Pentecost is an integral part of the whole event of the Resurrection. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples and our Our Lady in the upper room is the lasting confirmation that Christ is truly risen and exalted and now continues his work of intercession before the Father. It is also the gathering, transformation and sending of the new community, the Church, itself the permanent witness in history of the reality of Christ and the new life offered to all in him; a new life that extends to all creation (Col.1).
Without the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit the resurrection would, at best, remain a past event believed by his few disciples and followers at the time. At best, it would only be a belief on which some people might place a fragile and unprovable hope of some sort of existence beyond the abyss of death.
The early Church was not naïve. It understood how strange and impossible its witness to the redeeming and transforming power of the risen Christ was to the world. It well understood and experienced that it would be laughed at once it began to speak about its faith and live in a new way the life it now possessed in the Holy Spirit. Paul’s experience in the Areopagus in Athens was surely not unique to him; it is repeated in every age. Yet, how could the early Church deny its own experience, especially that it lived in and through the gift of the Holy Spirit and was sustained in its power? As St Thomas Aquinas recognised the Church then as now is truly ‘the Church of the Holy Spirit.’
What is remarkable at Pentecost is the transformation of the community, especially the disciples. As we know from their denials and hiding at the crucifixion, and their lack of understanding when accompanying Jesus, they certainly are not heroes. Now we see them, still with their weaknesses, complex personalities and histories, filled with a new courage, understanding and eloquence bearing witness to Christ who is now much more than their teacher. Filled with the Holy Spirit they are doing more than simply recalling him, they are alive with him. They have an understanding and intimacy which they did not have before. Jesus is no longer their teacher and friend, he is their life, their immediate presence, and their future hope. They now possess Christ not as an idea, memory, but in the fullness of his person. The love which he nourished in them and with which he loved them has come to its fruition. Love is the condition of knowing him in truth; it is the power that now transforms their lives and sends them into an unknown and dangerous world to make Christ known so that all men and women may be blessed now and for all eternity with his grace.
We know from the tradition that all the apostles and countless Christians from every nation will make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, so deep is their love of Christ and their desire to bring that gift to the whole world. Whatever the woundedness or circumstances, the Holy Spirit is never absent from the Church. But as with Our Lady, the apostles and gathered community and Pentecost, the exterior demonstration of the presence of the Holy Spirit is grounded in the interior presence in the heart and mind of each one. Every Christian receives the gift of the Holy Spirit in his or her baptism, and the Spirit indwells in each one the ‘down payment and pledge’ of eternal life (2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5), the witness and guarantor that our faith is not in vain. It is through the life of the Holy Spirit that each one not only comes to rely on and experience the gifts that flow from the Spirit’s indwelling but also to show the fruits. They make their present felt in every Christian when their life is filled with the Holy Spirit. It need not always be dramatic, often it will be the breeze that blows through the ordinary or the hidden stream that silently nourishes our words and works of compassion that bring consolation and hope to others. The gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit within us are always present throughout our lives. Like the apostles we are not heroes and we know that so often we face the pain and limitations of our own weaknesses, but the Holy Spirit is above all the consoler, the one who shows us time and time again that limitations and weaknesses are not barriers to God but the very condition of our relationship with Christ.
Frequently our world speaks as if it, too, accepts our weakness and our vulnerability. It puts on the mask of the consoler who accepts us or the therapist who wants us to accept ourselves. In fact, for all is words our culture often harbours a barely disguised contempt. It celebrates ‘the heroes’ – those who show no weakness and overcome every obstacle demonstrating their own power and intelligence. These are the ‘heroes’ who know how to game the system and win. We see them placed before us every day in the headlines or online marketing their success for those of us whose weakness allows us only to revel in their image. They do not need help for that would make them weak by placing them under some obligation to others. Weakness is something to be ashamed of and to keep hidden and the cost to ourselves and our relationships can be immense.
The Holy Spirit teaches us not to be afraid of our weakness or the truth about ourselves. Whatever form they take, they are the very realities in which we come to experience the Spirit’s presence. We need not be ashamed of needing God and asking for the gift of the Holy Spirit to be our strength, our wisdom and our sustaining power (Is. 40:29; Phil. 4:13; 2 Cor.12:9; Matt.10:19-20). Once we can say ‘yes’ to that presence we can discover we can do so much more. In a sense, living the life of the Holy Spirit we are always living beyond our means. Yes, we are poor, but that poverty, whatever form it takes, is not a problem but an occasion for the Holy Spirit to accomplish something new within us. It is not by accident that Mary is with the disciples for she teaches us and them to say ‘yes’ , to trust the Spirit and the new creation that is being born each day in ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’ (Gal. 5:22-23). And the Spirit gives us a new imagination: imagine a world, families, communities, nations, that desired these life-giving fruits and delighted in them. Then our weaknesses would no longer be a threat or a shame but a grace. “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love….”
