Air travel, they say, is the slowest way to get somewhere quickly. It involves a lot of waiting. You join a queue to check in, and then wait until called in the departure lounge, then wait before joining another queue to board the plane. At a busy airport you wait to get a take-off slot. And when you get to your destination you wait to claim your baggage. If you are going on holiday somewhere relaxing all those waits are well worth it.
The disciples were waiting. When He ascended, Jesus told them to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It was a promise, but certainly not one of relaxation. He had left them with a mission to go into all the world and make disciples. During the ten days between Ascension and Pentecost, they must have been increasingly aware of the magnitude of the task that lay ahead of them and their need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. During the time of Jesus’ ministry, they had enjoyed his exhilarating presence with them. During the forty days between the Resurrection and Ascension they had been encouraged and blessed by his visits and appearances. But during those ten days between Ascension and Pentecost, they must have felt very empty. They were more aware than ever of the importance of their Master’s presence with them – and now he was gone. Jesus had told them, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” and how obvious that was.
That first, exciting day of Pentecost, something happened to the apostles and something happened through them.
The apostles had met together, as they had probably done each day, waiting as Jesus had told them. Sometimes they were in the Jerusalem Temple, at other times it appears they were in houses, as it seems they were here. As they were praying, a breeze began to move across them, and then it was more than a breeze. Literally, it was “an echoing sound as of a mighty wind borne violently.” It roared through the house, and a fiery presence was in their midst.
It danced over the heads of each of them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and in an instant began to speak in other languages.
The apostles now had God’s life-giving Spirit in a more personal and intimate way than anyone had ever known. In that upper room, the wind and fire touched each of the apostles individually. Now, from that day of Pentecost onwards, the Spirit would come to each believer individually.
We live in this post Pentecost time, the time when each and every Catholic believer can have a personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. From that day onward, God would relate to individual people, rather than just to a special leader or to a nation group. The fire was seen outside the disciples, but from then on there would be a fire inside them, to bring a sense of God’s presence and power.
They had waited patiently, and now the emptiness had gone. They rushed out into the crowded streets, speaking to the groups of people gathered there from all over the known world. What was the result?
Some people tried to find a rational explanation for it all. Others were mocking and said, “They are filled with new wine.” They saw something supernatural and attempted to find a natural cause. This happens a lot today. We think that science has provided an answer for everything, so everything must have an answer. Some people just assumed the noise was a group who had had too much to drink. Other people were amazed and perplexed. They asked one another, “What does this mean?”
These events may seem way beyond our experience. We don’t expect to have mighty winds and tongues like fire moving through our church. Even the most exciting revivals in church history didn’t have quite that effect.
But we live in a world that has been different since that first day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has been bringing new life to people who follow Jesus since that day. Something has been happening to us. He brings new power to those who have felt empty, new hope to those who have felt hopeless.
And something has been happening through Catholics since that day. The truth of God’s love and grace has spread from that first little community, outwards and across the world, down the long centuries. Good news of the God who sent his Son into the world to die for us and who longs that we should know him as Father, has spread throughout the world.
The people gathered on that Pentecost long ago needed to hear the word of God in languages they could understand. So do people today. But the people in St. Dominic’s need to hear the message of the gospel in ways that they can understand. If we are to be responsive to the Holy Spirit today it requires an emptiness, just as it did for them so long ago, and an acknowledgment that we need Jesus. As we recognize our inadequacy, so he fills us with his Spirit so that we can carry on his work. We may need humility and confession, not because we feel guilty, but because we long more and more to know God and his power at work in us in a deep and loving way.
What should be our response this Pentecost?
The key to living the Christian life is found in a paradox. Cultivating an attitude of personal emptiness brings with it perpetual fullness. Jesus put it like this, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
–Dcn. Terry Murphy