Homily for May 11 2008 Pentecost and Mothers' Day

I asked at the beginning of Mass how Mothers’ Day and Pentecost Sunday could be tied together and suggested that the second reading would have a hint. The hint I was thinking of is where Paul says, "There are different spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service, but the same Lord; and there are different workings, but the same God who gives them all." Somebody was helping me with this link and said, "If you have a large family, the mother and maybe the father" (I'm a little leery of saying mothers are this way and fathers are that way because I think, there are a lot of fathers who act in ways we traditionally call motherly and mothers who exercise fatherly gifts.) , will appreciate the gift that each of of the children is to the family. They appreciate what they bring, and the gift that they are, and the gift that the family is to them. There is a reciprocity.
By the way  this is an aside  do you know in the biblical languages the word for “spirit” and the word for “breath” are the same? It's this breath of God which animates the whole world, and God breathed life into us, and we breath out and in always of that Spirit of God.
Can you see that in a large family? You appreciate the gift that each one is. There are distinctions, there are different gifts, but you rejoice in each one. We don't necessarily arrange them in hierarchical orders; we don't say this gift is better than that gift. We realize that no one of us has all the gifts. And so we need each other, and we honor the gifts that each other are.
And I think that's the strong link, and as we link that in the Church  again, as I said at the beginning, can anybody define the Holy Spirit in such a way that we throw out a definition and say here it is, it's here and nowhere else? You can't do that, can you, because the Spirit is like wind, it blows wherever it will, and so nobody can claim to have an exclusive possession of the Holy Spirit.
In the Church we all have it; we all have it through baptism. We may have different roles, we may have different ministries, we may have different ways in which the gift of the Spirit is manifest in our lives, but our call is to celebrate and to honor all of them, and to respect them in each other, to support each other in living out that gift of the Spirit.
So, just in the spirit of Mothers' Day, I would like you just to look around this church and see us all as part of a big family. I always have to throw a caution, though, when I use the image of family for the Church, because we always need to be respectful of the stranger. Sometimes family makes us want everybody to be alike, and we can also be different.
But anyway, for today just look around and see us all as one big family, and look around and try to appreciate the gift that each person here is to this community. And also try to appreciate the gift that this community is to each individual. And as we celebrate Pentecost, let's celebrate God's generosity in pouring out his Spirit in the world, not only here, but in all the other churches around us, and in all the other gatherings that people have. God does not limit God's gifts of the Spirit to our mental categories or definitions.