Today we celebrate Pentecost, the birthday of the Church. Birthdays are fun. but births themselves are simply miraculous. Anyone who has been there can tell you that perhaps the most profound moment of any birth is when the baby takes its first breath. The experience is indescribable. Perhaps it is because at that moment, we realize that where there is breath, there is life. In the same moment we realize that we are not the source of that life; we are merely its beneficiaries.
There is a story making the rounds on the nternet about an elderly Italian gentleman who was hospitalized after he had contracted COVID-19. He recovered but had to spend a day on a ventilator. As he left the hospital, he received a bill for €500. The old man began to cry. The embarrassed attendant assured him that financial assistance was available if he could not pay. The old man said, “Oh, I don’t cry because of the money. I can afford it easily. I cry because I have been breathing God’s air for free for the last 93 years. I have never thanked him once. It takes €500 to use a ventilator in a hospital for one day. Do you know how much I owe God?”
There are many different things we could meditate on this Pentecost, but given the times in which we live I would like to spend a little time on the Holy Spirit as the breath that gives life to the Church.
It helps to remember how we understand the Holy Spirit as the very love between the Father and the Son; the relationship between the lover and the beloved. It is this relationship of co-eternal, mutual love that is the life breath of the Church by inviting all of us into that relationship. It is the love of God that breathes life into the Church and animates its members.
We have two wonderful images of this in today’s Scriptures. In the reading from Acts, we see the first manifestation of the Spirit as “noise, like a strong driving wind.” I’ve mentioned before that in Hebrew, the word for ‘spirit’ is “ru’ach” (רוח). Literally it means wind, breath, or soul. Thus, at the birth of the Church at Pentecost, the noise like a strong driving wind makes sense. It is God breathing life into the Church.
In a similar, in the passage from John’s gospel, we see the resurrected Christ breathing on the apostles and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” It is more personal, but the image is the same. It is the breath of Divine Love, the Holy Spirit, that animates or “ensouls” the life of the Church.
It is through the Holy Spirit that we receive the gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Courage, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord.
It is in our grateful acceptance of these gifts that we become aware of the charisms of the Holy Spirit given to certain individuals within the Church, including prophecy and healing, mercy, teaching, stewardship, perseverance, encouragement, hospitality, leadership, joy.
Finally, it is in our exercise of these gifts that we each enjoy the fruits of the Holy Spirit: charity, generosity, joy, gentleness, faithfulness, patience, modesty, kindness, self-control, goodness, chastity, peace.
St. Paul is right. “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” (1Cor 12:4-7)
Perhaps it is a good time to pause, take a deep breath, actually and metaphorically, and thank God for the gifts that we have been given.
The gift of life,
The gift of faith
The gifts, charisms and fruits of the Holy Spirit
that are given to each of us for the building up of the Church and the world.
Let us pray.
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created; and You shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.