28 May 2023 – Pentecost Sunday

28 May 2023 – Pentecost Sunday

1st Reading: Acts 2:1-11

The Spirit of God gives energy to the apostles and sends them out on their mission

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

Responsorial: Psalm 103: 1, 24, 29-31, 34

R./: Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth

Bless the Lord, my soul!
Lord God, how great you are,
How many are your works, O Lord!
The earth is full of your riches. (R./)

You take back your spirit, they die,
returning to the dust from which they came.
You send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the earth. (R./)

May the glory of the Lord last for ever!
May the Lord rejoice in his works!
May my thoughts be pleasing to him.
I find my joy in the Lord.
Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth.(R./)

2nd Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13

It is through the Spirit that Christ works in his community, the church

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Gospel: John 20:19-23

They disciples receive the Holy Spirit to continue the mission of Jesus

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

BIBLE


Pentecost

The Centrality of Pentecost

The NT Apocalypse repeatedly invites (admonishes?) us to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. It was never more urgent. How do we do that and what is the Spirit saying? The feast invites four areas of reflection:

1. The Spirit and the future of the earth (service)
2. The Spirit and the (re)discovery of the Word of God (catechesis)
3. The Spirit and Christian meditation (spirituality)
4. The Spirit and the community of faith, the Church (community)

All four dimensions are connected. What is the church unless grounded in the Word and in the Spirit? What is the church for, unless for the service of all and, especially today, of our threatened world?

(Kieran O’Mahony) For Kieran’s exegetical notes on Pentecost, click here.


Who were present at Pentecost?

The Roman Lectionary version of Acts 2:1 (“…the apostles were all together in one place…”) gives a particular interpretation to the text, suggesting that only the twelve apostles were the recipients of the Spirit at Pentecost. The actual text says that when the day of Pentecost had come, ἦσαν πάντες ὁμοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό, (literally “THEY WERE ALL together in one place”). Who were those “ALL” who were present?

The preceding chapter lists eleven of the Lord’s chosen Twelve, now gathered in the Upper Room (ὑπερῷον), “constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers” (1:14). The next verse refers to a much larger group of believers (about 120 persons in all) among whom Peter stood up, to propose selecting a replacement for Judas (Ac 1:15).

It is true that after the selection was made (by group election, followed by drawing of lots) the final words of that chapter say that Matthias “was added to the eleven apostles” ( μετὰ τῶν ἕνδεκα ἀποστόλων, Acts 1:26). But it is not clear from the story that follows, whether the THEY who were all together in one place, and received the gift of the Holy Spirit,  refers only the restored circle of the Twelve.

The answer to this puzzle could have important implications for our ecclesiology. Might not the group who experienced the first Pentecost include the whole faith community of a hundred and twenty persons, or at least the smaller group (perhaps twenty in all) — consisting of the apostles, plus certain women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers? Most paintings of the Pentecost event include Our Lady, flanked by the Twelve, but without any other recipients. But St  Luke may intend us to understand that spiritual empowerment was given to the whole group who still treasured the memory and message of Jesus. It could diminish the impact of his story, were we to limit his Pentecost scene only to the inspiriting of the Twelve, who, of course, became the founding leaders of a structured church.


 Source of our best impulses

The Holy Ghost (der heilige Geist) used to be the forgotten person of the Trinity. Perhaps from being a spirit, since for many people today, only tangible, material things are the whole of reality. The Father and Son could be imaged as tangible because one took flesh and the other was portrayed with a venerable beard, reflecting the vision about “the Ancient of Days” (Dan 7:9). Whatever the reason, even among devout Christians the Holy Spirit is often overlooked. But there are good reasons not to neglect the Spirit. The first is the promise of Jesus. At the Last Supper, he promised to send the Spirit, to be an ever-reliable helper, advocate, counsellor, teacher, a replacement for Christ himself. “Unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (Jn 16:7).

For the earliest Christians, the Spirit sent by Jesus a vital source of energy and missionary spirit. They never forgot his first coming. Beforehand, they were timid and afraid, like children huddling in an attic. When the Spirit came over them in a whooshing of wind, fire and speech, they were transformed, “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4), suddenly, mysteriously, eloquent. Some bystanders were less poetic in their reaction and sneered, “They’re drunk” (Acts 2:13). In a sense they were right, for drunk they were, spiritually, intoxicated with the Spirit of Christ’s love and eagerness to proclaim his message.

