Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Pentecost

Leave a reply

DSC00804
The scriptures for the Feast of Pentecost describe the coming of the Holy Spirit in dramatic terms. Strong winds and tongues of fire come upon the disciples of Jesus in the Upper Room,  the Cenacle,  fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus. They’re filled with energy and joy. It seems like an unrepeatable experience.

Then, immediately, confidently, they preached the gospel to people from the ends of the earth who are amazed at their new knowledge and new words

Certainly the Holy Spirit gave them a burst of new enthusiasm that day.  We marvel–as their first listeners did– how these ordinary Galileans were transformed by the gifts they were given.   Peter eventually made it to Rome. John may have gotten to Ephesus in Asia Minor. Maybe Thomas got to India. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, “their message went out to all the earth.” Transformed, they began a universal church centered on Jesus Christ.

But, like the other mysteries of our faith, Pentecost is repeatable, on-going.  It’s not one burst of enthusiasm, a jump-start never to happen again. Without the strong wind or tongues of fire we experience the Holy Spirit too, usually in quieter ways.

Behind the Chair of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica, the artist Bernini, created a beautiful alabaster window where a steady light pours into the dark church through the image of the Holy Spirit,  in the hovering form of a dove.

Day by day, the light comes quietly through the window. Day by day, the Holy Spirit dispenses light for the moment, graces for the world that is now. As Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit dwells with us. The Spirit remains with us as Jesus’ final gift.

“Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth…Come, Holy Spirit, and fill our hearts with the fire of your love.”

 

 

In Christ

Leave a reply

What does that mean when we say we are “in Jesus Christ,”  when we pray “through Jesus Christ,” when we say we are “the body of Christ?”  Here’s Blessed Isaac of Stella from today’s Office of Readings:

“What Jesus, the Son of God, is by generation, his members are by adoption, according to the text: As children you have received the Spirit of adoption, enabling you to cry, Abba, Father.

“Through his Spirit, Jesus gave us the power to become children of God, so that all those he has chosen might be taught by the firstborn among many brothers and sisters to say: Our Father, who are in heaven. Again he says elsewhere: I ascend to my Father and to your Father.

“By the Spirit, from the womb of the Virgin, was born our head, the Son of Man; and by the same Spirit, in the waters of baptism, we are reborn as his body and as children of God. And just as he was born without any sin, so we are reborn in the forgiveness of all our sins. As on the cross he bore the sum total of the whole body’s sins in his own physical body, so he gave his members the grace of rebirth in order that no sin might be imputed to his mystical body. It is written: Blessed is the one to whom the Lord imputes no guilt for sin.

“The ‘blessed one’ of this text is undoubtedly Christ. Insofar as God is his head, Christ forgives sins. Insofar as the head of the body is one, there is no sin to forgive; and insofar as the body that belongs to this head consists of many members, there is sin indeed, but it is forgiven and no guilt is imputed.

“ In himself he is just: it is he who justifies himself. He alone is both Saviour and saved. In his own body on the cross he bore what he had washed from his body by the waters of baptism. Bringing salvation through wood and through water, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world which he took upon himself. Himself a priest, he offers himself as sacrifice to God, and he himself is God. Thus, through his own self, the Son is reconciled to himself as God, as well as to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.”

Pentecost

1 Reply

Some wonder if our talk about God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; about the story of Pentecost which we celebrate today, means anything at all. Is it just an old tale that has nothing to do with life and life’s challenges today?

Let’s look at this great story told in our first reading. (Acts 2,1-22) The Spirit of God came down on some people in Jerusalem over two thousand years ago, our story says. Who were these people? Those mentioned first were disciples of Jesus gathered together in one place, as we are today. They had previously seen Jesus die and then they saw him risen from the dead.

They were gathered  in Jerusalem on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, when the Jews celebrated the blessings of the harvest that gave them food for life and the words of God that guided them.

On this feast of Pentecost a new blessing of life would be given, a blessing from Jesus, risen from the dead.

A fierce wind shook the house, tongues of fire fell on them– symbols of light and power–and those in the house were filled with new hopes, new dreams, new thoughts, new energy, new words.

The Spirit of God was given to them.

But notice that the Spirit of God is given to others as well, not only to those in the house, but those outside. There were visitors from all parts of the world in Jerusalem for the feast and they experienced this blessing too.

When they ask Peter what’s happening, he says the Spirit of God is being poured out on all flesh, “and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2.17-18) Even your slaves, the poorest among you, will be blessed by God’s Spirit, Peter says, quoting from the Prophet Joel.

Pentecost is a world feast, therefore. We not only celebrate the birth of the church as this feast signifies. We celebrate God’s abiding promise through Jesus Christ to recreate the world. “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”

Christians can easily become too parochial, as if God were our private God, given only to us. But the Feast of Pentecost reminds us that God reaches with divine blessings to the ends of the earth. The Spirit has been poured out on “all flesh,” on all our world.

Strong winds and tongues of fire may not be the signs of his presence everywhere, but the Spirit of God dwells in our world all the same, blessing it with power and truth.

On this feast God opens the horizons of our minds to a greater world where God’s Spirit is at work.