Pentecost Sunday: Today’s readings: Acts 2,1-11; Romans 8,8-17; John 14,15-16.23b-26.
Fifty days after the Passover, the Jewish pilgrimage feast instead of which Christians started celebrating Easter, Jews had another feast called Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks) associated with the first fruits of the new harvest. On this occasion, Jews offered new summer grain to the Lord in the temple of Jerusalem.
It was this day that the heavenly Father chose to pour out his divine Spirit upon a select few who gathered together in prayer. Hence, 50 days after Christ’s resurrection, the Spirit descended upon believers, transforming them from confused and disoriented cowards to determined and unswerving believers.
God had spoken a language Jews could fully understand – on the day when they offered the land’s first fruits, God the Father offered the first fruits of heaven, the choicest gift Jesus had promised to give freely. A symbol of this clarity was the fact that the disciples could immediately communicate truths of faith in languages that were not their own. It seems one of the Spirit’s first tasks was to break down barriers of separation, powerfully drawing peoples of different languages into divine mysteries the disciples proclaimed boldly.
What are we to make of the feast of Pentecost? Jesus had said that his departure would benefit us greatly, as otherwise the Spirit would not be sent to us. St Paul explains the importance of the Spirit in no unclear terms in Romans 8,11: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” No wonder the resurrection is part of our ultimate fate – the Holy Spirit is the guarantor of this truth just as he was in the life of Jesus. It might be surprising to note that the renowned theologian Yves Congar had pointed out that even in Greek thought, pneuma (spirit) is not against the body, though the body is to be distinguished from the flesh.
In L’horizon patristique, Cardinal Jean Daniélou makes a distinction between Greek and Hebrew thought with regard to the concept of spirit, which distinction is somewhat rigid, but nonetheless enlightening: “What do we mean when we speak of ‘spirit’ and say that ‘God is spirit’? Are we speaking Greek or Hebrew? If we are speaking Greek, we are saying that God is immaterial. If we are speaking Hebrew, we are saying God is a storm and an irresistible force. This is why, when we speak of spirituality, a great deal is ambiguous. Does spirituality mean becoming immaterial or being animated by the Holy Spirit?”
The Acts of the Apostles shows how the Holy Spirit actively gave life to the nascent Church which yielded to his stirrings and surrendered to his promptings. Just as the Church had learnt to submit to the lordship of Christ, it had to learn how to allow his Spirit to empower it and make it fruitful. Yet the Spirit’s most impressive work is not simply the manifestations of his power, wonderful though these are, but his desire and ability to bring us face to face with the amazingly beautiful person of Jesus. Without the Spirit’s action in our lives, we would neither know Jesus, nor love him, nor experience him.
Without the Spirit’s action in our lives, we would neither know Jesus, nor love him, nor experience him
The Holy Spirit, which the Church calls Dominum et vivificantem (the Lord and giver of life), is the one who makes the penny drop, transforming a blank, sterile faith into one set ablaze because of the conviction he brings in our hearts. His presence in our lives is best described by Fiction Factory’s song Feels Like Heaven – only this is no fiction at all.