May
27, 2007
Praying
in Tongues
Catholic
Ministries Appeal
Last weekend I spoke at different masses about participating in the
Catholic Ministries Appeal -- not only because it supports the work
of the church on Long Island, but it could function as a fund raiser
for St. Brigid’s -- yielding over $21,000 in income once we reach
our goal of $109,400. We are in rather good financial shape these days
except for the one looming challenge: the loss of $18,000-a-month income
now that the former convent building isn’t being rented. By the
end of May we will have lost $72,000 of that regular income. While I’m
being assured by prayerful parishioners that God will answer our prayers
with a new tenant (and I too believe this), we still need to make up
for the lost income. So I want to thank everyone who is choosing to
support the Ministries Appeal. It really will help.
Online
Masses
We are now going to be able to stream masses and other events live over
the internet to homebound folks and to relatives who live in other lands.
If you’re interested in this, in this, click
here.
Away
at College?
Are you or your child away at college? At St. Brigid’s we like
to stay in touch via occasional e-mails as we send photos and news from
“home”. College students wishing to be connected through
our “Letters from home” can sign up online here
or you can mail or
e-mail thecollege names and e-mail addresses to Father Ralph and he’ll
put them on the list.
e-mail Father Ralph:
Past Columns:
May 20: Making (up) the
difference
May 13: Loving our Mothers
May 6: About Father George
April 29: Hearing Voices
April 22:Three Stones
April 15: What a week!
April 8: Alleluia! Alleluia!
April 1: Holy Week
March 25: Climate Change
March 18: Take A Step
March 11: Cold Enough for
You?
March 4:Stocking the Shelves
Feb 25: Basket Case
Feb18: Ashes and Desert
Dust
Feb11: Get Ready, Get Set,
REST!
Feb.4: Lent Lurking
Jan.28:Catholic Schools
Week
Jan.21:Crying in Church
Jan.14: Love ahead
Jan.7:
So How Was Your Christmas?
Columns
from 2005
Columns
from 2004
Columns from
2003
Columns from 2002
One
of the outcomes of the Holy Spirit coming to the Apostles on that first
Pentecost is that when they finally received the gift of courage, they
went out into the streets to proclaim that Jesus was risen from the dead.
And everyone heard them speaking in the language they knew! It’s
not that the Apostles started to speak in different languages, it was
that everyone heard and understood in their own language.
I wish that it worked that way
today. In parishes that are like St. Brigid’s, where people have
come together from many lands and languages, it would make it so much
easier if people could understand everything when they gathered for church.
We wouldn’t need to be segregated by language when it came to prayer.
Still, what we do here is remarkably like the early church. Despite our
differences, we work to be one. We follow one Lord, Jesus Christ, and
in him all are meant to be one. And we’re working on it.
Another gift of the Holy Spirit
was the gift of “speaking in tongues”. That’s different
from that gift of understanding languages. When people pray in tongues,
the sounds they make are different in different cultures -- the sounds
do not form an actual language. Praying in tongues is a way for a person
or a group to vocalize praise to God -- sometimes it sounds like chanting.
Since the time of the early church praying in tongues has been one form
of prayer that some people feel comfortable with -- others don’t.
There are so many gifted ways to pray -- some with words, some without.
We’re open to all the ways the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray.
A most important gift of the Holy
Spirit is unity. Though the Spirit has given each of us individual gifts
that differ one from another, those gifts are not meant to separate us,
they are mean to be given together as we form one family of faith, united
together in Jesus. This Pentecost, let us ask the Holy Spirit to help
us to give our gifts and to grow as one.
