And
when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy
Spirit” (Jn. 20:22).
At the end of this Easter season the liturgy brings us
back to where it all began. The Gospel of John presents to us the scene in
which the risen Lord appears to his disciples. This makes sense, because today,
in the solemnity of the Pentecost, we culminate the whole celebration of Easter
with the descent of the Holy Spirit. All throughout this time we have seen how
the gift of Easter is precisely that of new life in Christ: by his death and
resurrection, Jesus Christ has destroyed the power of eternal death and has
opened to us the gates that lead to life everlasting. Life has been regained
for us by the death and resurrection of the Savior.
This
life, however, is different from the life that we’ve had before. Christ’s passage from death to life marks a
“before and after” for us; things are not the same as before. In baptism we
die with Christ, likewise in here we rise again with him, but we rise to a new
life, in which eternal death has no power, wherein there is a place for faith
and hope to take root and grow, blossoming into love. This is the life in the
Holy Spirit, in which we are transformed into daughters and sons of God, and
not only that, but we are made into free children of God. This is the new life
that is the gift of Easter: a life in which the Holy Spirit is poured into our
hearts allowing us to cry out to God saying “Abba! Father!” (cfr. Gal. 4:6).
This is a life lived in freedom, true freedom! True freedom consists in being
able to live fully outside the shadow of death and the empty darkness that
threatens always to eat us alive because of sin. This is the gift of Easter, and that is why in Pentecost we see the
culmination of Easter: we are not merely given life, but new life, and this
life is the life of a free child of God, made so by the Spirit.
Send forth your Spirit, and you shall renew
the face of the earth! Our reflection has made us see what is evident about
the work of the Holy Spirit: he transforms, he molds, he changes. But most of
all, what’s most typical of his action in creation is that he deifies: “Through the Holy Spirit we
acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime
aspirations—we become God” (ST. BASIL THE GREAT, Treatise on the Holy Spirit).
What
does this great feast got to do with us? If we were to examine our hearts, the
way that we live our life, how we handle our relationships, especially the ones
that really matter to us; if we take a look into our surroundings, in the
society that we life in, we would feel the increasing need to clamor for
change. We feel the need to be renewed, and this cry extends from our inner
circle to include the society in which we live in. However we need to realize
that we cannot effect changes merely through structures. Society could only be
transformed by renewing the structures upon which it rests; but these
structures will change only when the people in them change. People will only
change once their lives do, and these will only come about with a change of
heart. Nobody has the power to change anybody, no matter how determined one
could be, because nobody has the power to touch hearts. Only God can do that. It is only when the Spirit of God is
allowed to blow through the arid desert of man’s heart that man begins to
change. And when man begins to change from within, only then would he have
the energy to being the changes that he wants to see in the world around him.
The
presence of the Holy Spirit is fundamental in our lives as Christians, all of
us who are set on living according to the new life granted to us by the risen
Christ. Without his grace we cannot simply live. The words of the liturgy
reminds us of this when it says in the sequence: “where you are naught, man has naught, nothing good in deed or thought,
nothing free from taint of ill” (Sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus of Pentecost). We cannot set ourselves to
change without the aid of God’s grace. Our efforts to better ourselves
day-by-day should be coupled by our petition and the acceptance of the grace of
God in our lives. We need his help!
The
gift of the Holy Spirit is not without missionary significance: God makes us
strong to do what he has commanded us, and that is to spread the Good News of
salvation. This was what the Apostles did once they became full of the Holy
Spirit; drunk with his consolation, they went out into the streets—not only of
Jerusalem, but eventually those of the whole world—to spread the news that
Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead (cfr. Acts 2:22ss). Through them,
the sound of the rushing wind was not only heard within the Cenacle: it was
heard even beyond the confines of the Roman empire. Through them, the divine fire
of the Spirit not only burned above their heads as tongues of flame: it became
a huge fire that consumed the world.
The
Gospel is a force that can change society for the better. It’s message
transforms mere human solidarity into true charity among the children of God;
it purifies and changes tolerance into true respect and an attitude towards the
truth. Strengthened and confirmed by the Holy Spirit, we are called not only to
allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit from within, but also become agents
of change in the society that we live in, allowing it to be imbued with real
values, making truly human. Let us end this reflection asking the Lord to send
for his Spirit upon us, so that we may be able to be transformed and take part
in the renewal of our society and its different sectors: may the Spirit of God
come once again and touch our leaders both in the Church and in the government,
may the Lord imbue new life into our families and friendships. Lord sent forth your Spirit, and you shall renew the face of the earth. AMEN. ALLELUIA!
FIRST
READING: Acts 2:1-11
SECOND
READING: 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13
GOSPEL:
Jn 20:19-23.
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