Pentecost Sunday –
May 23, 2021
The Holy Spirit,
whose feast we celebrate Sunday, does not easily lend itself to imagery. One
traditional image of the Holy Spirit is the dove, drawn from the gospel
accounts of the bapt-
ism of Jesus. There are two other images of the Holy Spirit
in Sunday’s first reading. Luke
says that all who gathered in one room heard
what sounded like a powerful wind
from heaven
and that something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire. Luke does not say
that,
literally, there was an actual wind and fire at Pentecost. There is
something about the Holy
Spirit that does not lend itself to any kind of
concrete image, because the Holy Spirit cannot
be seen as such. Yet, the Holy
Spirit is overwhelmingly real.
There is a great deal
in our universe that is real but is not visible to the naked eye. We may
need a
microscope or a powerful telescope to see it. What we see with our eyes is only
a frac-
tion of our physical world. The Holy Spirit is part of the spiritual
world, and so is beyond
the range of the best microscopes or telescopes. Yet,
there are helpful ways of imagining the
Holy Spirit. In today’s second reading,
Saint Paul uses an image drawn from nature; he refers
to the fruit of the
Spirit, which is the visible expression of the Spirit in someone’s life.
We may
not be able to see the Holy Spirit, but we can see the impact of the Spirit in
a human
life, just as we cannot see the wind, but we can see the impact of the
wind on people and ob-
jects. Paul is saying, “Wherever you find love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, tru-
stfulness, gentleness and self-control,
the Spirit is at work.” The Spirit becomes visible in
and through these
virtues. The person who possessed those qualities in abundance was Jesus
be-
cause he was full of the Holy Spirit, full of the life of God. The Holy
Spirit is essentially
the life of God, and God’s life is a life of love. It is
that divine life, that divine love,
which was poured out at Pentecost,
initially on the first disciples and then on all believers,
including ourselves
today. Saint Paul expresses it very simply in his letter to the Romans,
“God’s
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been
given to us.
” That Spirit of God’s love works within us to bear the fruit that
Paul speaks about in the
second reading. The ordinary, day to day expressions
of goodness and kindness, of faithfulness
and self-control, of patience and
gentleness, are all manifestations of the Spirit. The spir-
itual is not
something other worldly; it is humanity at its best.
We have an example of
humanity at its best in today’s first reading. On that first Pentecost,
there
was a wonderful communion between people from all over the Roman Empire. They
were un-
ited in hearing in their own native language the preaching of the first
disciples about the
marvels of God. In spite of differences of language and
culture there was a profound communi-
on among them. Wherever we find such
communion of mind, heart and spirit, there the Holy Sp-
irit is at work. Unity in
diversity is a mark of the Spirit. Jesus points out another role of
the Spirit,
the pursuit of truth. Whenever we have a genuine openness to truth, a
willingness
to search for truth, even when it challenges our convictions, there
the Spirit is at work.
Full truth is always beyond us; we never possess it
completely. In John’s gospel Jesus dec-
lares himself to be the truth, and he is
always beyond us; we never fully possess him in this
life. One of the roles of
the Spirit is to lead us towards Jesus who is complete truth, and
to give us
the courage to witness to his truth. In the gospel reading Jesus says, “The
Spirit
of Truth shall be my witness,” and then he immediately says, “and you
will be witnesses.”
It is the Spirit who gives us the courage to witness to
Jesus, his teaching, his way of life,
his values and attitudes. We need the
courage that the Spirit of Truth gives us today.
I pray that those receiving First Communion and Confirmation
on Sunday will be blessed with
the love and power of the Holy Spirit so that
you always abide in Jesus, that his truth will
enlighten your decisions, and
that you will be faithful witnesses to the fruits of the Holy S
pirit.
Congratulations to all!
Fr. Don, cp