We celebrate Pentecost. We come together to celebrate and to pray for the Holy Spirit. But what exactly is it we need to be praying for? I've got two answers to that.

I think the first thing we pray for--for the church and ourselves--is that the Spirit give us grace. Now that is a problem for some of us-those of us a little older. I don't know how many--I won't ask for a show of hands--but a lot of us raised on the Baltimore catechism, when we hear grace, or sanctifying grace, we think of one thing and one thing only: a milk bottle. They used to show us the difference between a soul with grace, a soul with mortal sin, and a soul with venial sin with three milk bottles. And the soul with grace was filled with milk, and the soul in the state of mortal sin was empty, and the soul with venial sin which was just so-so, looked like it was buttermilk in there. It was very speckled. So that doesn't help me a lot. I'm not praying to milk bottles. Some of us think of grace as mist--a holy mist, but still a mist. And others think of it as an Ajax cleanser. But you know there's a modern theologian-he died two years ago-he is probably Pope John Paul II's absolute favorite theologian of the 20th century, Louis von Balthasar. And I think he got it right. He said grace, grace is God's affection for us. Isn't that great? God's affection for us. Our God delights in us, our God loves us, our God walks with us, our God is near. And what we pray for is that the Holy Spirit come and let us know and feel and experience God's grace, God's affection for us. Look at the apostles. They were locked in the upper room; they were locked in fear. Poor self image. They were scared and immobilized, and when they experienced the Holy Spirit of God's grace-God's affection for them-they were able to go out and change the world. We could all use that. That's the first thing we pray for.

The second thing I would suggest is a duet, a duo: two sided. Someone has said what the church needs in every age-and I think what most of us need-is a hospice worker and a midwife, that the Holy Spirit come to us as a hospice worker and a midwife, because we are always in the process of needing to let go, needing to die to certain things and needing new life. And death and new life--that's painful, that's difficult, but it's always necessary. Look at the Apostles: they had to die, they had to let go of not their Jewish roots, but their Jewish tradition. Remember Tevya in "Fiddler on the Roof": "tradition, tradition;" that's what held them together. They had to let go of that. They had to let go of their Jewish families, many were thrown out of their families. All were thrown out of their synagogues. They had to die; and they needed the Holy Spirit as a hospice worker, but they also needed the Holy Spirit as a midwife to give birth to a universal church, a church that was a light to all the nations, a church that welcomed all. Same way in the church today. There's a lot dying going on. We need the Holy Spirit as a hospice worker-religious orders dying, vocations to the priesthood declining-near death in many places-the devotions we grew up with: not much left but nostalgia for them. And the prestige of the church--we're looking good-is being replaced with criticism, with dissent, and with scandal. We need a hospice worker. Come Holy Spirit. But we also need to give new life; we need a good midwife. Come Holy Spirit. The people of God, all baptized people learning anew that they are the Church, they are the ministers, they are the missionaries. When we gather to worship not just in private prayer but to participate, all as an assembly in liturgy which is rooted in our Scripture and our broader traditions in the past. And as far as prestige goes, maybe the new life has something to do with the old gospel where we become as small as mustard seed and as low as foot washers.

But it also happens in our individual life. We need to know God's affection. We need the Spirit as hospice worker and midwife. We've a great example of it here in our parish. This Easter season we celebrate with 20 adults who became new Catholic Christians with us, and it meant letting go and moving on, and their faith journey is a real witness to us. So what we are doing this weekend is inviting at each Mass one of our new Catholics to share something of their faith journey with us. So I'm going to ask Doug Cervantes if he'd come up and share something of that with us.

Doug Cervantes:

Good morning. The fact that I'm here is a testament to the love and power of our Lord Jesus Christ. My personal journey began February of the year 2000. With my wife and my soon-to-be sponsor, Chris Martin, and his wife DeDe, I attended a Catholic-sponsored retreat called "Journey in Christianity" in Sonora, California. Little did I know that this weekend would be the start of a life-altering journey for me. I went on the retreat as a way to get away from work for the weekend and because my wife had been bugging me about it. I came back with Jesus Christ in my heart. The first night I was there I was touched by a loving feeling that I needed to know more about. The next morning I told my wife that I wanted to join the RCIA program. She was shocked, to say the least. What happened to me is what is written in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 29, verse 13, which reads, "When you pray, I will answer you; when you call to me I will respond." The picture of my life I come back to time and time again is that of Jesus Christ sitting in a room with His arms spread wide welcoming and me running around in circles knowing he is there all along not wanting to stop, for fear of being run over by what I don't know.

I was at a time in my life where I realized something was missing and perhaps--God forbid--I didn't know everything. It was then that I called on dear Lord Jesus and He responded. He responded by introducing me to Marie Egoff, our RCIA Coordinator. She actually reminded me of my best friend's mom when we were children growing up in Brentwood. I met her during our pre-RCIA meetings in May, I believe it was. And I was really anxious to get started with the program. I got upset when I found out it didn't actually start until September. I started attending Mass on Sundays with my wife Angela and our two children. They had been attending Christ the King for seven years without me. My son Adrian started asking, "Dad, why are you coming to church with us?" instead of the opposite, which had been true for the previous five or six years when they would ask me questions and wonder what I was doing. It was a wonderful feeling to hear him ask me that.

I had to know what was going on. I'd asked my cradle Catholic wife, "What does this mean? What does that mean? Why are we sitting, kneeling, standing? I realized very soon I had to get into shape for the Catholic aerobics. Fortunately, the RCIA classes were coming soon to answer my questions. An interesting thing that I soon discovered with the classes, was that I was able to help answer questions for my cradle Catholic wife about things she had been doing for her entire Catholic life and wasn't really quite sure why she'd been doing them.

The energy and joy was something that was possible in these gatherings. I'd look forward to the gatherings and towards seeing the people that became part of my family. A feeling of peace, warmth, and love would carry me over the Bay Bridge and through the tunnel on my commutes home from San Francisco on those Thursday nights. Whether it was Father Joyce teaching us why we kneel, sit, stand up, or when to do it, Frank Dieman with his visceral and visual descriptions of everything from the beginning of earth to what love is, or Al Garrotto with his heartfelt teachings and sharings, the 90-minute gatherings seemed to fly by. The entire RCIA team consisted of varying personalities and people that shared one main attribute: a love for us and each other.

Learning the basics of the Catholic Church and how it is a living and breathing and ever-changing entity, was an incredible experience. I feel as if I am part of something huge and powerful, yet I feel that it is my own personal relationship with our Lord Jesus that has brought me here. Learning the ways of the Lord and sharing His love with others has become a way of life. For me, RCIA does not end this weekend. It will continue to grow inside forever. Thank you.