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1. Today is Pentecost Sunday. The readings (ie
the first reading and the Gospel) present us with two
quite distinct and different accounts of what happened
at the first Pentecost; at the giving of the Holy Spirit
to the disciples of Jesus.
Saint Luke's account, as we find it in the
Acts of the Apostles, is highly dramatic and colourful.
There the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the followers
of Jesus is sudden, full of sound and almost fury - "And
suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a
mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were
sitting." And that was followed by the appearance of
flames resting on each of those gathered together that
day - "And there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
distributed and resting on each one of them. And
finally Luke tells us - "And they were all filled with
the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance."
We believe, on the word of Jesus, that the
same Holy Spirit is given to each one of us who are his
followers today - "all were made to drink of the one
Spirit." But I doubt very much if any of us - I
certainly can't! - can claim to have experienced the
coming of the Holy Spirit in the same way as described
by Luke. And if not, are we then to say that we have
never received the Spirit?
2. Now, if we turn to Saint John's account of
Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to his disciples, we are
struck by the calmness and serenity of what took place.
According to John, Jesus simply wished them peace and
then breathed on them gently - "Jesus said to them
again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me
even so I send you.' And when he had said this, he
breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy
Spirit.' " That's quite a contrast to Saint Luke's
description of what happened.
I dare
say we can all feel at home with John's description of
how Jesus gave the Spirit to his friends and followers.
Its simplicity and directness can appeal to all of us.
And the gesture of breathing suggests both the breath
of life and a sharing in Jesus' own spirit. It's as
simple as that - Jesus simply breathes on us and in
doing so shares with us his own life and his own spirit.
Many of Tagore's poems compare human life to
a flute through which the Lord breathes to fill the
earth with music. In fact he uses the image in many of
the collection of poems titled Gitanjali. Let me
read a few verses for you;
"Thou
hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail
vessel thou emptiest again and again, and
fillest it ever with fresh life.
This
little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and
dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally
new.
At the
immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its
limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
O Master
poet I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my
life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee
to fill with music." (Cf Songs 1 & 7)
It’s a very beautiful and helpful image - to
think of the Lord breathing gently into our lives to
bring out the best in them, to make them alive with the
sound of music. There is nothing forced, nothing to
frighten us, nothing to give the impression that
something or someone has taken hold of our lives to
fashion and shape them irrespective of our wishes.
3.
It is important to remember that the Holy Spirit
is given to us, not just to transform our own personal
lives, but also to fill the whole world with his music.
I think we formerly tended to see of the presence of the
Holy Spirit in our lives as having to do only with our
personal sanctification. If that were so then how do we
account for the response to today's responsorial psalm -
"Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of
the earth." That is a very ancient invocation and it is
a clear call on the Holy Spirit, not so much to change
our own individual lives, but to "renew the face of the
earth." Perhaps there is a vision there which we need
to recapture for our own times; that we appeal to the
Holy Spirit to come upon us and, yes, to transform our
lives, but in such a way that the changes in ourselves
would lead to a transformation of the whole world.
Saint Paul, in the second reading, has no doubt about
why the Spirit is given to us - "To each is given the
manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." (I Cor.
12: 7)
4. It is in the context of our Christian
contribution to the building of a new world in the new
millennium that the Pope appealed to us for a "renewed
appreciation of the Spirit" - "Hence it will be
important to gain a renewed appreciation of the Spirit
as the One who builds the Kingdom of God within the
course of history and prepares its full manifestation in
Jesus Christ, stirring people's hearts and quickening in
our world the seeds of the full salvation which will
come at the end of time." (Tertio Millennio
Adveniente, Pauline Publications, n. 45). Later
on he spells out what that might mean in terms of "a
daily commitment to transforming reality in order to
make it correspond to God's plan." - It would include
".... a greater awareness of our responsibility for the
environment, efforts to restore peace and justice
wherever they have been violated, a desire for
reconciliation and solidarity among different peoples,
..... and an increased interest in dialogue with other
religions and with contemporary culture." (ibid n. 46)
That surely is a programme firmly focused, not on
ourselves, but on the world around us and how we might
contribute to its wellbeing.
Let us ask the
Lord, this Pentecost, to breathe upon us as he breathed
upon his disciples before he left them. Let us ask him
to fill our lives with a newness of life and a renewed
vision, which will contribute to our bringing peace and
reconciliation to a broken and divided world. And with
the assurance that our lives are sustained by a Spirit,
which works only for our good and our happiness, let our
lives be filled with the joy of the Spirit and let us
sing a new song which will bring happiness and hope to
others. |
