If the “fruit of the Spirit” is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5), then today the Holy Spirit has been showing me how poor I am in fruits!  Our washing machine has been playing up the whole week, and finally I decided to get a new one.  (This was after a week when I  had already forked out $600 repairing the damage to our house caused by cockatoos. They had pecked a hole the size of a dinner plate into our western red cedar.)  Anyway, when I went to collect the washing machine today (a two hour drive, as I had to borrow a larger car), I found the invoice I had been given the previous day was for someone else’s goods, which involved a trip to customer service to sort it out.  At this stage I was still patient and forbearing.  Anyway, the correct goods were eventually found and the new machine was brought home, but the brand new hoses wouldn’t attach without leaking!  I tried various manoeuvres with washers, but eventually resigned myself to the fact that our taps were way too corroded and this was making it impossible to get a good seal.  (Handy hint: old taps glued with large amounts of lime-scale prevent leaks!)  So it was another hour’s trip to the hardware store to buy a new tap set.  And, yes! This worked!  The Widow Fleming strikes again!  So I put on a load of washing, got the music ready for church, and made dinner.  I was still congratulating myself on my patience and perseverance at this point, and we set off for the Pentecost Vigil.  But at church, several things happened which annoyed me to bits.  I won’t give the details, as we should be trying to build one another up in the Lord, and stirring up discord within a church community is one of Satan’s wiliest tricks.  Still, I kept smiling.  Back at home, it was finally time to relax and unwind, but not before we had hung out that first load of washing from the new machine.  My son volunteered, but being the multi-tasking character that he is, decided he would save himself two trips and carry both the washing basket and his plate, which was loaded up with roast pork, vegetables and a rather wonderful gravy.  Well, somehow the plate tipped over, spilling the wonderful gravy, peas and greasy pork all over our clean washing.  And it was at this point that I completely lost it and managed both to shout at him and burst into tears at the same time.   So much for patience, self-control, gentleness and the rest.

Holy Spirit, I’m obviously not there yet.  Please take over!  I need more of you!  And while You’re at it, please help our Pastoral Area as well – we need your grace in order to grow.

Of course, all my little difficulties are first world problems, and the best way of coping with them is to laugh at them.  Fr Longenecker has the right idea in his article on Hilarity and Holiness.

Anyway, today’s readings are here (now you know why I’m late posting this):

Word format: Year B Pentecost 2015

Pdf format: Year B Pentecost 2015

John Bergsma does an excellent job on the readings here and here.

And Fr Barron has an interesting take on Pentecost in this homily for today.