Today, Pentecost Sunday recalls the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and Mary that brought the Church into full active life on earth. Today is the birthday of the Church, for it is the Holy Spirit Who still enlivens, enlightens, guides, and sanctifies the Church.
In today’s Sequence, the Church repeats her payer of invitation to the Holy Spirit (Veni Sante Spiritus), asking Him to come to us all now and detailing the effects His presence and His gifts will have on all of us, if we choose to receive them.
The Gospel today relates how the Risen Jesus gave His apostles a foretaste of Pentecost on the evening of Easter Sunday when He appeared to them, breathing upon them and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.....”
The Holy Spirit will continue to do these things and more until the end of the world, the Judgment of all humanity, and the presentation by the Father to Jesus, His Son and our Lord, of the Purified Church.
Pentecost marks the end and the goal of the Easter season. It is a memorial of the day when fifty days after Jesus had risen from the dead, the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and the Virgin Mary in the form of fiery tongues. The Paschal Mystery — the Passion, the Death, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Jesus — is culminated with the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father at the request of His Son on His disciples and Mary.
Pentecost is an event of both the past and the present. The gift of the Holy Spirit is something to be shared with others. In other words, the gift of the Holy Spirit moves all us Christians as its recipients to act and inspires us to share this gift with others.
The first manifestation of the apostles’ reception of the Holy Spirit came immediately, as the formerly timid, frightened men burst out the door and began to proclaim the Good News of Jesus! Then, everyone there (regardless of their many different native languages) was able to understand the Apostles’ proclamation of the Good News about the salvation of mankind “in his own tongue.” The Jews in the crowds came from sixteen different geographical regions. The miracle of tongues on Pentecost thus reverses the confusion of tongues wrought by God at the Tower of Babel, as described in Genesis 11.
Saint Paul explains how the sharing of the various spiritual gifts of the Holy Spirit enriches the Church. He refers to the varieties of the gifts given to the Church as coming from the same Spirit Who activates all of them for the common good. They are described as the gifts, fruits, and charisms of the Spirit. They may take different forms like prophecy, teaching, administration, acts of charity, healing, and speaking in tongues. Sad to say, not all Christians, even Church leaders, understand or accept or teach the gift of speaking in tongues.
The Spirit is the Paraclete (a Greek word that is translated as Counselor, Comforter, Helper, Encourager, or Enabler) Who quietly works in us and through us every day behind the scenes in the basic activities of our lives and the lives of the people around us. He is there in all His fullness wherever people worship and pray in the Name of Jesus. When we believe and trust in Jesus, we have that Faith through the Holy Spirit’s work in us, filling us with Himself and His Gifts.
The Holy Spirit leads us to turn away from our self-worship and sinfulness, reassuring us that we are still loved in spite of our sins, and reminding us that Jesus died on the cross to remedy the effects of those moments when we rebelled against God’s Way.
It is the Holy Spirit Who confronts us and urges us to take a good look at ourselves and where we are heading, to make a U-turn, to leave the old behind and to try something new. The Holy Spirit is not afraid to challenge us and stretch us to go and do things for Christ — things we have never done before or ever imagined we would be doing.