At World Youth Day in Brazil, Pope Francis encouraged the crowds of young people gathered to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the streets where it can be heard. He ask them “to make noise in the streets!” After Christ returned to His Father at the Ascension, the Holy Spirit appeared to the Apostles hiding for fear of harm from Jesus’ enemies. The Holy Spirit’s message: “Go and make noise in the streets.” Through wind and flames, The Spirit blew away their fears and left courage in its wake.
Feeling energized and strengthened, they left that upper room to make their noise. And their "noise" was heard by every listener in his or her own language. Peter alone was so effective that 5000 became believers then and there. That’s a fantastic record for any preacher!
This Noisemaker, the Holy Spirit, still desires clamor for Jesus Christ. And so the Spirit is asking us to make noise! The Spirit urges us to come from whatever or wherever we are hiding and make noise. In other words, do something in our daily lives that says we believe in Jesus, his death and his resurrection.
We can be noisy right where we live or work by “doing right things” like showing love, through words that never demean and actions that only encourage. It doesn’t take much, but it needs a start.
We can also make noise "quietly," for example, by spilling forgiveness and mercy over our relationships. The Holy Spirit loves reminding us how Jesus forgave us our sins, and how Jesus is willing to do it again and again. There is no reason why we can’t share this pool of mercy with those who hurt us? Mercy and forgiveness can make noise in our lives daily-even if we are the only ones who hear them.
It just takes that first step to move from behind our hurts or indifference, our laziness or even sinfulness. Once we do this we can go into the streets of our daily lives , and “make the noise” Pope Francis desires. Why not give it a shout?