PENTECOST:

“COME HOLY SPIRIT!”

 

 

 

Jesus Christ rose from the dead, ascended up to heaven, and sent with the Father, the Holy Spirit to the disciples (Jn 20:22 and 16:7-14).With the Solemnity of Pentecost, Christians close the Easter season.

The Acts of the Apostles (2:1-11) narrates the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles: the strong wind, the tongues of fire, the miraculous preaching of the apostles. The Holy Spirit continues coming to us. The beautiful Sequence before the gospel of the Solemnity of Pentecost moves us to pray: Come Holy Spirit!

1. MEDITATION

An old priest is teaching religion to high school students. He asked them: “Who is the Blessed Trinity?” A boy at the back answers very softly: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” The priest, who is a bit deaf, tells him: “I cannot understand.” The boy: “Father, you are not supposed to; it is a mystery.” The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of our faith: we believe in One and Triune God: one God and Three persons; unity in diversity; “one love and three lovers.”

The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is the love of the Father and the Son. The Father (with the Son and the Holy Spirit) is the creator; the Son (with the Father and the Holy Spirit) is the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit (with the Father and the Son) is the sanctifier who helps us remember what Jesus taught and continues teaching us. The Holy Spirit is “like the perfume of the Two Divine persons, the breath of the Father and the Son, their smile, their love, their beauty, their kiss” (J. Cristo Rey García Paredes).

The Holy Spirit, or the love of the Father and the Son, invites us to love. The One and Triune God is love, and with the gift of this love urges us to love – to love Him, to love all neighbors, principally the closest and the poorest neighbors. Jesus said: “Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling place with him” (Jn 14:23)); “In this they will know that you are my disciples, in your love for one another” (Jn 13:35); “I was hungry and you gave me food…; what you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me” (Mt 25:35 and 25:40).

The Holy Spirit, the sanctifier invites us to be holy and gives us the grace of Christ to be holy, the grace which makes us sharers in the very nature of God – and his children. All God’s children are called to holiness. Is it hard to be holy? Not that hard! “Just one step beyond mediocrity and you are a saint” (Leon Bloy). To be holy with God’s grace and love is possible: we need determined determination. We have to really want to be holy: “to want it, to want it, to want it” (St Thomas Aquinas);

“I will, I want, with God’s blessings, be holy” (Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta).  After all, to be holy means really to do God’s will, that is, to fulfill the commandments which are centered on love.

The Holy Spirit helps us to pray, that is, to feel the presence of God in our lives, to raise our hearts to God, to ask for God’s love: to love Him, others and ourselves! Saint Teresa of Avila says that to pray consists not in talking much, nor in thinking much, but in loving much.

 

1. OUR RESPONSE

A bishop is showing a Church to a group of Japanese tourists. The central altar is presided by a painting of the Blessed Trinity. A Japanese tourist pointing to the painting asks the bishop: “Who is that Honorable Bird?” The Honorable Bird is the Dove, which represents the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is, someone explains, wind, tongue and fire. He is the wind that takes us to the whole world to announce the Good News of Christ. He is the tongue we need to be able to preach the truth. He is the fire of love required to burn our selfishness. Saint Augustine said, after his conversion: “O Love that is my God set me afire.”

The Holy Spirit invites us constantly to unity: one faith, one Lord, one baptism. He invites us to fraternity: in Christ, we are brothers and sisters of one another.

Life is a journey to God’s home. In our journey of life, we have to walk according to the Holy Spirit, who urges us to be holy: “This is the will of God, your sanctification” (1Thes 4:3); “Be perfect as your Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). We have to journey – like the first disciples and true disciples thereafter – proclaiming and witnessing the Good News of Jesus Christ with hope, joy and courage.

We pray: “Come Holy Spirit, come!”

Fr. Fausto Gómez Berlana,  O. P.

St Dominic’s Priory

Macau, June 2011.