all, the Holy Spirit is Lord, not an angel or some kind of new-age spirit. Rather, the Spirit is God. Remember, it’s the person of God living within us that is the Holy Spirit: Lord and giver of life. The spirit brings energy and zeal and grace. The Spirit lifts us up when we’re down. Sometimes we go through hard times. We need help. Could be you’re goin' through a hard time right now.
I remember when I joined the seminary. This is back in the '80s. I graduated in 1991, and I was ordained a priest back in 1991, but back in the '80s, I went to the seminary, best of intentions. I had a call from God or so I thought. I have been anointed with the Holy Spirit, and I felt that God had called me to serve, so I go to the seminary, and well, in prisons, I’ll put it to you this way. In prisons they have gangs. In seminaries, some of them, they have clicks, and there was a clique of the senior students. There was about six of 'em, and for some reason, they resisted me, and they came against me. It was one of the hardest times in my life. I thought it was gonna be easy to be accepted by people. I mean, it’s a Catholic seminary. I went into it, and I ran into turmoil.
We had peer evaluations once a year, and during those peer evaluations, they came against me hard. They concentrated on me, said this and that, and something else, and pretty much chewed me up and spit me out. I remember I went back to my room with tears in my eyes, feeling the rejection that I felt from those people. That I had hoped we’re gonna accept me, and it was obvious that they wanted me to leave the seminary, and right at that moment, it was one of the lowest moments of my life. I thought to myself. I need help, and then something rose up within me. Of course, we know what that something was.
Someone rose up within me, and I didn’t feel the wind blow or the fire fall, or there wasn’t lightning. It was more this indomitable force. You see, the Spirit is very fierce. Remember, what Paul said to Timothy the Spirit is not a cowardly spirit, but a spirit of power, love, and self-control, and I remember thinking, I may leave, but if I do it’s not gonna be because of them. It’s gonna be because of God, and I don’t have a call, but if I do have a call, no one is gonna make me leave, and in fact, you know what? I think they did me a favor. I became more determined than ever to be strong, to face my challenges, to go through the difficulties.
I know that was the Holy Spirit helping me, and the rest is history. I was strong. I went through my classes. I graduated. Became a Catholic priest back in 1991, preached on the road for many years. God opened a door for me to get on television and radio. The rest is history. Where are they now? Well, we won’t go into that, but the bottom line is, is that the Spirit, when I needed the Spirit most, helped me, and it’s the same way because maybe you’re goin' through some trials and tribulations with people that are rejecting you or situations or circumstances that are very difficult, but the Spirit is there, too, to help you.
The Spirit is the helper that fortifies us. That’s one of the great gifts of the Holy Spirit, courage, fortification, strength. The Spirit holding our hand, standing by us. Paul was in prison one time, Paul the apostle, and he was being held in prison, and in the middle of the night, God speaks to him. «As you have borne witness to Me in Jerusalem, you’re gonna bear witness to me in Rome». What was God doing? At one of Paul’s lowest moments, he was holding his hand, strengthening him, fortifying him, and Paul never backed down. Paul was the same one that wrote that the Spirit that God has given us isn’t a cowardly Spirit. He was telling Timothy be strong.
When you have trials and tribulations and challenges in your life, stand up to them. We don’t have a cowardly Spirit, we have a Spirit of power and love and self-control and self-control when it comes to temptations. The Spirit within us, wow, the helper who walks with us. Not only does the Spirit walk with us, the Spirit is in us, and «in,» of course, is closer than «with». I love that term. The Spirit is the standby, and as we go through life, we need somebody to stand by us, because we don’t journey alone. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the song by Ben E. King, he wrote, a song called «Stand by Me». Love the verses. «When the night is come, and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we’ll see, no, I won’t be afraid. Oh, I won’t be afraid. Just as long as you stand, stand by me».
Wow, what are you facing, whatever trials or difficulties or hardships that you’re facing, you can do it. You see, you have this indomitable, indefatigable. strong, powerful, energetic Spirit living within you. That’s the Holy Spirit. And I love Paul the apostle. He writes so much about the Holy Spirit, especially Romans chapter 8, and he’s so gutsy. He is so forceful in his words, and he said, «I believe that nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God». And then it says, «Not even death will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord». And that’s the great fear that everybody has, «Oh no, what’s gonna happen when I die»?
He’s saying when you’re in the Holy Spirit, that not even death will separate you from God’s love. And that’s exactly what he wrote about when he wrote about the Holy Spirit. He says the Holy Spirit is God’s love poured into our hearts, and not even death can separate us from that. Wow, life in the Spirit. That’s what Pentecost is all about one of the reasons why I was ordained was to proclaim life in the Holy Spirit. That’s why I’m real excited about Pentecost, and his encyclical, John Paul II wrote that there needs to be a new awakening about the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the faithful. We know about the Holy Spirit at Mass. We knew about the Son on the cross. We pray to the Holy Spirit.
We sing, O come Holy Ghost, but many people don’t know who the Holy Spirit is, and I’m praying that as you watch this program, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s exactly what happened in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter was preaching, and the Gentiles heard him preaching, and as they listened to him preaching, the Holy Spirit came upon them, fell upon them, in the same way as you hear me now. I pray the Holy Spirit will fall upon you, and help yourself by reading the Scriptures reading good books about the Holy Spirit. celebrate the sacraments if you’re a Catholic Christian. Surrender to God in prayer. Turn away from sin, and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. The wind blew. The fire fell. Now I invite you to unfurl your sails. Catch the wind, and the Spirit will lead you, drive you, and control you. Be filled with the Holy Spirit, and don’t just live. Live with passion.