Pentecost awakens the spirit of faith

In a spirit of great joy and prayerfulness, hundreds of parishioners from across Melbourne gathered for the 2024 Awaken Pentecost event held on Saturday 18 May. Hosted by St Benedict’s Burwood, St Scholastica’s Bennettswood, Holy Family Mount Waverley, St Christopher’s Syndal, Holy Saviour Vermont South, St Francis Xavier St Clare Box Hill and the Chinese Catholic Community, Awaken gathered Catholics from around Melbourne for a dynamic and inspiring afternoon of worship and prayer, talks, workshops and hospitality.

Now in its second year, the Awaken Pentecost 2024 event was held at NewHope in Blackburn North, with around 380 people from across 60 Catholic parishes in Melbourne attending. This included around 90 young people, who took part in a program designed specifically for their involvement.

A range of workshops were on offer, providing an array of inspiration and wisdom. They included: ‘The Spirit of holiness’ (exploring principles for growing in holiness and happiness); ‘Awakening the gifts of the Holy Spirit’ (to help identify spiritual gifts and exercise them for personal spiritual growth and for the sake of the world); ‘Practical wisdom for discernment’ (exploring key principles for discerning the will of God in everyday life); ‘Walking the way of Jesus’ (on how to be a disciple and take a transformative journey with Jesus in our daily lives); and ‘Maximising your life and leadership in the Church at any stage of our lives’.

I encourage you to be responsive to the promptings that the Spirit puts on your hearts, because God can do some extraordinary things when we work with him.

Sam Clear of Walk4One and Kym Keady from Ignite Youth in Brisbane were the special guest speakers during the afternoon gathering. Sam explored how the Holy Spirit can change our view of God, sharing several stories of how God had provided for him in quite extraordinary ways and how being tuned into those different experiences reminded him of God’s goodness and reliability.

He offered encouragement to those listening, inviting them to observe where God shows up in their lives, and to be ‘open to how God is speaking to each of us’.

‘I encourage you to be responsive to the promptings that the Spirit puts on your hearts,’ he said, ‘because God can do some extraordinary things when we work with him.’

In her presentation, Kym spoke about how the Holy Spirit transforms the way we see ourselves. ‘We are transformed in three ways,’ she said. ‘We are transformed in identity, transformed for life, and transformed for purpose. The book of Ephesians sums this up well in the first chapter: that we are predestined for adoption to sonship (identity), we are marked by the Holy Spirit (set apart for life), and we are chosen and we have the power of God (purpose).’

Kym shared her own ‘first Pentecost transformation moment’ when she was 18. She was on a trip around Australia on a year of mission with NET Ministries Australia. While training for this mission, the team had a lot of formation and prayer for six weeks before they left for mission. One of these days was the ‘Holy Spirit Day’, where she learnt a lot about the Holy Spirit.

The apostles were empowered with the gifts they needed to witness to Christ Jesus in their words and actions, unashamed to profess their faith and carry on Jesus’ mission. And the Holy Spirit can and does the same for us.

‘I learnt about the Holy Spirit in Scripture. I learnt about the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I learnt about being filled with the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation. I learnt about the apostles and Pentecost. I learned about the importance of the Holy Spirit in my life and why I needed the Holy Spirit as I went on mission. And we talked a lot about making the transition from being a disciples to an apostle.’

She explained that at Pentecost the disciples became apostles because they realised their identity—who they were and whose they were. Marked by the Holy Spirit, they were transformed for living and lived differently in communion with others, filled with the fruits of the Spirit and filled with purpose.

‘They were empowered with the gifts they needed to witness to Christ Jesus in their words and actions, unashamed to profess their faith and carry on Jesus’ mission. And the Holy Spirit can and does the same for us.’

One of the event organisers, Fr Dan Serratore MGL, said he was pleased with the gathering, which ‘provides an opportunity for the lives of people in Melbourne to be touched by the Holy Spirit’.

This event provides an opportunity for us to open our hearts to the Spirit and to provide parishioners with a more vibrant, inspiring, spirit-filled experience of Church. We trust it will be an environment where many hearts are touched by the love of God.

‘Firstly, this event is to gather the Church. It is very rare these days that we get to come together, pray together, worship together and mingle together.

‘Secondly, being Pentecost, this event provides an opportunity for us to open our hearts to the Spirit and to provide parishioners with a more vibrant, inspiring, spirit-filled experience of Church. We trust it will be an environment where many hearts are touched by the love of God.’

Among the hundreds gathered, there were about 90 young people ranging in age from primary school children to teenagers, and four streams of workshops were available for young people: Prep–Year 2, Years 3–6, Years 7 and 8, and Years 9–12. While the workshops provided age-appropriate content centred on the Holy Spirit for the younger attendees, Fr Dan says it was also about giving parents the ‘time and space to enter into prayer and worship more fully’.

‘The fruits of the gathering were evident,’ he said. ‘We had at least 80 per cent (hundreds of people) take up the invitation for prayer at the end with one of our many prayer ministry teams. We heard of many touching stories about people praying with each other and for each other, and we also had good feedback about the workshops and presentations. There was also lot of mingling in the afternoon tea, so it was just a beautiful experience of Church.’