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Reflections and prayers for Pentecost

Prayer l

Sunday’s Gospel reading is John 15.26-7 &16.12-15



Jesus said: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.  All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.”
The earliest name for Christianity was “the Way.”  To be a follower of Jesus is not simply to have a particular set of beliefs.  It is to embark upon journey into the infinite, loving mystery of God.
It is because our faith is relational and not simply propositional that we need the Holy Spirit: whom the Father sends to us, both to enter our individual hearts and to make us into one Body in Christ.
As the Nicene Creed reminds us week by week, God’s Word became flesh in Jesus ‘by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary’.  The Holy Spirit continues to make God’s word become flesh today: being ‘spiritual’ isn’t about turning our backs on the material world, and on the questions of how wealth is used and shared to build a more just and merciful community.
In the Book of Acts, we see that the fruits of Pentecost were a change in both how the disciples preached the Gospel (with power – and in a way their hearers could understand, whatever their culture or language) but in the way they lived the Gospel (sharing their homes and possessions, so that none was in want).  Those are the same fruits we are called to bear today.

Prayer intentions

Please pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in particular for the Spirit’s energy and wisdom – both in the churches of which you are a part, and the staff teams at the Contextual Theology Centre and Church Urban Fund.  On Friday 1 June, CTC’s staff are on a morning of prayer and reflection to plan their work in the year ahead: ask the Spirit’s blessing and guidance on this time.
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