A homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost, June 8, 2025
Acts 2:1-11, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13, John 14:15-16, 23b-26
Back when I was a sophomore at Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft, I was struggling to learn French. (I didn’t do much better in the years that followed, but that’s a story for another day.) My accent was horrendous, my memory of numbers was awful, and I failed miserably at determining which person, place or thing was a le and which was a la.
But one night as she was doing bed checks, Mom heard me talking in my sleep, in what she swore was flawless Français. I scoffed. So the next time she thought I was doing my best Maurice Chevalier, she recorded it, to play back in the morning.
I sounded more like the “pardon my French” you might hear on a golf course but never in church.