The Spirit was breathing among them, and from now on the prayer “Jesus is Lord” would be their motto. They stayed spiritually drunk in this sense, never to be soberly timid again. For as long as they lived, the Spirit coursed in their bloodstream. Every decision they made was Spirit-guided: the choice of seven deacons; the admitting of Gentiles to the Church; the sending of Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journey. Nor was the influence of the Spirit confined to the apostles. It was felt at the ordinary level too, at the grassroots. They recognised charisms, gifts of the Spirit, given for service in the Church, unusual gifts like healing or prophecy, designed to meet the needs of an infant Church, and ordinary gifts too, that helped to build up the community: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self control” (Ga 5:22).

Whenever we exercise our charisms we honour the Spirit. When we are loyal to a demanding partner, or console the bereaved, support the old or encourage the young, we are being led by the Spirit. When we resist temptation, we honour the Spirit. When we respond to our better impulses, the Spirit is working in us. The Spirit of God is the rising sap moving all that is best in us. It is through our better instincts that the Spirit works. Our part is to work with him to reach our fullest selves.


The Spirit Is For Everyone

[adapted from Jose Antonio Pagola]

Our life is made up of multiple experiences. Joys and troubles, successes and failures, are woven together in our daily life, animating or weighing us down. But often we are hardly aware of what’s deepest in our own selves. What we grasp in our self-awareness is just a small island amid the wide and deep sea that is life. Sometimes, even what’s most essential and decisive eludes us.

In his precious book Spiritual Experience, Karl Rahner invites us to consider the inmost “experience” that occurs within us, though often unperceived: the living presence of God’s Spirit who works from within our being. This experience can easily be smothered by many others that occupy our time and attention. It is a quiet presence that can be drowned out by other impressions and worries that take hold of our heart.

Mostly, we seem to think that what’s great and gratuitous must be something rare, but God’s grace is not like that. There’s a tendency in certain parts of Christianity to consider the living presence of the Spirit as something reserved to chosen and select people. But Rahner reminds us that God’s Spirit is always alive in the human heart, since the Spirit is God’s own communication in the innermost part of our existence. This Spirit of God is communicated and given even where apparently nothing is happening. The Spirit is there, wherever life is received and the duties of each day are carried out. God’s Spirit works silently in the heart of regular and simple people, in contrast to the pretension of those who feels themselves the sole possessors of the Spirit.

Pentecost invites us to seek that presence of God’s Spirit in our own selves, not to imagine it as a trophy granted only to the elite. We need to welcome the Spirit of God who is the font of all life. This Spirit is for everyone, because the immense Love of God is present to all the joys and groans, efforts and yearnings that spring from the heart of all God’s children.


The Spirit who bears fruit

In our churches there is no shortage of images, mostly statues, paintings or stained glass. They are mostly images of Jesus, Mary and the saints. There are also images of some Old Testament figures like Abraham and Sarah, or Moses an Miriam. There is a long tradition of images within the church, beginning with the paintings in the Roman Catacombs. The Holy Spirit, whose feast we celebrate on Pentecost, does not lend itself easily to imagery. The traditional image of the dove is drawn from the scene of the baptism of Jesus. But the language in that passage is rather vague; the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, or in the way that a dove might descend. There are two other images of the Holy Spirit in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Luke says that all who gathered in one room heard what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven; he goes on to say that something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire. Just as the evangelists do not portray an actual dove at the baptism of Jesus, Luke does not say that the wind and fire at Pentecost were tangible phenomena. The Holy Spirit is impossible to visualise, because the Spirit cannot be seen as such. Yet the Holy Spirit is profoundly real.

