Solemnity of Pentecost
On this the Feast of Pentecost, if there is a fact that today’s readings are suggesting, it is this: that Christianity is dependent upon the presence of the Holy Spirit. In today’s second reading from the letter to the Corinthians Paul says, “No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3b). In today’s gospel passage, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the apostles and gives them the authority both to forgive or retain sins. (Jn 20:20). In other words, forgiveness of sin is impossible without the power of the Holy Spirit. There are other instances of absolute reliance on the Holy Spirit for Christian living. In Romans 8:26 Paul would say, “…for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.” Paul is suggesting that the very desire to pray is itself a work of the Holy Spirit. It is possible, then, that the our desire to be in church for worship today is the work of the Holy Spirit. In the New Testament the very first stirrings of what would finally become Christianity, originated with the power of the Spirit in the womb of a virgin. We can compile a long list of other instances in the Bible where the role of the Holy Spirit is crucial to a life of faith.
Today, I would like to merely provide a simple Catechesis on the role of the Holy Spirit in our Christian living. Let me do this in three points:
a) First, the Eucharist. When we think of the Eucharist, most of think of either the bread and the wine or the body and the blood of Christ. It is possible we even think of a long winded boring sermon or a lousy cantor before we think Holy Spirit. And yet, the Eucharist is impossible without the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Crucial to the Eucharist is a prayer we call “epiclesis.” It means to “invoke” or “call out.” Epiclesis is that part of the Eucharist where we call upon the Father to send the Holy Spirit to accomplish an action that human beings by themselves cannot accomplish. In the Eucharist this means that we call upon the Father to send the Holy Spirit to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This is what the epiclesis sounds like: “And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this eucharist.”
Catholics believe that it is at this moment that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit, then, that makes the real presence of Christ possible. Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no Eucharist.
b) Second, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In today’s gospel reading Jesus breathed on the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” This is a revolutionary passage in the New Testament. It indicates that a power that thus far was totally in God’s realm, Jesus now shares with human beings. It seems clear that the apostles now have the authority to forgive or retain sins. A deeper analysis reveals to us that it is not the apostles as human beings that either forgive or retain sins, but the Holy Spirit whom Jesus breathed on the apostles brings about that forgiveness. The apostle merely becomes a medium through which the Holy Spirit works.
I would like to you hear the prayer of absolution that a priest proclaims: “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit, then, that makes real the forgiveness of God.
c) Third, manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The question that I am raising is, how do we know we have the Holy Spirit? On the day of the Pentecost, the general public came to know about the anointing of the Holy Spirit by hearing and understanding the apostles in their own native languages. St. Paul has much to say about the Holy Spirit and the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to people. However, he was also concerned that people were using the gifts to their own advantage. There were those who were claiming that the gift of tongues was the greatest gift; others said that healing or prophecy was the greatest gift.
Paul put an end to all these controversies in the twelfth and thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. Thus, in today’s first reading Paul says, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit,” (I Cor 12:7) or as other translations have it, for the “common good.” So the gift of tongues is the least of the desirable gifts unless the community understands the tongues as it was on the day of the first Pentecost. Rather, Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Here is my answer, then, to the question, ‘How do we know I have the Holy Spirit?’ The answer is: by the love that is expressed in our lives.
In conclusion let me say that today we should be present at this Eucharist with immense gratitude to God for giving us the Holy Spirit – the Spirit that makes real to us the presence of God and the forgiveness of God. However, we must also remember that Christ sends out forth, filled with the Spirit of love. Amen