Dearly Beloved in Christ,

Pentecost is the feast of the birthday of the Church. After the Ascension of Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother, St. Peter, and the other disciples gathered in the Cenacle and spent nine days in intense prayer. It was the first novena. The ninth day was Pentecost Sunday. The Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised was poured into the hearts of His disciples. Suddenly, they overcame their fears and confusion and went forth on their mission to announce the Good News. As a result of their witnessing, three thousand people asked to be baptized. Each year throughout our own Diocese, this season is a time of Baptisms, Confirmations, and First Communions, spiritual events that are so important to our Catholic families and the community of faith.

This year Pentecost comes at a time of crisis that has deeply touched every Catholic who loves the Church. Like so many generations of Catholics in times of crisis and tragedy, we feel the need to turn to God in prayer asking for the grace of healing, of reconciliation, of unity. We pray like those rust disciples "in the company of Mary." Her faith and fidelity help to sustain our prayer. We ask God for the healing of the wounds inflicted on the Body of Christ by the betrayal of trust, by broken vows, by the evil of sexual abuse of our children and young people. We pray for the individuals and their families who have been directly affected by these crimes and whose suffering is long-term. We want them to know how truly sorry the entire Church community feels for what they have suffered. Our hope is that our sorrow and our prayers will help bring God's healing power into their lives.

Many of our faithful Catholics have been scandalized by this evil. Priests feel tainted and compromised by the sins of a few, and our seminarians' vocations are sorely tested. We are a community that cries out for the grace of healing. In the face of so much anger and hurt, we pray for the grace of reconciliation. At each Mass we say the words of Jesus in the Our Father; we ask for God's forgiveness and then pledge ourselves to forgive one another. Then we pray: "Look not on our sins but on the faith of your Church." We ask God to heal our sin and deepen our faith, to bring reconciliation to our brokenness.

Reconciliation, of course, demands a firm purpose of amendment. It means seeking new ways to avoid the grave mistakes of the past and to make the safety of our children our paramount goal. Accordingly, I call on all our clergy, religious, and laity to support the efforts of our diocesan family to protect children. Mandated reporting, police background checks (CORI), and training sessions on sexual abuse must be part of the landscape in every parish, agency, and school of the Church.

In a world of so much individualism and the privatization of religion, we publicly profess our faith that Christ came into our world to establish a Church, a people, a community of faith, entrusted to continue His mission. The Church is the instrument that Christ founded so that His teachings and sacraments could be present to believers in every generation and in every place. Jesus refers to Himself as the "Bridegroom." The Church is His Bride. He is not the widower. He does not exist separate from His Church.

One of the hallmarks of the Church is unity, our oneness in Christ. The Pentecost experience was that all the strangers in Jerusalem understood the Apostles preaching, each one in his own language. The Spirit of love and unity that characterizes Pentecost is a Spirit that dissolves the divisions that separate us from each other and calls us to speak one faith in one language of love.

I want to thank all of you who have responded to my invitation to make use of these last nine days as a Novena for the Church. I suggested the Prayer of St. Francis because it is a prayer that asks God to help us be instruments of His peace, love, faith, hope, and forgiveness. Today, we come to the last day of this Novena. As you gather around the altar in your parishes, unite your prayer to those of all the faithful. As we offer the gifts of bread and wine, let us offer our lives asking God to purify us, to transform us, to unite us. We are the living stones that make up the Church. On this Pentecost may the Holy Spirit come to renew us in our vocation to holiness and in our mission to make God's kingdom more present, more visible.

We are not blind to the blemishes and warts our sins and failings inflict on the Body of Christ. At this Pentecost, we go to God in prayer so that we will be able to stir up the Gifts of the Spirit within us. Together, we must embrace the mission that Christ has entrusted to us. May our Pentecost prayer and God's grace bring us the healing, reconciliation, and unity that we long for.

Devotedly yours in Christ,

Sean P. O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap.

Bishop of Fall River