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AND WHEN (Jesus) had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." [Jn 20:22-23]

Artist: Victor Luciano Rebuffo

(1903-1983)

Buenos Aires, Argentina

IN THE HOLY SPIRIT ^_[1]

ASSENT TO FAITH

1. God's gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was an extraordinary experience in the life of the pilgrim Church. Luke's scriptural account is unusually brief for such a powerful theophany (Gk. theophaneia, manifestation of God).

2. Almost four centuries would elapse before the Church fully absorbed the meaning of Pentecost. Thus the Church is dependent on Sacred Tradition to interpret the theological significance of Luke's narrative. For our Divine Lesson today, I invite you to meditate upon the Christian's assent to faith in the Holy Spirit.

LIKE A SEED

3. At the moment of his conception, God gives to every man a gift of incipient faith. This gift obliges man to search for God and, having encountered him, to believe in him. Faith, like a seed, contains within itself the promise of a great harvest. As virtue, faith enables man to discern spiritual truth and recognize God.

4. As act, faith is the assent and homage of the intellect to God by an act of man's will. By faith, I believe that God exists. By faith, I confide my trust to God. By faith, I rely completely upon God. To receive the Gospel message, I must validate it by my inward faith and my outward Christian discipleship.

DISTINGUISHING NORMS

5. What the corporate Christian community believes cannot be superseded by individual idiosyncratism. We may be confident that faith proposes certain distinguishing norms binding all men and women of good will. When the Christian community professes we believe, it acknowledges that God reveals himself to all who search for him. God's truth is knowable by faith and reason and is therefore accessible by anyone who sincerely seeks him.

6. A skeptic, however, stands apart from God's truth because he rejects God himself. He denies God's authority in his life or denies God's existence altogether. But to all who believe in him, God entrusts his Spirit. Those who believe in God accept his authority and the Spirit whom God sent to guide them. We allow the timeless gospel to become our own when our words and deeds are in unity. The excellence of Christian life is revealed to all when our interior habit of faith corresponds perfectly to our exterior acts of charity. Thus faith as virtue is incarnated in faith as act. The integration of the two constitutes the authentic experience of discipleship.

DARING TO SAY

7. In former centuries, God sent prophets to correct Israel's transgressions against the Law and to turn the nation from its sinful ways. At the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit unveiled this prophetic role within the Church. Hence, a Christian's credo (Lat. I believe) and ultimate praxis (Gk. to do, act) must be reconciled within the Church established in Christ's name. [cf. Eph 2:16] The cross enabled Christ "even to subject all things to himself". [Phi 3:21]

8. In its sorrowful shadow, Christ established the believing community as a city of light. [cf. Mt 5:14, Heb 13:14] The Christian community dares to say we believe "because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread". [1Cor 10:17] When celebrating Passover, Jesus prayed that his disciples remain as one in the Father's name. [cf. Jn 17:12] He prayed that their holiness become like his own. [cf. Jn 17:19]

VOICE AND INSTRUMENT

9. The community of faith believes in the Holy Spirit, the pneuma (Gk. breath) of God, who works not according to man's desire, but as the Father and the Son wills. The Spirit, traversing all that is seen and unseen [cf. 2Cor 4:18], reveals its presence to men but not its origin or destiny. The people of God are enfolded in an invisible mystery Jesus associated with wind: "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit." [Jn 3:8]

10. As with the eternal Father and the only-begotten Son, the Holy Spirit enjoys the dignity of personhood and divine relatio (Lat. kinship). As person, the Spirit's mission is to bear the Father's love and the Son's grace to those who profess we believe. The community of the triune God sends the Spirit forth to give life to the community of faith. The believer who is seen becomes the voice and the instrument of God who is unseen.

EVANGELICAL AUTHORITY

11. On the Feast of Pentecost, the Spirit transforms the diverse assembly of apostles, women, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers--"they were all together in one place" [Acts 2:1]--into a communion, indeed the body of the Lord. Sent forth by the Father and the Son, the Spirit announces its presence to the gathered Church "like the rush of a mighty wind" and anoints the saints in great household of faith with "tongues as of fire". [Acts 2:2-3]

12. Though apportioned to each member, the Spirit's fire is not diminished. The Spirit forges the apostolic leadership of the Church into a peerless instrument of evangelization. As a sign of its evangelical authority, the Church is empowered to proclaim the gospel in every tongue. [Acts 2:4] The authentic witnesses of the Church's power are the devout yet bewildered Jews from "every nation under heaven" [cf. Acts 2:5] who hear the kerygma (Gk. proclamation) each in his own language.