Many things in our universe are real even though invisible to the naked eye. What we see with our eyes is only a fraction of our physical world. The Holy Spirit belongs to the spiritual world, and it naturally cannot see the Spirit with our eyes. Yet, there are helpful ways of imagining the Holy Spirit. St Paul uses an image drawn nature when he says that the Spirit bears fruit. He means the visible effect of the Spirit on one’s life. We may not be able to see the Holy Spirit, but we can see the effect of the Spirit in our life, just as we cannot see the wind but can see the effect of the wind on people and objects of various kinds. Paul is saying that wherever we find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control, the Spirit is there at work. The Spirit becomes visible in and through these qualities and virtues. The person who most of all had those qualities was Jesus because he was full of the Holy Spirit, full of the life of God. The Holy Spirit is essentially the very life of God, and that life is a life of love. It is that divine life, that divine love, which was poured out at Pentecost, initially on the first disciples but through them on all who were open to receive this powerful and wonderful gift. Paul expresses it simply in his letter to the Romans, ‘God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’. It is that Spirit of God’s love we have received who bears the rich fruit in our lives that Paul speaks about in today’s 2nd Reading. The Spirit is constantly at work in our lives, making us more like Jesus. The ordinary, day to day expressions of goodness and kindness, of faithfulness and self-control, of patience and gentleness, are all manifestations of the Spirit that has been given to us by God. We can recognise the Spirit’s presence in the common happenings of everyday life. The spiritual is not something other-worldly; it is humanity at its best.

Humanity is at its best in today’s first reading. Pentecost brought about a wonderful bonding of people from all over the Roman Empire. They were united in admiring and praising the marvels of God. In spite of differences of language and culture there was a real communion among them. Wherever communion of heart and mind exist among people of different backgrounds, the Holy Spirit is at work. Unity in diversity is the mark of the Spirit. Jesus points out another manifestation of the Spirit: the pursuit of truth. Only the Spirit can lead us to the complete truth. If someone is genuinely seeking for truth, and willing to engage in good works with others, there the Spirit is at work. Fullness of truth and love is always beyond us; but the Spirit is given to lead us towards the complete truth and love, in all its height and depth.

2 Comments

  1. Joe O'Leary says:

    One in the Spirit

    1. St Philip Neri (1515-1595), whose feastday was last Friday, May 26, was uniquely devoted to the Holy Spirit. “In the year 1544, shortly before Pentecost, he was as usual in the catacomb [of St. Calixtus], praying with more than ordinary fervor to be filled with the Holy Spirit, when suddenly there appeared to him a luminous sphere, like a globe of fire, which, entering his lips, passed into his breast. At the same moment he felt within him a flame of rapturous love. It seemed to glow like a material fire, so that unable to bear the heat which consumed him, he threw himself on the ground and tore open his dress. After a time, the heat abating, he arose, when an unusual joy thrilled through his soul, while at the same time his whole body was agitated by a strange palpitation; and as he placed his hand on his side just over his heart, he felt that it was swollen, though it did not give him the slightest pain.”

    For 50 years after that Philip was a beloved figure on the streets of Rome, always overflowing with love and joy, with humour and laughter. Amid the grim conflicts and mutual persecutions of the 16th century he stands out as a humane and understanding man of dialogue.

    Philip was celebrated for his gift of warm friendship with people of all walks of life. His story prompts us to reflect on one aspect of the Holy Spirit’s activity, namely, the way the Spirit “binds us together, with cords that cannot be broken” (to quote a hymn popular in the Charismatic Movement).

    2. The last time I spoke with my dear mother she asked me a pointed question: “Is it really true that we will see again in Heaven the people we knew long ago?” I answered: “Well, the Church teaches the Communion of Saints.”

    Does this not mean that our individual souls are not isolated substances but exist in communion with others? If we are always reaching out to draw near to others, to have intimate relationships with them, and if we think of solitary confinement as a cruel and unusual punishment (though one routinely applied in cruel penitentiary systems in the United States, China, and Japan), is it not because our individual identity is an unfinished sketch, and because we are living and growing within the vast community of the human race? We are amazed and overjoyed to discover just how vast that community is, when we find religious depths among Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto and other non-Christian worshippers, and when we recognize in them the speech of the Holy Spirit. The visitors to Jerusalem for Pentecost felt the same joy when they could miraculously understand the message of the Apostles: “Utterly amazed, they asked: ‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs — we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!’ Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, ‘What does this mean?'”

