Everyday Pentecost
Listening to the Spirit
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
1. Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
2. O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.
3. Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God's hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father,
Thou Who dost the tongue with power imbue.
4. Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts overflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.
5. Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.
6. Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed,
of both the eternal Spirit blest.
7. Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven.
Amen.
Listening to the Word
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Reflection
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”
The gift of the Father is given to us through Jesus. The Spirit of truth and life. The fifty days that separated us from the Easter morning to the Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, from the gospel according to John was not so long, but on the same day of the resurrection. This shows us that there is no such chronological time for the action of the Spirit of God, but all the time he is working in us.
The recount of the Pentecost according to John makes us experience through some elements in the gospel what we can call “everyday Pentecost”.
Such foundations are present in our daily life and make the everyday Pentecost one reality for us. We only need to be aware of it. Elements such as; the first day of the week, closed doors, fears, gathering of disciples, Jesus in the midst, words of peace, wounds, joys, sending, etc.
All these bring us to that everyday Pentecost. Jesus gives the Spirit as a gift from the Father… “Receive the Holy Spirit.” As gift one is free to receive it or not, he gives freely but also respects our freedom to receive it or not.
As we receive the body of Christ, we become part of His own body. As we receive the Spirit of Christ we share and breath the same Spirit.
Is it not when we gather every first day of the week that this everyday Pentecost is a reality for us believers? In the same way, is it not through the many closed doors that the Risen Lord makes his ways to enter in our lives making the event of Pentecost present again and again? Observe that the closed doors are no obstacle for him, rather exact in such moment He comes.
The Pentecost is the great moment of freedom from fear for the first disciples. The same reality is applicable to us. In this everyday Pentecost, the Lord frees us from all fears, discloses all locked doors, gives us one word of peace. “Peace be with you.”
Who among the disciples is not in need of this peace that only the Risen One can give?
In the everyday Pentecost, there are wounds and joys too. The Lord shows his wounds, genuineness of his life and death. In the everyday life of the disciples' wounds and joys are always present. In such moments the words – “Receive the Holy Spirit…(and)… Peace be with you” has much meaning, this can be a moment of new Pentecost. Moment of the presence and action of the Lord in the life of each one of us.
What more can we say about this Spirit present and working in us?
In the first and in everyday Pentecost the Holy Spirit does not invent new things to teach us, nor does he teaches anything other than what Jesus has already entrusted to us in the Church.
For centuries the same Church sings: Veni, Creator Spiritus… This song to the Holy Spirit starts with the words that remind the gifts of the Father as Creator. In the same way in the Creed, we say: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life…
Every Pentecost Sunday we are called back to that very beginning when the Creator breathed upon the man, wondrous of his work, to give him life. Now in the new creation in Christ to eternal life, Jesus breathed on the men made new by His Paschal Mystery, as we pray on the holy night of Easter: “O God, who wonderfully created human nature and still more wonderfully redeemed it…”
The new creation is continuously going on through the Spirit of Christ – that gather us every first day of the week, overcome our close doors, dismiss our fears, make us experience joys even in the middle of our wounds and first of all give us, again and again, his Holy Spirit in our everyday Pentecost when He says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Reflection Questions
Gospel Reflections
Allowing Jesus to Change Us
Who Is Jesus for Me? From Encounter to Mission
