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FROM A READING FOR JUNE 4, PENTECOST
'Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained"...' -- John 20:22-23

The Easter season comes to a culmination in Sunday's solemnity of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Most Blessed Trinity. He is -- as the Nicene Creed which we profess Sunday after Sunday, solemnity after solemnity, states -- "the Lord and the giver of life."

It is the Holy Spirit that inflames and animates the Church with the fire of divine love. In our first reading, taken from Luke's Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-11), we hear about the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Twelve, gathered in one place.

No doubt the Apostles, although strengthened by their encounters with the risen and now ascended Lord Jesus, still had doubts. Most likely, they doubted their own abilities to witness to the Good News of the Gospel that Jesus came to bring.

Descending on them from on high, "like tongues as of fire," the comforter comes into their presence and allows His gift of sanctifying grace to act on their willing nature.

In the Acts of the Apostles, we read about the unity created out of the chaos that was surrounding them. Suddenly, the Apostles and the "devout Jews from every nation" were able to reverse the babble of the book of Genesis' Tower of Babel and to be united in one faith.

All still spoke their own languages, but all were able to hear of "the mighty works of God."

Renewed by Spirit
Indeed, it is the Holy Spirit, sent out by the Lord, who renews the face of the Earth, as we joyfully sing in our responsorial psalm (Ps 104). This unity, this renewal, can only be received as a gift from God.

This "renewal of the face of the Earth" begins with every one of us. It begins with the injunction given to us by St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians (I Cor 12:3b-7;12-13): "No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit."

The Spirit pours forth on us His sevenfold gifts -- wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord -- on believers, as the sequence we sing at Mass reminds us, "melt[ing] the frozen, warm[ing] the chill" that sin and sorrow can cause in us.

We must grow
It is through the Spirit that we can recognize the different charisms so needed in our Church, as St. Paul tells us in Sunday's epistle: "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."

Why would the Spirit do this? For no other reason than to breathe on us (John 20:19-23) and offer us the opportunity to grow into the body of Christ.

That image, the body of Christ, is a key image for the Church. We, the people of God, made up of believers, each living out his or her individual charisms as laity, clergy, or in consecrated life, each contribute to the making of the body of Christ, with Christ as our head.

Unity and peace are just two of the gifts upon which we can focus in our reflection on the readings this Pentecost Sunday:

•  How am I living in the Spirit?

•  Am I living my own Christian vocation wisely and well?

•  How can I help build up the body of Christ by my own appropriation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit?[[In-content Ad]]

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