Pentecost: the breath of Jesus

When Jesus breathed on his disciples on Easter Sunday, it was a foretaste of Pentecost. The breath of Jesus is nothing other  than the Spirit who proceeds out of his mouth and preaches him. And it is a breath of fire, of judgment. He sits at God's right hand, as Judge; and he will surely judge all. So let us, in penitence, beg for mercy. And then we shall be equipped to hear of the mercy preached from Pentecost forward. For the sound of the Spirit is not indiscriminate; it is the sound of preaching; it is most clearly what Jesus said to his disciples when he breathed on them and ordained them: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted. The sound is "your sins are forgiven you," heard in the preaching of the Gospel, and again, most clearly, in  the Blessed Sacrament, where his body and blood are given "for you, for the remission of sins." Sermon for Pentecost.