The Sober Inebriation Of The Holy Spirit – 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; July 14, 2024

On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and disciples in a mighty wind and tongues of fire, they were heard in all languages proclaiming the mighty works of God. Some, however, mocked them saying, They are drunk on new wine. (Acts 2:13)

Why would they have charged the Apostles with drunkenness? Because they seemed to be raving, besides themselves, ecstatic. What they were talking about seemed so fantastic that the speakers could not be regarded as sane.

But let’s consider that word “ecstasy”. These days, if it does not refer to a drug, it is taken to mean intense pleasure, such that a person “loses their mind” in the ecstasy. Yet, there are also religious “ecstasies” of various kinds, both true and deceptive. From its root, the word means “besides oneself” or “out of oneself.” Love is said to be “ecstatic” because it carries the lover out of himself to the beloved.

We could speak of two basic forms of ecstasy, downward and upward. The ecstasy of sensual pleasure moves downward; the ecstatic loses his mind in sensual pleasure. In the upward ecstasy, the mind is lifted above itself into God. The impulse behind any ecstasy is love, love of pleasure or love of God; the ecstasy impacts the mind, either destroying it by enslaving it to sensual pleasure, or lifting it to a higher level, more than human.

On Pentecost, the Apostles and disciples were “ecstatic” with what has been called the “sober inebriation” of the Holy Spirit; they had not lost their minds, rather their minds had been raised to share in the Spirit of God. They spoke of marvels worthy of God, but which to the worldly seemed “fantastic” or “unreal”, mere drunken raving.

What sort of things were they talking about?

Well, St. Paul was not there that day, but after his conversion he certainly became a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit. Today’s 2^nd reading sounds very much like the sort of thing that is so fantastic, so extraordinary, so amazing that bystanders might dismiss it as mere drunken raving.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Three times he uses the word “blessed” conveying a superlative degree of blessing coming to us through Christ from the source of all blessing. The mockers at Pentecost could easily dismiss this as drunken raving, nothing more than a fairy tale or fantasy, too good to be true. Yet, for 2,000 years the reality has been verified in the lives of the saints.

The superlative degree of blessing can leave us stammering before the staggering reality of God’s goodness, far beyond what we can comprehend or imagine, but St. Paul does not stop there. He has more to say about the origin of the blessing, how it comes to us in Christ, in what it consists, and in what it is fulfilled. Each word is filled with such light that our minds remain dazzled by the splendor that is revealed to us. Yet, even if all we can do is stammer in response, we want to seek some minimal understanding of this great blessing so that we can truly become cooperatores veritatis, co-workers with the truth (3 Jn 8), true friends of Christ who collaborate intelligently in his work, laboring in his vineyard, not as slaves, but as sons. (cf. Jn 15:15; Mt 20:1-16; Lk 15:31) We want to gain some minimal understanding of this blessing so as to give praise to God, together with St. Paul, and all the saints, for his wonderful works in Christ.

Two phrases in this passage illumine the meaning of these blessings. St. Paul speaks about redemption in the blood of Christ and being given to know the mystery of God’s will.

First redemption, that means literally a “purchase” not any purchase, but a buying back of what has been surrendered as a “pledge” or “collateral”; we were “sold” to sin and Jesus Christ bought us back, paying to God the price of our sins. In Christ we have redemption by his blood, forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.

We will get to that abundance of spiritual blessings, but in the first place we must never forget not only that this is pure grace, something we did not deserve, but that it is also pure mercy, since we deserved the opposite because of our sins and transgressions. We must never forget that the grace and mercy of God, freeing us from sin, has come to us through the blood of Christ, poured out on the Cross. We must never forget, because Jesus himself said, Do this in memory of me, when he gave the chalice to the Apostles, saying, Take this all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

At the same time, just as the death of Christ leads to his resurrection, the forgiveness of sins opens the door to the great gift of life in Christ, every spiritual blessing in the heavens. He destined us to adoption to himself through Jesus Christ. Sharing the life of Christ means sharing the life of the Son of God, it means living as true children of God, called to be holy and blameless before him.

To live as true children of God, we must be intelligent collaborators in his work; for that reason he has made know to us the mystery of his will: A plan for the fulness of time, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth.

What does that expression fulness of time really mean?

In the first place, the fulness of time refers to the time when Jesus lived upon the earth, from his conception in the womb of the Virgin to his death on the Cross and to his Resurrection and Ascension, his return to the right hand of God.

That means that the fulness of time did not begin with the discovery of America, or the invention of the steam-engine, or the telephone, or the computer, nor did the fulness of time begin with the overthrow of kingdoms and the establishment of democracies; in a word, the modern world is not the fulness of time, it is not the time of humanity’s coming of age, of maturity, of leaving behind childish myths and fables, which is the standard accusation against the Christian religion. No, the Apostles were not drunk with new wine, and neither are we who believe. Their teaching is neither myth nor fable, but reality. (cf. 2 Pe 1:16) Neither “history” nor “science” will sit in judgment on Christ, rather Christ will sit in judgment on history and science.

