Saint Catherine of Sienna was a 14th Century pyromaniac. In a time when women would not dare challenge men, Catherine sent a letter to Pope Gregory XI, confronting him, and eventually convincing him, to move the papacy from France back to Rome. In all her dealings, Catherine of Sienna was forthright but never rude. She cared not a bit about the restraints her culture and time placed on her as a woman. She told the hard truth, but she did it with love. We remember her to this day as someone who set the world on fire.
St. Catherine kept journals, many of which are still in publication. They’re filled with Spirit-filled prayers that still speak life into their readers. In one of her journal entries, she gave a piece of advice that still echoes through the centuries. She wrote,
“Be who God created you to be, and you will set the world on fire!”
Pentecost is that ever-repeating moment when all of us who call ourselves disciples stop sitting around tables inside our tightly enclosed upper rooms and begin trusting not in our own power or ideas, not in our own imagination or initiative, but give ourselves over to a greater power, to be swept up and outward by a higher calling and adopt a holy imagination. But it’s only when and if we bravely and dangerously go onward with the Holy Spirit that God can do amazing things with us and through us!
In just a minute, I will invite you to make your way to the front four windows, the two front stained-glass windows and the two clear windows at the front corners. The ushers provided you with a helpful map, so to speak, that will guide you from one window to the next.
Hanging up in each window, you will find ways you can help fulfill an unmet ministry need. You’re invited to pick up as many cards as you’d like. As you make your way from one window to the next, please take the cards from the piles at the bottom of each window. Take the card hanging up on the string only when there are no cards like them left below.
And may I suggest that responding to your church’s unmet needs is a Pentecost response. When we say “Here I am,” we start a fire.
This and every Pentecost, God wants us to take that tongue of flame and bravely and dangerously start holy fires with it so that others may see by that light who our God is. And if we do that, we too will give birth to the Church.
All praises to the One who made it all and finds it beautiful! Alleluia! Amen.