Pentecost and Captain Marvel

*****Spoiler alert****

Warning - if you haven’t seen the Captain Marvel movie, there are small spoilers in this post.

As soon as I saw the movie “Captain Marvel” I knew it would be my Pentecost post. Unfortunately, I’ve had to wait a while to write it, but hopefully now I won’t be spoiling it for anyone.

Throughout the movie, it is clear that Captain Marvel is quite powerful, but external forces lock her powers down many times. Some of the forces are mental, and some are physical. Once they are removed, her power is beyond what anyone could have imagined. She is filled with light and strength that cannot be overcome.

What does this have to do with faith and Pentecost? Everything.

What do we have that inhibits our faith? Do we have others telling us that we don’t need it? Do we tell ourselves that it’s not important? Do we have physical barriers to practicing our faith? What gets in the way?

Once we answer those questions, we have to ask one more.

What does it look like when we are free?

I can tell you what it looks like. You may already know. We simply have to look at the Saints to see it.

Saint Padre Pio was able to read souls to help people confess and heal from their sins. He could bilocate and minister to people continents away. Pope Saint John Paul II is credited with being instrumental in the bloodless fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain. Saint John Bosco and the hundreds of boys at his school cared for people during a cholera outbreak that killed thousands. None of the boys became ill.

The Saints are the superheroes we can look to for help when we need it. We can ask for their prayers and look to them for guidance and protection. But here is where the analogy falls short.

The Avengers and Captain Marvel have abilities that the rest of us don’t have and could never achieve. The Saints are not only our heroes, but they are our role models. Their power is not their own, it is God’s and they are merely allowing it to flow through them freely.

Think about it.

What could you do if you were truly free?