Come, Holy Spirit

Reflection on John 20;19-23

Easter is the most important celebration in the Christian calendar. Easter is not a one-day celebration, It is not even a one-week celebration. It is a fifty-day celebration. It begins on Easter Sunday and ends fifty days later on Pentecost Sunday. If Easter is the most important Christian celebration, Pentecost is the second most important, not Christmas, never mind all the fanfare that goes with Christmas.

Pentecost is important for several reasons. One of them is that it is a celebration in honour of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. The Holy Spirit is God, one in Being with the Father and the Son, and equal to them in every respect. Any celebration in honour of any of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity must be important because it is a celebration in honour of God.

Another reason why Pentecost is important is that it marks the day on which the Church was first introduced to the world, the day on which the Church was launched, to use a familiar local expression. The first beginnings of the Church were during the public ministry of Jesus, when he gathered disciples around himself and formed them into a community around his person. The actual birth of the Church was on Calvary, while Jesus hung on the cross, in fulfillment of his prophecy, "And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself" (John 12:32). But the first public outing of the Church was on the day of Pentecost, after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles (Acts 2).

Jesus had promised the Holy Spirit to his disciples on several occasions during his public ministry. One of those occasions is recorded in John 16:13. There Jesus told his disciples, "But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth." Many of the things Jesus said and did during his time on earth were incomprehensible to his disciples. Those things simply went over their heads. That is why Jesus had said earlier on, " ... but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you" (John 14:26). It was only by the light of the Holy Spirit, after Pentecost, that the disciples began to comprehend all that Jesus had said and done. It was even by the light of the Holy Spirit that it finally dawned on them that "Jesus is Lord."

The Book of the Acts of the Apostles has numerous accounts of what the early Christians were able to accomplish through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why that book is sometimes called the "Gospel of the Holy Spirit." Since that time, and for over two thousand years, the Church has gone on to accomplish many more great things through the power of the Holy Spirit. Right now, as you read thisret1ection, the Holy Spirit is working his wonders in and through the Church.

But it is not only in the Universal Church that the Holy Spirit is at work. He is at work in the lives of individual believers as well. When we were baptised, we received the Holy Spirit. At confirmation, the gift of the Holy Spirit was reinforced (confirmed) in us. But the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in us may not manifest unless we are, first of all, aware of that presence and that action, and secondly, we make our available for their manifestation in us. That is why we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle In them the fire of your love."