Days of the Spirit

Comfortable and secure in a hierarchical, office-dominated model of Church leadership, it's difficult for modern Catholics to locate themselves in the early Christian community, where leadership was more charismatic - Spirit-filled and Spirit-led.

In our faith's first century, the Holy Spirit wasn't just the Trinity's third person, someone to whom students prayed during exams. The Spirit was the force that guided the early Christian community in all it did, opening doors and pointing its members into the directions the risen Jesus wished it to go.

As we hear in Sunday's second reading (I Cor 12: 3-7, 12-13), the Spirit wasn't an esoteric power reserved only for the Church's elite. The Holy Spirit empowered everyone who attempted to imitate Jesus' dying and rising, helping each Christian surface his or her uniqueness in that imitation. Yet, at the same time the Spirit was "customizing" people, the Spirit was also drawing all these specially gifted individuals into one body.

Many gifts

Paul describes the process: "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; different forms of service but the same Lord; 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."

Then the Apostle goes on to describe how each Christian unites with other Christians to form the body of Christ.

Our sacred authors revel in the many facets of the Spirit. That's why they provide different times for the Spirit's initial descent into the Christian community, each writer highlighting a special dimension of the Spirit's presence by presenting the Spirit against a unique background.

Luke chooses the Jewish feast of Pentecost to introduce the Spirit (Acts 2: 1-11). One of the three ancient high holy days, Pentecost commemorated the covenant Yahweh entered into with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai, the event which transformed a band of runaway slaves into God's Chosen People.

Luke emphasizes that unifying element by creating a passage that is the perennial dread of every lector, clicking off all the nationalities of the Jewish pilgrims who traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. No matter how diverse their background, they can proclaim, "We hear [Jesus' disciples] speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."

Luke is previewing the course into which the Spirit will lead Jesus' followers during the rest of Acts: the forming of all people - even Gentiles - into the new Chosen People.

All together

John, on the other hand, locates Jesus' sending of the Spirit on Easter Sunday night, thereby intertwining that pivotal event with the risen Jesus' presence in the community (John 20: 19-23). Notice that the Spirit isn't given exclusively to the Twelve, but to the "disciples." (Disciple is how the sacred writers refer to anyone who follows Jesus.) The most lowly, insignificant Christian participates equally in the same gift.

Also notice that the mission that accompanies the giving of the Spirit is the same mission from God that Jesus accepted in His own life. "As the Father has sent me," He announces, "so I send you."

Last, we can never ignore in John's theology that one of the Spirit's functions is to create a community of forgiveness. "Receive the Holy Spirit," Jesus proclaims. "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." (We presume no Christian would "retain" another's sins, just as we presume Jesus would never retain our sins.)

It's amazing to see how many facets of the Spirit's presence surfaced in the brief, 60-year period of the Christian Scriptures' composition. We logically could have expected many more facets to surface in the next 1,900 years - unless, during those years, we relegated the Spirit to a position of unimportance in the Church.

(5/27/04)