Pentecost Sunday - June 12, 2011: A New Pentecost

Click Here for the Mass Readings for Pentecost Sunday - June 12, 2011 (Year A):

"Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"  (Jn 20:21-22)

Pentecost Sunday is upon us!  "Pentecost" (literally "the fiftieth day") commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and disciples on the fiftieth day after Jesus' resurrection.  Today's celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church recalls the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to His disciples to send "another Advocate...the Spirit of Truth" to be with us always, and to lead us into all truth.  And while Pentecost Sunday marks the last day of the Easter Season, the mission of Jesus and the Holy Spirit continue on in our midst.

Although Jesus was no longer visibly present to the early Church after His ascension into glory, He has been present to her and acting within her throughout the centuries by means of His Holy Spirit.  It is, in fact, through the work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus continues His salvific mission in the Church even today - most conspicuously through the Sacraments and the witness of the saints.  The Holy Spirit communicates to the Church the divine life and love of God, or more accurately, He is the Love of the Father and Son poured into our hearts.  He is the source of the Church's life and vitality, or in the words of St. Augustine, "what the soul is in our body, the Holy Spirit is in the body of Christ, which is the church."  And for this reason the Church has need of a continual Pentecost; a continual outpouring of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all Christ's faithful so Christ may be encountered, known, loved, and proclaimed!  Blessed John XXIII prayed for a "new Pentecost" for the Church, Pope Paul VI prayed for an "eternal Pentecost", Blessed John Paul II spoke often of the same thing and prayed fervently for a "new Pentecost" for the entire Church, and most recently Pope Benedict XVI has called on everyone "to implore from God the grace of a new Pentecost".  So what's our response?

For some reason, on the personal level, many of us either hesitate (or neglect) to open the doors of our heart to the Holy Spirit and invoke His active presence in our day to day life.  We often associate the Holy Spirit with Pentecostal Protestants or the Charismatic Movement, and we forget that He is the soul of everyone's spiritual life and without Him communion with Christ is categorically impossible. We can also be leery of opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit because deep down we're leery of change - either because we become too set in our ways and grow comfortable with the status quo, or we believe we're doing okay and there's no real need for conversion, or we're just plain stubborn.  When the state of a soul is such, the word "docility" is rarely to be found in the mind or on the lips.  And yet being a disciple of Christ means being "docile" (in Latin docilis means "easily taught" and is the contrary of "obstinate" or "unteachable").  The Holy Spirit is the one who directs us to be open and docile to the Lord and the Church.  Docility manifests itself in a desire to know God's will, to receive Christ's teaching and assimilate it, to listen to the voice of Christ speaking through the Church, and an excitement to know and grow in the ways of God.  Saint Josemaría Escrivá summed up nicely the importance of docility when he said, "you have to be docile, so as not to put obstacles in the way of your God."

Let us never dismiss the Holy Spirit as non-essential to our spiritual lives and to the Church, nor forget the docility needed to be a disciple of Christ so as to be guided into all truth (Jn 16:13).  Instead, let us pray fervently on this Pentecost Sunday - together with our Holy Father, our Blessed Mother, and the whole heavenly court of saints and angels - for the grace of a "new Pentecost" in our personal lives and for the entire Church!  May the Risen Lord hear our prayer, and may the Holy Spirit burn evermore brightly in your hearts!  God bless you.

(Photo of "Veni, Sanctificator" courtesy of Dcn. Lawrence Lew, O.P.)