And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
I rarely, if ever, begin a post with a passage from Holy Scripture.
But it is a good beginning for today.
After all, it is the initial 'sending' of the Apostles. It is their beginning. It is our beginning. It is the moment of receiving the Holy Spirit--the love of between the Father and Son, the Creator and Redeemer. It is God mystically manifested to His Son's disciples.
The only way the Church continued on, from that moment in the Upper Room, is because they did what He told them to do.
"...whose sins you forgive will be forgiven them..."
The first task Jesus gives his crew is to be about the business of forgiveness.
After that it's easy.
But we spin our wheels re-inventing the wheel. We want another way.
It's easy not to listen when you are filling your ears with all the other crap.
It's easy not to feel the breath of God when you are running.
On another note (and, in my mind related)---
During the celebration of Holy Mass yesterday I turned to give the sign of peace to some ladies who were standing in the pew behind us. They had sour faces.
At home my lovely wife shared; "Did you hear the one lady's comment during the sprinkling rite?"
"No, I didn't. What'd she say?"
"Right when Father......... walked past sprinkling, she said with disgust--'He doesn't have to do that!"
Had my hearing been better I would have turned and asked them if the water burned.
