Pentecost and National Reconciliation Week

This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday and in the Gospel (John 20:19-23) Jesus appears to his disciples and gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit.

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The Gospel reminds us that the Church begins with the command to forgive. The gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to do both. This reading is also fitting as we begin National Reconciliation Week.

National Reconciliation Week (NRW) is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

The dates for NRW remain the same each year; 27 May to 3 June. These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey— the successful 1967 referendum, and the High Court Mabo decision respectively. National Reconciliation Week started as the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation in 1993 (the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples) and was supported by Australia’s major faith communities. In 1996, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation launched Australia’s first NRW. In 2000, Reconciliation Australia was established to continue to provide national leadership on reconciliation. Reconciliation must live in the hearts, minds and actions of all Australians as we move forward, creating a nation strengthened by respectful relationships between the wider Australian community, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

(Adapted from https://www.reconciliation.org.au/national-reconciliation-week/)

As you gather together as a family, sit quietly for a few minutes, inviting everyone to reflect upon their need to forgive and to receive forgiveness. Talk together about how Jesus gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us in the work of forgiveness and to bring us peace.

You are invited to identify one or more ways in which your family is a witness of God’s love. Together discuss how you could work together to do a better job of being God’s love to others. Make a family plan for one of those ways and work together to make it happen.

If you would like to share your family’s plan to contribute to a special St Joseph’s project please email it to melanie.stratford@cg.catholic.edu.au. To protect the privacy of the authors, all contributions will not be publicly identified.