    There is no barrier between the Holy Spirit and our own human souls. The infinitely transcendent God speaks to us in his Word, the Eternal Son, who becomes human in Jesus Christ, and he draws near to us more intimately in the Spirit, showing himself closer to us than we are to ourselves. The Blessed Trinity dwells in our hearts through the outpouring of the Spirit. “Great Paraclete, to Thee we cry, O greatest Gift of God Most High; O Fount of life, O fire of love. And sweet anointing from above.” “Tu diceris Paracletus, Altissimi donum Dei, fons vivus, ignis, caritas, et spiritalis unctio.” The sweet anointing seeps through our being, perfuming it with the aroma of Grace. It brings us communion with the Father and the Son.

    3. The Spirit also breaks down the barriers between our individual existences, making us one with one another. We do not need to be barricaded in the fortress of our self, with its towers and turrets of pride, its moat of defensiveness (a filthy ditch), its porticullis ready to come crashing down at the least intrusion from another. The Church had become such a fortress at the time that John XXIII decided to open the windows and let in the fresh air (a famous image though it is hard to pin down if, when, and where he used it), inviting a New Pentecost in the Council he summoned. Pope Francis’s Synodality initiative, which is slowly getting underway, is aiming at a similar renewal. The communion growing between the Christian Churches long divided by mutual suspicion and hostility, which has now been replaced by mutual friendliness and curiosity, and the deep human and spiritual dialogue that has grown up miraculously with Jews, Muslims, and the cultures and religions of Asia.

    “It is together that we go to Heaven, or to Hell” said Charles Péguy (1873-1914), magnificent Catholic poet and Christian theologian. “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.” Buddhists tell us not to fret about our own individual egos but to join in the constant flow of life, promoting what is wholesome, undoing what is unwholesome and deluded. Jesus teaches us to die to self, but why? To live joyfully in “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom 8:11), moved by “the Spirit of Truth who will guide us into all truth” (cf. Jn 16:13), is the lifestyle that the Lord wishes for us here and now. As to death, “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:11).

  2. Thara Benedicta says:

    Key Message:
    Ask and Receive the Holy Spirit!!

    Homily:
    After the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, what would have been the mind of the disciples? Their Lord had asked them to go and preach the Good News to the ends of the world. But He had also asked them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the person of the Holy Spirit. So they wanted to achieve a big mission assigned by our Lord, but they understood that unless they received the Holy Spirit, who had been promised by our Lord, they could not begin the mission. Whether we realise it or not, we are also in a similar state. We need the infilling of the Holy Spirit especially, to preach the Gospel. Our Lord Jesus too did not begin His preaching mission till He was baptized with the Holy Spirit.

    Acts 10:38 says, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”
    If our Lord Jesus Christ needed to how much more of the Holy Spirit will we mere human beings need?

    Our Mamma Mary also received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost. She was also one among the first selected blessed Apostles to receive the Holy Spirit. Our Mamma Mary was one among the first Apostles to speak in tongues.

    In Luke 12:49 our Lord wished, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Our Lord Jesus wished we were already kindled with the burning fire of the Holy Spirit.
    Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is a consuming fire”. Moses saw Almighty God as fire in a bush. John the Baptist said, “I am baptizing you with water, but another person is coming who will baptize you with fire.” On Pentecost day, Mamma Mary and the Apostles were baptized with the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire.
    The Lord Jesus is bringing the great consuming fire – our Heavenly Father into all our lives (Mathew 3:11).
    Our God is a consuming fire, but for you and me, He will fill us. Malachi 3:2 says the Lord will be like a refiner’s fire. The refiner’s fire in our Lord Jesus affected Zacchaeus when He entered his house. It convicted Zacchaeus and purified him.
    If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holiness in us will convict others of their sinful life, even without saying anything about their sins to them. Our Lord Jesus did not point out the sins of Zacchaeus to him. But still he felt convicted and said, “I will give half of my property to the poor. If I had taken more money from anyone, I will repay them four times”.

    The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s consuming fire. He is God’s refining fire. And He is the one who will set us on fire. When this consuming fire comes, we will become like Jesus. “In this world we are like Jesus.” (1 John 4:17) A related testimony, “When I attended a prayer meeting, after the adoration I went to meet the preacher. The preacher told me that he was able to feel the presence of the sin of unforgiveness in me. He was able to see two big and deep wounds in me and I was not able to forgive those who have caused it. It was the truth. I was deeply wounded and I was not able to forgive those who made me suffer so deeply”.

