Readings
Acts 4:32-35
Psalms 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
1 John 5:1-6
John 20:19-31

Chants

Three times in today’s Psalm we cry out a victory shout: “His mercy endures forever.”

Truly we’ve known the everlasting love of God, who has come to us as our Savior. By the blood and water that flowed from Jesus’ pierced side (see John 19:34), we’ve been made God’s children, as we hear in today’s Epistle.

Yet we never met Jesus, never heard Him teach, never saw Him raised from the dead. His saving Word came to us in the Church—through the ministry of the apostles, who in today’s Gospel are sent as He was sent.

He was made a life-giving Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 15:45) and He filled His apostles with that Spirit. As we hear in today’s First Reading, they bore witness to His resurrection with great power. And through their witness, handed down in the Church through the centuries, their teaching and traditions have reached us (see Acts 2:42).

We encounter Him as the apostles did—in the breaking of the bread on the Lord’s day (see Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10).

There is something liturgical about the way today’s Gospel scenes unfold. It’s as if John is trying to show us how the risen Lord comes to us in the liturgy and sacraments.

In both scenes it is Sunday night. The doors are bolted tight, yet Jesus mysteriously comes.

He greets them with an expression, “Peace be with you,” used elsewhere by divine messengers (see Daniel 10:19; Judges 6:23). He shows them signs of His real bodily presence. And on both nights the disciples respond by joyfully receiving Jesus as their “Lord.”

Isn’t this what happens in the Mass—where our Lord speaks to us in His Word, and gives himself to us in the sacrament of His body and blood?

Let us approach the altar with joy, knowing that every Eucharist is the day the Lord has made—when the victory of Easter is again made wonderful in our eyes.

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Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
First Sermon for Pentecost

Lord Jesus Christ, once again grant that of us, too, there may be but «one heart and mind» (Acts 4,32) for then there will be "a great calm" (Mk 4,39). My dear listeners, I exhort you to good will and kindness to one another and peace with all. For were we to have charity among ourselves, we would have both peace and the Holy Spirit. Let us undertake to become devout and pray to God... since the apostles persevered in prayer... If we set ourselves to fervent prayer then the Holy Spirit will enter us and say: "Peace be with you! It is I; do not be afraid" (cf. Mk 6,50)... And what ought we to ask God for, my brethren? For all that is for his honor and the salvation of your souls and, in a word, for the help of the Holy Spirit: "Send forth your Spirit and they will be created" (Ps 104[103],30) – peace and tranquillity...

We are to ask for this peace so that the Spirit of peace may come down on us. We should give thanks to God, too, for all his blessings if we want him to grant us those victories that are the beginning of peace. And to obtain the Holy Spirit we should give thanks to God the Father for having first of all sent him upon our Head, Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and His Son... - for «from his fullness we have all received» (cf. Jn 1,16) – and for having sent him upon his apostles that through their hands they might pass him on to us. We should give thanks to the Son: as God he sends the Spirit upon those who prepare themselves to receive him. But, most especially, we should thank him because, as man, he merited for us the grace of receiving this divine Spirit...

And how has Jesus Christ merited the Holy Spirit's coming? When «bowing his head, he gave up his spirit» (Jn 19,30), for, when he gave breathed his last and handed over his spirit to the Father, he merited the Father's sending his Spirit upon his mystical body.