Pentecost
May 19, 2013
John 14: 15-16, 23-26
Acts 2: 1-11
Rom 8: 8-17
Ursulines, Willow Dr., N.R.
“We will come to him and make our dwelling
with him” (John 14: 23).
A
few days ago Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna disclosed one of his perceptions
about how the Holy Spirit guided the recent conclave in a very surprising
direction.
As
you know, in the days following Pope Benedict’s announcement of his
resignation, numerous lists of papabili
were drawn up. Until the last couple of
days before the actual conclave, none of those lists included Cardinal
Bergoglio, and then only 1 or 2 did.
Those 1 or 2 may have been reflecting the movement of the Spirit that Cardinal
Schönborn spoke of.
The
Austrian cardinal recounted how he experienced the Spirit’s presence twice. One, before the conclave, he could talk
about; one, within, he couldn’t. He said
that shortly before before the conclave he met a couple from South America whom
he knew, whom he knew to be prayerful people.
He asked whether they had any advice for him. The woman whispered one word into his
ear: “Bergoglio.” And, says the cardinal, he took this as a
serious sign of the Spirit’s speaking.
Jesus
promised to send an Advocate, one to speak for us and thru us. He promised to dwell with us, he and the Father. That indwelling is effected thru the Holy
Spirit, our Advocate.
In
the well-known story from Acts 2, we hear the 1st effects of that
indwelling. The apostles are filled with
courage and rush out to begin preaching the Gospel. They are filled with wisdom to find
references to Jesus in the Scriptures and effective words to convince the crowd
of the Scriptures’ fulfillment. They are
filled with a universal pastoral zeal that reaches to all nations, prophesied
thru the multiplicity of tongues on display—tongues of fire and the spoken
tongues of the Roman Empire.
 |
| Descent of the Holy Spirit, from a Book of Hours, ca. 1485 |
When
we were very young and were studying the Baltimore Catechism, we learned that
Baptism made us temples of the Holy Spirit. We never saw any fiery tongues. The only fire we witnessed probably originated
with our parents, especially on those occasions when our middle names were
invoked! Maybe we heard some fire from
our teachers; in my case it was more likely to be a ruler rapping my knuckles,
but not only (I suppose that fire was more likely to befall mischievous boys
than sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice girls). Such instances of course aren’t the fire
kindled by the Spirit.
On
the other hand, now and then it may be that some preacher has lit a fire in our
hearts; or some missionary on a home visit, telling tales of foreign lands and
foreign peoples; or some wise old religious narrating the lives of our
predecessors and our early history. At
its best, good preaching, substantive conferences, and edifying conversation
answers the prayer of Jesus: “I’ve come
to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled” (Luke
12:49). Our minds and hearts are opened
up to the light and the warmth of the Spirit; we’re moved to respond, drawn
more intimately toward Jesus, and filled with ardor to make him known to
others—like the Twelve, the Virgin Mary, and other 100+ disciples in the Upper
Room on Pentecost Sunday. “The Spirit
that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me” and help us also to
testify (John 15:26-27).
The
indwelling Spirit will enable us to join Jesus in glorifying his Father, in
praying thru the sacred liturgy and other forms of prayer. St. Maximus of Turin, whose sermons I’ve been
reading, speaks of the Pentecost experience in his Sermon 11: “It is new wine that refreshes and inebriates
the Christian, but that inebriation is sobering. . . . The holy apostles, who were filled with this
new wine…spoke the wondrous deeds of God in foreign tongues and appeared, as
they did so, both drunk and sober at the same time. For they were thought to be drunk because
another tongue sounded in them in a preternatural way, but they were sober
because they praised the Lord with spiritual devotion in an ordinary way.”[1] St. Paul says today, “Those who are led by
the Spirit of God” are God’s children and invoke him as “Abba” (Rom 8:14-15).
The
indwelling Spirit will enable us to keep Jesus’ word (14:23), to keep his
commandments (14:15). When the Spirit
governs our lives, we can’t do the works of the flesh, i.e., commit sin, as St.
Paul says (Rom 8:8-13). Rather, we
imitate Jesus in our patience, kindness, mercy, chastity, faith, etc.
The
indwelling Spirit will “teach you everything” (14:26)—which may mean discerning
the proper moral response to contemporary social and economic issues, or
discerning the best decisions for guiding our own lives, guiding a community, a
school, a diocese—or the universal Church, as in Cardinal Schönborn’s
experience. That spiritual discernment
depends on our submission to the Spirit, letting ourselves be “led by the
Spirit of God” (Rom 8:15), as Paul says, and as the cardinal intimated because
he knew that Latin American couple to be prayerful.
The
indwelling of the Spirit also enables us “to suffer with Christ” (Rom
8:17). Altho in Paul’s time that often
meant the sufferings of violent persecution, none of us is exempt from
suffering: from physical pain, from
emotional anguish, from worry, from misunderstandings, from hurts of various
kinds. The Spirit unites us with Christ
in our sufferings, “so that we may also be glorified with him” (8:17).
In
all things, then, the Spirit of Jesus and his Father “confirms our hearts” (Vigil
Collect alt. form) so that with Jesus and his Father we might be “the unity of the Holy Spirit,” already now in the
communion of the saints, and eternally as “joint heirs with Christ” (8:17).
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