Pentecost is called the birthday of the church. This feast falls on the fiftieth day after
Easter. There are two accounts of the coming of the Spirit: in John’s gospel and in
Acts. In John’s gospel the Risen Christ breathed on the Apostles saying receive the
Spirit. The disciples then went into a retreat [Acts 1:12-14] along with the blessed
mother Mary and they had this unique experience of the Spirit, manifestation of the
Spirit on Pentecost day, described as tongues of fire, great wind. The Holy Spirit, the
teacher was empowering the disciples of Christ to go and proclaim good news of
Christ to all creation; it was their confirmation. Mary’s presence on Pentecost makes
her the mother of the church; her life was a constant yes to the guidance of the Spirit,
so she was called full of grace, a model for all who follow Christ!
It is said, ‘beauty is in becoming’, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. What the Spirit
does in us is helping us to become like Christ, or to imitate the goodness of Christ or to
let the Spirit speak in us his language. Pilgrims from different nations and languages
gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost understood what Peter was saying in their own
language! What is the language of the Spirit? It is God’s language; God is love and his
language is love. Love is reason God sent his Son to the world that human hearts
become kingdom of God; love is the language Spirit speaks to us to transform us into
Christ. To learn the language of the Spirit, like the Apostles, we have to wait for him in
prayer/meditation. Teilhard Chardin said: ‘we cannot rush God or give God an agenda,
trust in the slow work of God’. Waiting in trust is the non-transactional experience of
the Spirit, heart’s longing simply to be united with God, no matter what I perceive I
receive from God or not!
Jesuit Fr. Alfred Delp was condemned to death by Nazis for opposing the cruel
inhuman regime. Some of his final reflections in 1945, smuggled out of prison by his
friends, were about Pentecost, his longing for freedom, cry for help. He was tortured in
a Gestapo prison in Berlin, that night he wrote: ‘how I prayed to God that he might
send death to deliver me; I could no longer endure the pain and helplessness and the
violence and hatred to which I was no equal. I wrestled with God and that morning I felt
a gentle calm and light’. Other days he wept and prayed, came close to despair. He
wrote that God was stripping and purifying him in a way he neither expected nor
wanted; God knocked all my assets out of my hand and let my self-assurance fall to
pieces. On Pentecost sequence, ‘grant to thy faithful whose only hope is in you’, he
wrote that the ‘Holy Spirit is God’s breath of creation teaching him to surrender to God
but that he was like Peter, afraid of drowning in the waves. ‘The earth is being plowed
and new seed sown. Despite our indwelling Spirit, we often feel tired and frightened
and disheartened because we do not trust the Spirit of God enough, for him to make
something of us. We believe more in our own unworthiness than in the creative power
of Spirit’. Deepest spiritual experience is this trust that in all complexities of life,
especially in suffering and anxiety, the Spirit is plowing my very being and planting in
me new seeds/his gifts of wisdom, courage and counsel.
Book of Genesis says that in the beginning God’s Spirit was over the chaos and
creation came forth. Today, many hearts are chaotic and violent; church itself faces
divisions. Like social distancing, we need an inner distancing from chaotic thinking. Let
the Spirit create us anew, illumine and empower us in the ways of Christ that we may
bear fruits of the Spirit for the world. Love, the fruit and language of the Spirit also
implies justice and well-being of all. Spirit filled life challenges unjust social, ecclesial
and political structures and knock them down as in Mary’s song [magnificat]: ‘Lord has
pulled down the mighty from their thrones and raised high the lowly’. When Spirit came
to Mary and she said, yes, the eternal Word took Flesh; when we listen and welcome
the Spirit, Christ is being born in us and in the world.