Pentecost: the Spirit is sent; the Spirit sends

Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, is celebrated by the Jewish people as the feast that commemorates the giving of the Law, the great link between God and his chosen people. In the Church, Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, is celebrated as the feast that marks the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Virgin Mary and the apostles gathered in prayer after the risen Lord’s ascension to the Father. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Son, is the great link between the Father and his people who are the Body of Christ.

The Church, born from the side of Jesus dying on the cross, burst into life and action in the world on the day of Pentecost. Under the sign of a mighty wind which filled the whole place and flames of fire that came to rest on the heads of all present, the Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to take hold of the minds and hearts of his first disciples. The Holy Spirit of God, given in power, welded Jesus’ disciples into the community that is his Church and continues to do so. The Church is always our compass on our way to God; but she is not a detailed road map. For particular direction, we need constant prayer to the Holy Spirit.

Who is the Holy Spirit? In God, the Holy Spirit is the love between the loving Father and the beloved Son. A man and woman in love sometimes say that their love is bigger than both of them; it has a life of its own. So the love between Father and Son is the Spirit; and the totally shared being of all three Persons in one God enables Christians to say not only that God loves but that God is love, in his very essence.

The creating and saving and sanctifying action of God in history is attributed to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit moves over the waters in the creation stories, bringing life and order out of nothing and chaos. The Holy Spirit caused Jesus, the eternal Son of God, to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In the teaching and miracles of Jesus, the Holy Spirit touched people with the power of God’s presence. Jesus, led by the Spirit, went through his passion and death to rescue the world from sin and, in the power of the same Spirit, he rose from the dead. After his resurrection, Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to his apostles so that they had power to forgive sins. At Pentecost, the Spirit was sent upon the apostles to form the social body of the Church as the continuing instrument of God’s saving presence and work in the world. Despite the sins and stupidity of her members, the Church remains the temple of the Holy Spirit, the holy Church of God.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of modern Pentecostalism in Los Angeles in 1906. A remarkable power of holiness and conviction came into the lives of people gathered there to pray, and this experience launched the Pentecostal movement that remains the form of belief for many followers of Christ today. It is a growing movement, especially in Latin America. It has helped many people to draw closer to God. Its basic flaw is to pit structure against charism. Without charism, without Spirit, the structures of the Church lose vitality; but without the structures willed by Christ, his people become an amorphous movement, rooted in enthusiasm but not visibly united. Structure and charism are no more opposed than are Jesus and the Spirit.

It is in the power of the Holy Spirit that any of us is able to confess that Jesus is Lord. Through the action of the Holy Spirit, it is possible in each generation to have the same experience of the risen Lord that was lived by the apostolic community at the origin of the Church. Every person who becomes a follower of Jesus through faith and baptism is “inserted and grafted into him so as to participate in his nature through receiving a share in the Holy Spirit; we are made one with Christ the Savior by his Holy Spirit.” (St. Cyril of Alexandria). This Spirit is not an individual gift but the soul of the entire Church. Through participating in God’s life in the Church, we are lifted from our loneliness, from being closed in on ourselves. Through the Spirit in the Church, we become sharers in the love that unites us to God and to one another.

And this Spirit sends us out into the world to be witnesses to the Lord. How can we sense the Spirit’s presence? Through a good conscience, a heightened sense of the difference between right and wrong; through a deep desire to worship God in spirit and truth; and through a missionary impulse that does not rest until all the world knows who Jesus is.

St. Irenaeus (130-200), bishop of Lyons, after whom a parish of the Archdiocese is named in west suburban Lyons, wrote: “Wherever the Church is, God’s Spirit is too; and wherever God’s Spirit is, there is the Church and every grace, for the Spirit is truth.” As we celebrate Pentecost during this Year of Evangelization, let us pray for the courage to proclaim to the world with conviction that Jesus is Lord; and let us pray as well for the strength to live together in Christ more authentically each day in his Body, the Church. God bless you.

Cardinal's Column Archive