“ Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.”
We rejoice in the gift of the Spirit, given to us that we can share in the divine life. As the Spirit prays within us we gather with great confidence, knowing that God pours out power and strength upon us, so that we may witness to the Good News by our words and actions.
Our Lord had promised his friends that they would receive the gift of the Spirit once he had ascended to his Father. Today the promise is fulfilled. The Holy Spirit is freely given, poured out unreservedly upon the men and women in the upper room who prepared for the great event by uniting in prayer. The results are spectacular: “a powerful wind,” “tongues of fire,” timid disciples turned into fearless heroes and speechless cowards proclaiming to all who would listen to, “The marvels of God”: People gathered from many nations are all able to understand the message delivered in their own native tongue.
The Holy Spirit works in humble ways. Paul reminds us that it’s only through the empowering of the Spirit that we are able to recognize Jesus as Lord; On another occasion he insists that without the Spirit we’d be unable to call upon God as Father.
Could it be because the Holy Spirit is a “free gift,” costing us nothing that we take the Spirit so much for granted? Paul explains, the presence of the Holy Spirit produces a whole variety of gifts, many of them so unspectacular that we hardly notice them: like the gift of being a good listener, the gift of being cheerful even when things are difficult, the gift of being a good and patient parent; the gift of being able to say “Jesus is Lord” when troubled by sickness or temptation.
When we open up our lives to the Holy Spirit, things begin to happen: our lives change, things that seemed impossible become possible. When Pope John XXIII said that he wanted the Second Vatican Council to be another Pentecost, he was professing his faith in the transforming power of the Spirit.
A story is told of a peasant who day after day visited the holy man in his village to ask how he could find God. For a while nothing happened, but finally the holy man led him to a nearby river and invited him for a swim. Suddenly the holy man plunged him under the water, so that he came up fighting for breath. The two walked home in silence but, just before they parted, the holy man said: “When you know you need God as much as you need the air you breathe, only then will you find him.”
Even now, do we realize how much we need the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is as basic to our Christian lives as breathing. As we pray: “Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth.” Do we believe that? Do we believe the Holy Spirit can renew even that dark, dry and, as it may seem, unpromising piece of earth which is ourselves? If so, then, especially on this day, the prayer “Send forth your Spirit” will echo and re-echo in our hearts.
“The fire at Pentecost” is still burning, changing our world into a new heaven and a new earth. And we, the Spirit’s messenger, are challenged to keep the Pentecost fire burning. If we do, all peoples will be able to cry out, “Abba, Father!”