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On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.” — John 7:37

This Sunday, we celebrate the great Solemnity of Pentecost, the glorious culmination of the Easter season. Fifty days after the Resurrection of the Lord, and 10 days after His Ascension, the promise of the Father is fulfilled: the Holy Spirit descends in power upon the Church. What began in the locked upper room explodes into the streets of Jerusalem and from there into all the world — “Parthians, Medes, Elamites … we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” (Acts 2:9–11) Pentecost is the birthday of the Church and the Church is born in fire. 

Saint Augustine once wrote that “as our body is animated by the soul, so the Body of Christ is animated by the Holy Spirit.” Without the Spirit, the Church is a corpse. But filled with the Spirit, she lives, breathes, preaches, heals and prays. In Sunday’s Second Reading, Saint Paul tells the Corinthians that “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body … and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:13) 

The Holy Spirit is not an abstract force. He is the third person of the Blessed Trinity, who unites us to Christ, the head, and binds us to one another in the one mystical body. As Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, it is the Holy Spirit who indwells in us as in a temple through grace, and who brings about the new law of love written not on tablets of stone, but on our hearts.

In the Gospel, we see the disciples hidden in fear behind locked doors. But Jesus comes and stands in their midst and says, “Peace be with you.” He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This moment echoes the first creation, when God breathed into Adam the breath of life. (cf. Gen 2:7) Now, in the new creation, the second Adam breathes the divine Spirit into the new humanity, the Church. 

This breath turns cowardly men into bold witnesses. Peter, who had denied Christ three times, now proclaims Him openly to thousands. The fire that rests upon them purifies and empowers. The Fathers of the Church often interpreted the tongues of fire as symbols of fiery love and truthful speech — love that burns away selfishness and speech that proclaims truth boldly. 

As Saint Gregory the Great remarked, “Unless the Holy Spirit fills their hearts, the lips of the disciples could not have spoken the languages of all nations.” Pentecost reverses the prideful division of Babel, uniting humanity through the Gospel in the language of divine love. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches us to distinguish carefully the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord, which perfect the virtues and dispose us to be docile to divine promptings. These gifts are not extraordinary phenomena, but the steady breeze of sanctity blowing in a soul open to grace. 

Moreover, the fruits of the Spirit, which include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self-control (cf. Gal 5:22), are the visible signs of a life transformed. When the Spirit dwells within, the heart becomes fertile ground for virtue. 

The great Sequence of Pentecost, ”Veni Sancte Spiritus,” often called the “Golden Sequence,” is the Church’s ancient prayer to the Spirit. It is both poetic and profoundly theological. It calls the Spirit the “Father of the poor,” the “comforter,” the “sweet refreshment.” It begs Him to “heal our wounds,” “bend the stubborn heart,” and “guide the steps that go astray.” 

Saint Bonaventure once called the Holy Spirit “the kiss of God,” the embrace between the Father and the Son, now extended to us. And so the Church, in every age, continues to cry out: Come, Holy Spirit! Not as a poetic phrase, but as a desperate, hope-filled plea for renewal and power. This feast is not merely a commemoration — it is a commissioning. Just as the Apostles were sent, so too are we sent into our families, neighborhoods, parishes and workplaces. The Spirit equips each one of us with different charisms for the building up of the Body of Christ. 

Let us not grieve or quench the Spirit (cf. Eph 4:30; 1 Thess 5:19), but rather walk in the Spirit, live in the Spirit, and pray in the Spirit. The world desperately needs Christians ablaze with divine love. Pope Saint John Paul II declared: “A new evangelization … cannot be accomplished without the action of the Holy Spirit.” 

May this Pentecost rekindle in us the fire of God’s love. As we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, let us beg for the grace to be temples of the Spirit, bold in truth, radiant in charity, and united in mission. Come, Holy Spirit! 

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