When Pope Francis came to the United States – to my native City of Philadelphia no less – I knew that I just had see him. I wanted somehow to enter into the sacred dimension of the hullabaloo.

So I created a pilgrimage that linked my university to the center of the action downtown. I gathered about 50 pilgrims. Along our walk we stopped at churches, murals, and even a synagogue. As we got closer to site for the Papal Mass, we joined other groups of pilgrims from all over the world who had come to Philadelphia for the World Meeting of Families. There were people singing in different languages, groups carrying banners proclaiming things I couldn’t read, little kids waving flags of different countries. Shoulder to shoulder in this happy chaos we felt the swell of energy approach us as his pope mobile got closer, pressed in to wave and cry, and then sat down on the curb for liturgy. The responsorial psalm stays with me: taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

The graces of that pilgrimage come to mind as I reflect on today’s reading from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles where we hear the familiar story of Pentecost. Of course, there are the obvious parallels: get out of your upper room, grab other disciples and head to the streets, encounter people who speak different languages, experience familiar traditions in new ways, share the joy of God’s presence among us. But as I look back on it, I think what I was really longing for that day in 2015 was to be of part of a people: not a crowd of spectators or even a merry band of pilgrims… but a people.

A people are those who share a vision and a desire to work together toward it. A people decide to go through hard things together, confident they will be different on the other side. In Let us Dream, Pope Francis explains this notion of being a people in images loaded with Pentecost meaning: “’A people’ is a category capable of generating sympathy out of disconnection, of harmonizing difference while preserving distinctiveness.”

This year, in the Pentecost account I hear in our texts a three-ingredient recipe for becoming a people.

So first, remember. When the disciples head out of the upper room they enter the holy chaos of the Jewish festival of Shauvot unfolding in the streets of Jerusalem. Shauvot is yet another feast of remembrance – in this case, commemorating Moses receiving the 10 Commandments, the law which helped transform a once enslaved population into a people oriented to living in right relationship with God, each other, and creation. Jesus adds his own saving dimension to covenantal justice: love with radical inclusiveness. Leave no one out. Todos, todos, todos as Pope Francis says. So, when anchored in its Jewish roots, the story of Pentecost teaches us that to become a people, we too need to remember God’s saving acts of breaking the bonds of oppression and Jesus’ ministry of loving us into wholeness.  

Second, the litany of peoples who encounter Jesus’ disciples on those streets of Jerusalem, hailing from across the Roman Empire, highlights not just the diversity of people gathered there, but the internal diversity of the Jewish tradition itself. Can you imagine the various interpretations, expressions, and physical embodiments of Judaism, all in one place, all remembering the significance of God’s mighty acts for them across the generations who have kept faith with the covenant? Pentecost teaches us that becoming a people invites us to get curious about the diversity within our own Catholic tradition. We need to taste and see God’s goodness being revealed to us through encounters with actual people who faithfully live our tradition differently than we do.

Finally, to become a people, we need to tell our stories of God’s mighty acts in our lives. I imagine the details of those personal accounts the disciples shared – stories of being chosen and healed, received at table and being forgiven, being beloved and commissioned. These autobiographical bits – about why Jesus’ mighty acts mattered to them - lent their stories compelling credibility. This early act of evangelization challenges our preoccupation with doctrine as the primary way to assert our identity as Catholics. Rather, to become a people, we need to risk telling our stories and also risk believing others stories about why Jesus matters.

We know that this becoming a people business isn’t easy. Ask anybody who is in anyway connected to the global Synod process unfolding in our Church, Pope Francis’ gamble that in remembering God’s saving mission, in embracing the internal diversity of our tradition, and in encounters with each other through story, we might become a people. It’s not easy.

Which is why Jesus sent us the Advocate, who we need more than ever. I hear the words of the 500-year old Veni Creator Spiritus with fresh ears this year this Pentecost:

·      When things get uncomfortable…You of comforters the best

·      When our work exhausts us… rest most sweet

·      When friction rises or tempers flare…Grateful coolness in the heat

·      When our skepticism makes us afraid to hope… Solace in the midst of woe

·      When past traumas make the future impossible to imagine… heal our wounds, our strength renew

·      Past wrongdoing paralyzes us… wash the stains of guilt away

·      When we head in the wrong direction… guide the steps that go astray

·      When we are convinced of our own righteousness… bend the stubborn heart and will

The prayer doesn’t pull punches – it names the contradictions and tensions and ambiguities of becoming a people and assures us that the Holy Spirit will send us what we need to stay in the cacophony long enough to create harmonies. We need the Spirit more than ever. Come, Holy Spirit. Make us Your people.