EXPLOSION OF FIRE

13. When the Holy Spirit came as wind and fire to the apostles, Mary and others gathered in the upper room, the young Church experienced God's presence in a wholly new way. The sound of a mighty wind and tongues of fire are unmistakable proofs of divine presence. God, entrusting his Spirit to the Church, empowered her proclamation of the good news. Thus emboldened and confident, the apostles and their helpers fearlessly preached the word and confirmed God's mighty works: "...you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." [2Cor 3:3]

14. Beginning with the apostles, God's consuming fire devoured the dry stubble of the world's faithlessness and skepticism. To the waiting world, the theophany at Pentecost is Mount Sinai, and its effect was a spectacular and unceasing explosion of holy fire: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." [2Cor 3:17] Those who heard the apostles preach discovered with delight that God emancipates men and women everywhere from slavery to sin. Banishing darkness and oblivion, God sets things right. God causes his people to shine as a lamp on a stand, as a city on a hill. Moreover, by emphasizing the gospel's evangelical charism, the Spirit protects the Church in every age from partisanship and provincialism--the misery of Babel.

WOUNDS OF CHRIST

15. Our Lord graces the frail hearts of his disciples with peace that only he can give. At evening, on the day of resurrection, Christ appears to his disciples who had retreated behind locked doors. His presence and his peace dwell among the disciples before he speaks. Peace be with you [cf. Jn 20:19], he says, confirming that his message spoken at Passover was true.

16. He shows them the wounds of his hands and side and breathes on them the gift of the Holy Spirit. At the same moment, Our Lord empowers them to invoke the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins, to raise the souls of men from the dust of the ground, and too feed them with the words of everlasting life. We, too, must go through the wounds of Christ to receive the Spirit of Peace.

UNCOMMON PURPOSE

17. Christ reconciles you to Father through the Holy Spirit. If Pentecost truly is to become your story, you must allow your spirit "...to be overturned in order to make it turn towards God".^[2] In the overturning, we are emptied so that God's Holy Spirit may be poured in us to overflowing. That God's life is poured into your spirit is utterly remarkable. Equally as momentous is the Holy Spirit's abundant life which causes your spirit to overflow with divine grace. Filled with God's life, then, love God with a pure, joyful and unrestrained love and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

18. The story of Pentecost is the story of the Church. The Holy Spirit is the Church's common or universal gift (Lat. donum) from the Father and the Son. But the Spirit brings with him the good news of God's uncommon purpose: to unite men and women in faith who were previously divided in sin. Hence, the invisible virtue of faith is incarnated as the visible act of communio (Lat. a sharing). We participate in this communio as members of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.^[3]

RAISE UP DISCIPLES

19. In the name of Christ, in communion with his body the Church, we are to raise up disciples in every nation, baptizing them, and exhorting them to remain faithful to the Lord's commandments. Indeed, we must raise up priests whose voices are heard preaching the gospel, and whose lives are God's instruments of sanctification for the next generation of believers.

20. Do you want assurance of Our Lord's resurrection from the dead? Experience the heavenly power and authority of the Holy Spirit. Do you desire to walk in the way of the Spirit? Save souls by receiving the Spirit's forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Do you yearn for intimacy with God? Worship and glorify the Holy Spirit. Do you wish the Spirit of God to escort you to the heavenly marriage feast of the Lamb? Consume the Spirit-changed Bread of Life in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

UNLIKE THE STARS

21. Do you desire to prosper in the Spirit? Give those who thirst for holiness the living water that flows from the heart of Christ. Do you long for freedom and a share in God's glory? Work diligently for the gifts of the Spirit--"love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" [Gal 5:22-23]--that the Paraclete (Gk. counselor, advocate) may accompany you "from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit". [2Cor 3:17-18]

22. What wisdom does the Spirit of God confer on the man who possesses him? Unlike the stars of heaven which consume themselves in the process of providing light and warmth, the Holy Spirit's power is inexhaustible--pouring out his gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord [cf. Isa 11:2-3] until the day of the Lord's return in glory.

LAVISH OFFERING

23. Moreover, the Spirit produces in you the very thing he wills to receive from you. Therefore, offer to God's Spirit the worthy temple of your body. Allow the Spirit to increase your faith, hope, and love. And believe that "every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life". [Mt 19:29]

24. By abstaining from the things of this world, you ready yourself to draw from the incomprehensible treasury of God's providence. Ignite the Spirit's one-hundred-fold power by your openhanded and lavish offering of faith, hope and love in obedience to God: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. [Mt 5:16]

^[1] Cycle C /Pentecost Sunday /Acts 2:1-11 /1Cor 12:3-7, 12-13 /Jn 20:19-23.

^[2] John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, no. 26 (1984).

^[3] SACRAMENTARY, "Profession of Faith", Nicene Creed (1985).

Pentecost Year A

Pentecost Year B

Pentecost Year C

IN THE HOLY SPIRIT [1]