And whose fault is that Bishop?

Limburg Bishop Bätzing laments loss of importance of Pentecost

Bishop Bätzing of Limburg: Pentecost is losing importance for many people

In his Pentecost message, Bishop Bätzing of Limburg addressed the significance of the feast and the division in society. He lamented that fewer and fewer people knew what was being celebrated at Pentecost in the first place.

In his sermon on Pentecost Sunday, the President of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing from Limburg, deplored the increasing loss of importance of the feast of Pentecost. Even more than Christmas and Easter, Pentecost suffers "from an increasing emptying of content".

People know less and less about the meaning of the festival. It goes as far as a widespread ignorance of Christian roots. For many people it is only about "celebrating a spring festival", said the Limburg Bishop.

Bätzing emphasised the significance of the day as the birth festival of the Church. Pentecost is "today, as it was then, the initial spark of a Church of diversity, of many languages, cultures, different biographies and origins".

New technology, old prejudices

For him it is "by no means a law of nature that in times of growing pluralisation and secularisation there are fewer and fewer people who know about the actual meaning", Bätzing continued. "Why then should there not again be a growing number of interested and informed - indeed, ultimately also believing contemporaries?"

However, "contemporaneity" is complicated, because in fact one does not live in a "shared reality" with all other people. There are enough examples of this: The latest technology goes hand in hand with the oldest prejudices, said Bätzing. On the one hand, there are satellites in space, smartphones and the AI software ChatGPT - and at the same time, there are ancient conspiracy myths and hate messages.

Pentecost

On the fiftieth day after Easter, Christians celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. According to biblical tradition, God sent his Spirit to the people 50 days after Easter. As a result, they were able to communicate even across language barriers and felt a new sense of community. In memory of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit described in the Bible (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2), Pentecost is also regarded as the origin of the Church.

Gerber encourages "keeping the centre free"

In his sermon in Fulda Cathedral, Bishop Michael Gerber encouraged us to see the challenges of our time as an opportunity to "recognise God's work in the centre and create space for the new."

Gerber used the image of emptiness in the days before Pentecost to emphasise the importance of free space. Keeping the centre free, he said, enables the emergence of the new and promotes the growth of relationships and personalities.

The Bishop of Fulda encouraged people to consciously endure the emptiness they feel and not to fill it with prefabricated programmes. By keeping the centre free, the view of the other person remains clear and makes it possible to discover the message of God through the neighbour. "By keeping the centre free, we open the possibility for God himself to bring about something new."

Ecumenical service at the State Garden Show

On Whit Monday, the Diocese of Fulda and the Protestant Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck invite you to an ecumenical service on the grounds of the State Garden Show in Fulda. The service, jointly organised by Bishop Beate Hofmann and Bishop Michael Gerber, will begin at 12 noon at the so-called "sky tent".

More information on Garden Show Ecumania

Source