Because Christ’s time on earth is the fulness of time all time must refer to him or be condemned by him. What went before prepared for his coming; what comes after flows from his redemptive work, as the blood and water flowing forth from his open Heart upon the Cross. (cf. Jn 19:34)

What went before prepared for his coming and was summed up in his life when he came.

Adam was the head of the human race in its first creation, but he failed in his task, rebelled against God, and handed on to his children an inheritance of sin and death. Jesus Christ is the head of redeemed humanity, what Adam was meant to be, who completed the work entrusted to him by his Father and handed on to the children born from his wounded side the inheritance of the life of grace and the promise of the resurrection of the body.

Abel offered a sacrifice pleasing to God, the first fruits of his flock, foreshadowing the sacrificial death of Christ on the Cross, and then, slain by his brother Cain, poured out his own blood. This was summed up by Christ who would be condemned by the envy of his countrymen, his brothers, and so pour out his Blood on the Cross.

Noah found favor with God and so in the ark saved a remnant of humanity from destruction; Christ found favor with God and saves a remnant of humanity through baptism in his Church.

So it is that all the persons and events of the Old Testament point to Christ.

So also, as Eve was fashioned from the side of Adam to be his Bride, when he was cast into a deep sleep; in like manner, the Church has been built up from the water and blood that poured forth from the side of Christ, asleep on the Cross. For Christ loved her and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish. (Eph 5:25-27)

So also all the symbolic sacrifices whether offered by Abel, or Noah, or Abraham, or offered in the Jerusalem Temple, point to Christ, the true priest and the true sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29) and also the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, (Rev 13:8) because he was represented in all those sacrifices that went before, and which were pleasing to God on his account.

What comes after Christ, in the Church, comes from him and reveals the treasures of wisdom and grace that were hidden in him. The life of one man, in one time and one place as not enough to reveal the riches contained in his Sacred Heart.

The law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the very image of the realities. (Heb 10:1) The shadow is but a bare outline, while the image, the appearances of bread and wine, representing the death of Christ, contains the reality of his Body and Blood, given to us as true food that lasts to eternal life, when the image will give way to the face-to-face vision. (cf. Jn  6:54-55; 1 Cor 13:12)

So before the coming of Christ there were sacrifices and rituals that symbolically but obscurely proclaimed his coming and his redemptive work, in the fulness of time. Now after his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, there remain in his Church the visible sacrifice of the Mass that renews the offering of Christ’s Body and Blood, made once for all on the Cross;  through the mystery of transubstantiation, the Body and Blood are really, truly, and substantially present beneath the appearances of bread and wine; further there are the other sacraments, which Christ himself established and employs to communicate the forgiveness of sins and the life of grace, every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Sacrifice and sacrament have been entrusted to the priestly order, which itself is nothing but a sharing in the one priesthood of Christ, deriving all its power from him, existing completely at his service.

Among the sacraments there is holy matrimony, belonging to God’s creation from the beginning, but raised up by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament, sharing now in the order of grace, and becoming a sign of the marriage between Christ and his Church that was consummated on the Cross.

All this, which comes from the wounded side of Christ on the Cross, all this, which belongs to the Church, has born fruit in the lives of the saints, through the centuries, who having been redeemed by Christ’s Blood, sanctified by him, transformed in him, made holy and blameless, became living icons of Christ himself. God wants this to bear fruit in our lives as well.

He himself said, before his passion and death, When I am lifted up from the earth [on the Cross] I will draw everything to myself. (Jn 13:32) Summing everything up, uniting everything beneath his headship, bringing even the holy angels, faithful from the beginning, beneath his reign, he has brought to fulfillment all the symbols and prophecies that went before him, and pours out the grace of all the spiritual blessings in heaven upon his Church, which comes after him.

When he comes in glory that which is hidden except to the eyes of faith will be made manifest (cf. Col 3:4) and all those gathered into his kingdom, into the heavenly Jerusalem, the fulfillment and perfection of God’s plan, will become an offering to the Father, in Christ, to the praise of the glory of his grace. (cf. 1 Cor 15:24, Eucharistic Prayer III)

This is the plan of God from before the creation of the world, revealed in Christ, in which we have been chosen and called through our baptism, to be holy and without blemish before him. We share already in the first fruits of the Holy Spirit who makes us to be adopted children of God in Christ. When he comes in glory we will appear with him, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

All of this reality is already fully embodied in the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, holy and immaculate, taken up body and soul into heaven. She continues her song of thanksgiving before the throne of God. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, because he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his handmaid. Behold, all generations shall call me blessed – indeed with every spiritual blessing in the heavens – because he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. (Lk 1:46-49)

We are called to share in this plan as friends of Christ, as intelligent co-workers with the truth, but to receive the spiritual blessings from the heavens, we must enter through the narrow door of repentance – because all too often we have rather been preoccupied with the pursuit of our petty projects, plans, and pleasures – and receive the forgiveness of sins by the power of Christ’s Blood.

Then we shall know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. (Eph 3:19)