“You will receive power.”

These are some of the last words Jesus says to his disciples before his Ascension into Heaven.

Be ready. Be prepared for the promise of the Father. “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me… and you will soon be clothed with FRESH power as well!”

All this talk about POWER!!!! What kind of power are we going to receive from God, we might ask?

Certainly Jesus is NOT talking about the power to get exactly what we want, whenever we want it — power for imposing our own will over our surroundings and circumstances — the power to produce instant results… instant gratification.

This is a good chance to address an important and timely topic before going on any further in this homily. We don’t always talk about this sort of thing explicitly, but it’s necessary for me as your pastor to make sure we’re all on the same page:

One of the ways some people seek power, control and instant gratification today is through the means of the occult.

Ouija boards, tarot cards, reiki, palm reading, visiting psychics, consulting witchcraft, using crystals and other new age or pagan stuff — People today are so STARVING for the supernatural in their lives, that sometimes they go about getting it in all the wrong ways!

And so, through these and other occult practices, people try to tap into the spiritual realm, and try to harness what they believe to be potent spiritual powers. 

This is really really tempting, because the occult promises us quick results, fast and easy solutions to all our problems… in a word: 

It promises us POWER and CONTROL!

This is a serious and (sadly) a growing issue.

More and more young people are experimenting with this sort of stuff. They get exposed to it when hanging out with their friends, through television shows and movies, when scrolling TikTok or Instagram, and parents need to be alert and aware. 

It might seem harmless. It might look sort of stupid and silly. It might advertise INSTANT HELP — but what folks don’t realize is that when you play with that sort of stuff, you’re actually opening up doors to the spiritual realm and giving evil spirits an opportunity to get a foothold in your life…

So, if you are practicing any of these things… or if you ever have… you should stop, bring it to confession, and be set TOTALLY FREE from any influence it may still have over you or over your loved ones!

Alright… That’s my brief “public service announcement” about the so-called “power” that the occult promises!

Let’s get back to Jesus and back to our original question:

What kind of power is Jesus telling us that we will be “clothed with” when the Holy Spirit comes upon the Church at Pentecost?

Well, the Greek word for “power” that’s used here and elsewhere in the New Testament is the word “dunamis” — DUNAMIS has the same root as other words we’re familiar with like DYNAMIC or DYNAMITE…

So, there’s a kind of energy, a vibrance, a propulsion, an eruption to this power that God wants to give us — this “dunamis” power!

It’s the POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST!

Anybody bluegrass fans here?

There’s a group of Dominican Friars out there who have a band called the Hillbilly Thomists. They are absolutely fantastic, and they have an album that I love called “Holy Ghost Power.”

THAT’S the power Jesus offers us! 

Holy Ghost Power!

It’s the POWER to give witness to Jesus!

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

YOU WILL BE MY WITNESSES…

The power Jesus is talking about, as he is lifted up and ascends into Heaven — is the power to be WITNESSES… In Greek, the word used here is MARTUS, which of course translates into the English word “Martyrs.”

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses” — My “martus” — My MARTYRS.

Martyrs are WITNESSES.

They WITNESS to the goodness of God.

They POINT to His love and mercy.

They PROVE that God is real by their life, their choices, their testimony!

That’s the kind of power Jesus offers us. 

It’s the POWER we need to blow up the worldly narrative — POWER to erupt with joy instead of hatred — POWER to explode with goodness, forgiveness and love instead of judgment and bitterness. We can shock the entire world with this kind of DUNAMIS power living and breathing within us. 

Simply put: When we’re filled with Holy Ghost Power, we’re cooking with spiritual dynamite!!! It’s an apostolic power. It’s a power that triggers miracles. That fills us with strength to sacrifice of ourselves out of love. It’s a power that enables each of us to be radical, vibrant witnesses of Jesus’ Truth in this wounded, anxious, tired, apathetic, selfish, confused world… So that people will be forced to ask: “How is this possible? How are these people living like this? Where did they get that power!?!?!?”

One of my favorite examples of this POWER to be a witness —  this POWER to be a MARTYR for Jesus is the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

When he was a young boy, the Blessed Virgin Mary visited Maximilian and offered him a choice of two crowns: Either he could wear the white crown of a life of heroic virtue — a “white martyrdom” if you will — or he could have the red crown of martyrdom by blood.

Maximilian chose both.

And sure enough, later on in his life, St Maximilian Kolbe found himself imprisoned at the infamous Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz.

At one point, some prisoners actually managed to escape the camp, and as punishment, several inmates were selected at random to be executed. 

As the now famous story goes, one of the men selected to be killed began to plead with the Nazi officer to spare his life, explaining that he had a wife and kids. 

The officer ignored the man, but St Maximilian Kolbe did not.

St Maximilian Kolbe, filled with the DUNAMIS POWER of the Holy Spirit… the POWER to be a witness…stepped forward, and boldly volunteered to take the man’s place.

The Nazi questioned him: “Who are you?”

And Kolbe replied: “I am a Catholic priest.”

It was the perfect response. Unplanned, of course… but those words are so legendary! So filled with DYNAMITE…

Jesus, of course, promised us this would happen! …That we’d be given the exact right words when we needed them the most when giving WITNESS to Him! 

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells the apostles point blank:

When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

It will be that HOLY GHOST POWER within you that enables you to say the right words!

Amazingly, the Nazis accepted Maximilian’s offer to take the man’s place in the starvation chamber. And for the next two weeks, he and 9 other men withered away in that little cell. According to reports, Maximilian spent that time encouraging and strengthening those with him. He sang hymns with them. He prayed with them. And as one by one they died, he helped prepare them in their final moments to come face to face with God.

Now, according to the world, St Maximilian Kolbe was absolutely pathetic and powerless during his last days on this earth…

But in reality, he was clothed with POWER.

Dunamis POWER.

When I was in Poland, I had a chance to visit that very cell where St. Maximilian Kolbe laid down his life and received the red crown of martyrdom. 

It was an intense experience I’ll never forget. My friend and I knelt down at the cell door, and you could just FEEL the power of God’s love in that little dark cell. You could sense the presence of a very different kind of POWER… the power of self-sacrifice and self-gift, of SURRENDER. 

I remember praying in that moment: “Lord, forgive my lack of love.”

Perhaps not many of us will ever be called to wear the red crown — it’s not out of the realm of possibility of course, but thankfully it’s a smaller threat for us living here in the United States right now… 

But what we CAN be sure of is that we are each called to wear the white crown of a white martyrdom. The crown of a life of Christian virtue. The daily dying to self… We are ALL called to be witnesses in that way!

And if we’re really gonna wear THAT crown, then we need God’s power at work in us. We can’t rely on a will-power-only Christianity to get us there. We’ll end up burnt out, exhausted, and miserable…

We need the DYNAMITE Holy Ghost Power living and breathing within us!

And so, we now turn once again to the altar of the Lord. 

And we lift up the source and summit of all Divine Power — the Holy Eucharist. 

It’s from the once-for-all Sacrifice of Jesus that all power flows.

The Eucharist is the powerful, beating heart of the Church — and so as you come forward to receive Communion today, remember:

You will receive power…