Pentecost, the culmination of the Easter season is
the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit:
the moment when we are so brimming over with joy and wonder about the
Good News that we, like the disciples, just have to tell someone about it.
Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit:
“I shall ask the Father Who will send you another Compassionate Advocate.
You know the Spirit because the Spirit abides with you and will be in you” (Jn 14:14-16)
How do we relate to the Holy Spirit Who abides with and in us?
What does it mean to be led by the Holy Spirit?
To recognise the Spirit as a well–spring brimming up and overflowing within us?
Jesus invites us to live in relationship with God.
Jesus invites us to jump into the deep – to accept that we cannot control or limit
how God loves us. This calling is not lived in one glorious “yes” moment;
It is not that we make a once and forever decision/commitment and never look back!
Rather our baptismal calling is renewed in every moment:
every day, in every circumstance of life,
the Holy Spirit calls, prompts, abides in us.
Our vocation, our response, is grown in our individual life journey:
‘beginning with birth and honouring death’in the Holy Spirit we embrace each stage of our life.
Powered by the Spirit, this life journey takes us
‘from foolishness to wisdom … from loneliness to friendship,
from pain to compassion, from fear to faith,
from defeat to victory, and from victory to defeat,
until, backward or ahead, we see that victory does not lie
at some high point along the way but in having made the journey
stage by stage’: a ‘graced life’.
Today the Holy Spirit is rarely seen in the wind and fire of the first Pentecost.
The Spirit is more likely to be experienced in the resounding sound of silence,
in the still small voice of calm, in the moments when we are quiet, empty.
The signs of the Spirit in our world today are, as St. Paul wrote
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace, understanding of others,
kindness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”.
These are not easy or soft gifts:
living in this way can cost us ‘not less than everything’,
and will lead to confrontation with injustice and selfishness in others
and, more painfully, in our selves.
It is through our very flaws and cracks that the Holy Spirit
becomes present in our lives and in the lives of others!
The Navajho weave beautiful cloth in intricate designs but if there is a flaw
instead of correcting it they call it the ‘spirit line’!
Of one thing we may be certain –
the Holy Spirit is with us in every breath we breathe –
in the innermost depths of our being – in life itself:
whenever you’re filled with wonder at life
whenever you care gently for another
whenever you’re respectful and loving,
whenever you return a gentle word in the face of aggression or of hurtful words,
whenever you are kind to yourself and to others
whenever you make someone feel welcome
whenever you share friendship, tears or laughter….
God of fire and beauty
Warm us
God of peace and justice
Disturb us
God of wind and wonder
and of the very sound of silence
Amaze us
( Ruth Burgess: Wild Goose Publications)
Maggie Cascioli
