A few years ago, on the evening before Pentecost, my wife and I attended a concert of sacred music in a small local church. The church was packed, with about two hundred people. The concert was marvelous and deeply moving.

When the concert finished, no one applauded. No one moved. People sat there in deep reflection for a good ten or more minutes. I whispered to my wife: “This is amazing – a deeply meditative group experience.” A few minutes later, the somewhat agitated pastor stood up, looked at his watch, and then spoke to the congregation: “Ok everybody. The concert is over. It is getting late. Time for you to go home. I need to get some sleep. Big Pentecost Mass tomorrow!”

Slowly we all got up in silence and peacefully walked out.

The next morning, I attended the Pentecost High Mass at which the pastor presided. He was a good man but lived in his own small clerical world. For Pentecost there were about twenty people present for Mass. Many showed little enthusiasm, especially when the pastor – never looking at the congregation — read his long homily from a printed leaflet. After Mass, the pastor was at the church door wishing everyone a “Blessed Pentecost.” As I walked out, I went up to him wished him a Happy Pentecost and remarked with a chuckle that he had had a full house for the Saturday evening concert. He smiled but then rather seriously said: “All the heathens came here last night.” I smiled back and said in a friendly way: “I don’t think so. They had a prayerful spiritual experience.” Hearing that he shrugged, grumbled something, and turned to greet the next person….

I think many people today are hungry for a taste of the Divine, a genuine spiritual experience, even when they may not know how to express that hunger. Their hunger is real.

This year on Easter, I was thinking about the post-resurrection experience of Cleopas and the disciple, who was probably his wife Mary, on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus in Luke 24. They had an encounter with Jesus that touched them deeply but they did not at first recognize him.

Luke writes that they met a fellow traveller who talked with them about the events in Jerusalem but then acted as if he were going farther. “But they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’ So, he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’”

A healthy church gives people living bread, feeding not only their minds but warming their hearts as well: providing profound experiences in which they feel connected intimately to Someone larger than themselves. We call that the Sacred, the Divine, the Ground of Being or God. I suspect many people today feel like uncertain travellers looking for a map and a faithful spiritual guide.

Christian leaders with meaningful words, symbols, and rituals can indeed give direction and secure guidance. They can enable people to enter into a deeper dimension of life, an experience of the Divine, inspired by the great Christian leader, who said: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

Happy Pentecost!

• Jack

PS In keeping with my summer vacation tradition, I will be away from Another Voice until late June. A bit of time for reflection, research, and R&R.