    When we proclaim the Good News we need to completely depend on the Holy Spirit.
    In Proverbs 1:23, God says, “Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings.” See how big this blessing will be. Our Almighty God who created the Heavens and the earth is promising to pour out His thoughts to us and He wants to teach us directly. God will teach us what He wants us to preach. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us the preaching notes. But to interpret we will require the Holy Spirit. Let us pray for the gift of interpretation of the Holy Spirit.

    We will also need the gift of discernment of the Holy Spirit. There are three different kinds of spirits – God’s Holy Spirit, man’s spirit, evil spirit. When we say prophesy to someone we should be able to discern what kind of spirit is within us. If we do not have the spirit of discernment we will consider our own imaginations or ideas as God’s ideas. Even the evil spirits will know that we are blessed with the gift of discernment. Like how the evil spirits trembled on seeing our Lord Jesus, they will tremble on seeing us.

    People are undergoing lots of suffering nowadays. Mainly, they are not able to make correct decisions. One of the important tasks for us is to give the suffering a proper word. Before beginning to pray we should first ask the Holy Spirit to fill us and then His gifts will start to operate. After that we will be able to receive answers to our prayers within seconds.

    The Holy Spirit showers on us the Gift of wisdom and Gift of knowledge. Colossians 2:3 says, “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
    In Exodus 31:1-5, God says something interesting. “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills — to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.”

    God gave the gift of wisdom and understanding to Bezalel to build the “Tent for the meeting, the ark of the covenant law with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent”. It is not only to preach the Gospel the gifts of the Holy Spirit are provided. It is for any task in God’s will. Today God is eagerly waiting to bless us with the same gifts so that with the same gifts we can fulfil God’s will. In Isaiah 55:7-9, our Lord says, ““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”. When we have these two gifts, we can hear God speaking to us very clearly.

    Also we need to pray for people to be endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
    In Colossians 1:9, the Apostle Paul says, “We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way”. It is very important to understand what the will of God is and live accordingly. All of us have to pray for the people in our care to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

    God uses these gifts to take us to Heaven. Revelation 4:1,2 says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.” God called up the Apostle John. “John, come here. John went there in Spirit and in Spirit He saw the throne of Almighty God”. John saw Almighty God face to face. Then Almighty God showed His plan and talked with John.

    We need to long to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If we can experience the promptings of the Holy Spirit, then we need to move on to the next level. We need to be sensitive to the initial promptings of the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit says, “Don’t say that”, don’t say that. If the spirit of God warns, “Go this way”, go that way. He is an active person so always have a listening ear. Our Lord Jesus said, “The world will not know Him, but you will know Him since He speaks to you”. So we will know Him. The Spirit of God will speak to our spirit. We will hear the Holy Spirit’s silent whispers in our heart. This first level will be like the first thirty years of our Lord Jesus before He got baptized with the Holy Spirit on the banks of the River Jordan.

    The second level of the Holy Spirit is to be completely infilled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. He will be like a burning fire in us. This is the life which our Lord Jesus wanted His anointed to have. It is simple, not complicated. Our Lord Jesus also says how it is possible in Luke 11:13. “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

    We have to ask our loving Father for the Holy Spirit with real zeal to work for the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Join the Discussion

Keep the following in mind when writing a comment

  • Your comment must include your full name, and email. (email will not be published). You may be contacted by email, and it is possible you might be requested to supply your postal address to verify your identity.
  • Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Comments containing vulgarities, personalised insults, slanders or accusations shall be deleted.
  • Keep to the point. Deliberate digressions don't aid the discussion.
  • Including multiple links or coding in your comment will increase the chances of it being automati cally marked as spam.
  • Posts that are merely links to other sites or lengthy quotes may not be published.
  • Brevity. Like homilies keep you comments as short as possible; continued repetitions of a point over various threads will not be published.
  • The decision to publish or not publish a comment is made by the site editor. It will not be possible to reply individually to those whose comments are not published.