Pentecost and the Holy Spirit

Today the church celebrates the solemnity of Pentecost. Fifty days after Easter. In the Jewish calendar it was known as the feast of weeks. Fifty days after Passover. The Passover was the seminal event in the story of salvation history when the Jewish people were led out of four hundred years of slavery under Egyptian rule by Moses under the direction of Yahweh, God.

Moses led the people through the baptism of the Red Sea into freedom. They received the law, the Ten Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai. They were now to be formed into a people under the law of God over the next twelve hundred years their loyalty ebbed and flowed as their fortunes rose and fell and as they again went in and out of captivity to their more powerful neighbors.

All of this was a preparation for the coming of the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah.

And so we come back to the Passover which Jesus celebrated with His disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem from which He went out to His passion, crucifixion and death and resurrection. Actions and events that were ordained by God the Father in sending His only Son to be born of the Virgin Mary to make recompense for the sin of disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, to restore man to the sonship of God.

When God chose Abraham He made covenent with him. “Your descendants shall be many, as the stars in the sky and I will give you as an inheritance all the land from the Euphrates to the great sea.” This is a promise of the kingdom. The beatific vision which has been misinterpreted and which, in time God came Himself as man to restore.

We find this misinterpretation in the minds of people today.

The Jews expected Jesus to restore the worldly kingdom to Israel but Jesus told them my kingdom is not of this world. And said that the kingdom of heaven is here within you. Do not look for it elsewhere.”

Our Political process, and those seeking office, propose that the passing laws and spending money will in time create heaven on earth. What happens is that the people suffer slavery of many kinds. The law that will set us free is God’s law, the law of love and trust in Him.

We are taught by Christ in the New Testament which is the revealed word of God that God is One but in that One are three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All equal in divinity but separate persons.

We see this first when Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River. When Jesus rose from the water a dove appeared over Him and the voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” We see the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As the Jewish people secured freedom from slavery by moving through the Red Sea and being baptized into Moses so are we free from the slavery of sin by being baptized into Christ, the only Son of God. As at the Jordon it is the Holy Spirit and the washing in water that frees us. John  Baptised by water only but in Christ we are baptized by water and the Holy Spirit.

With Noah and the ark in the flood it was the dove that was sent out as the waters receded, another sign of baptism in the process of cleansing from sins.

Next Sunday is Trinity Sunday, Three Persons in one God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three Divine Persons.

Today is devoted to the third person of that Trinity. The Advocate, the Paraclete, the one Jesus said He would send to remind us of all that he had taught, all truth. He will not speak on His own but will speak what He hears from me.

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. As the Father is pure spirit so is the Holy Spirit. The Son alone is Spirit and flesh. This is something that the intellect does not grasp but that the heart does. We have many signs that convey that truth to us.

On this day in the same upper room in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit , God, came down upon the apostles as tongues of fire. They were filled with grace, the life and being of God Himself. We recall how in the early sojourning of the Israelites with Moses and the ark, there were followed by the cloud in day and the fire at night. These men who were weak, lacking in understanding and doubting where how enabled by grace, to know that truth and to do great works for the kingdom and for souls. “My kingdom is not of this world.”

This is the case with each of us who is baptized, confirmed and receives the Holy Eucharist worthily. St. Paul reminds us in 1Cor6:19 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought at a great price. Glorify God and bear Him in your body.”

“No one dies as his own master whether we live or die we are the Lord’s.”

In the sacrament of confirmation we received the Holy Spirit in much the same way as the apostles did today. We are anointed with oil on our foreheads and the bishop lays His hand on our head and calls us by name saying, “Mary, be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” In my day we were taught that we had become solders for Christ, to spread the faith and to defend it. We still have that title and that responsibility.

The great solemnity of Pentecost is really the birthday of the church and the end of the Easter season. Jesus said, “Go forth and preach the Gospel to all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I am with you always even unto the end of the world.”

Christ is the church, for it is in Him that we live and move and have our being. The Holy Spirit guides the church in truth to be conformed to Christ are head.

And finally, Mary who is the mother of God and therefore the mother of the church is also the spouse of the Holy Spirit.

It is the Holy Spirit that pours forth the grace we all need to live holy lives, to suffer with Christ for the sake of souls. It is to the spouse of the Paraclete that we can go to have our needs and desires fulfilled. She is the queen of Heaven and earths and is our mother who loves us.


“Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the faithful, enkindle in them the fire of thy love and they shall be created and renew the face of the earth.