We rightly think of Easter as the centre of our year, and the most important feast in the whole liturgical cycle. We have 40 days of lent to prepare for it, then 50 days of Eastertide in which it’s prolonged. But Pentecost can be thought of as comparably important. The Holy Spirit is the one by whom alone we are able to live Easter; to live the whole mystery of Christ. Only by the Holy Spirit can we die with Jesus, and rise with him, and dwell in him. It’s by the work of the Holy Spirit, also, that Jesus dwells in us. So Easter essentially looks ahead to Pentecost. Jesus, we say, came in order to give us the Holy Spirit. He died and rose again in order that we might share his own Spirit. This is the Spirit of divine Sonship; the Spirit of holiness; the Spirit of union, the Spirit of the knowledge and love of God; the Spirit sent into the world in order that we might have life. So the 40 days from Easter Day up to the Ascension can be thought of, like lent, as days of preparation. They are followed by a final 10 days of intense preparation, during which with the whole Church we cry continuously: Come Holy Spirit! Then at last - today! - we have the feast of the Holy Spirit, the day on which the Church was born, the day when the Holy Spirit came in power to fill the whole earth, in a new way, with his presence (cf. Wisdom 1:7).
St. John locates the giving of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s death, followed by his breathing this same Spirit on the Apostles on Easter Day. On Golgotha, according to St. John, Jesus cried out: I thirst! (19:28). In accordance with John’s habitual style, this bears a double meaning. Jesus suffered a tormenting physical thirst. More deeply, he thirsted to give us the Spirit, whose image is living water welling up to eternal life (cf. 4:14; 7:38). John’s account of the moment of Jesus’ death also bears a double meaning. He said: it is accomplished, and bowing his head, - as our translation has it - he breathed his last. But more literally: he handed over the Spirit.
We commonly speak about a person giving up his life for the sake of others. Soldiers do that in war. St. Gianna Molla did it for her unborn child. St. Maximilian Kolbe did it in Auschwitz, substituting himself for a man condemned to die. But Jesus gave up his life for us in a stronger sense than that. He gave his life for us; he gave his life to us, so that we might live with that life. He breathed out his Spirit, he handed it over to us, so that we might live by that same Spirit.
In today’s Gospel we read how Jesus appeared to the assembled disciples on the evening of Easter Day. In the first place he twice invoked peace upon them. That word might appear to be merely a conventional greeting, but in the circumstances it’s supremely charged with meaning, and closely associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit. With that word Jesus granted forgiveness and reconciliation with God to his disciples, almost none of whom had behaved honourably during the Passion. With that word “Peace” too, Jesus removed their sadness at his death, and their fear of being asked to follow in the same path. Then he said: As the Father sent me, so am I sending you (20:21). That is, from this moment, the mission of the disciples is to be a continuation or extension of his own divine mission. They are the ones who will now bear the divine life in the world; they will glorify the Father; they will draw all men to God, through Jesus; they will love, even as they have been loved, “to the end” (13:1).
When he had said this he breathed on them saying: Receive the Holy Spirit (20:22). Jesus breathed on his disciples the breath of God, the breath of heaven, his risen breath, the Holy Spirit, Life itself. Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. That is, henceforth you are to do divine things, things that only God can do. Or: henceforth God will carry out his work - I will carry out my work - through you. And whose sins you retain, they are retained. The power I now entrust to you is awesome indeed. Not the trivial, temporary, earthly power of Kings and Armies, but power for salvation, for peace with God, for everlasting life: or not.
We, who have been baptised and confirmed, have all received this power of the Holy Spirit. In principle, our sins have been forgiven, and if we still sin, then he is always still there to forgive, whenever we humbly ask for it. More. By the indwelling Holy Spirit we possess the power we need in order to live the Christian life in its fullness. We are able to be faithful, in small things and in great. We are able to live the moral life without compromise. We are able to forgive wrongs committed against us; to bear pain and loss; to die in hope of life. We are able to love God, and to love our neighbour. We are able to pray. No. More yet. By the Holy Spirit we can live as children of God, as Sons in the Son; we can participate in that unbroken union with the Father which Jesus enjoyed on earth and now enjoys in heaven.
Because of the Holy Spirit, also, we can celebrate the Holy Mysteries, as we do now. The grace we draw from them is no less than that grace given to the first Apostles. The Holy Mysteries give us Jesus; they give us the Holy Spirit; they unite us to God, and to one another, within the communion of the whole Catholic Church.
For all these reasons, and many others too, we should celebrate the day of Pentecost with very great joy. And if this day is truly the culmination of a preparation period lasting 90 days, then it’s also the spring board for our whole life. The grace of Pentecost reaches through all our days. Perhaps more usually this grace is hidden. Certainly sometimes though it’s manifest. Always it remains for us a well spring of peace, of life, of joy, of holiness.
Just now we are confronted quite brutally by many things which seem the opposite of all that. Our Churches are all locked. Looking around we seem to notice ever wider areas from which the Holy Spirit is excluded. Our society continues along on its ever more secularised path. Christians continue to manifest disunity, infidelity, compromise, conformity to this world. But our trust is not in human projects, or in worldly success, or in the progress of history. Our trust is in the Holy Spirit. He is all powerful; he blows where he wills; he brings life out of death; he renews the youth of his Church. May he cast abroad, once again, in us, and all around us, the fire of his divine love! May he ever renew in us and in the Church of our day all the grace of Pentecost, that many may be converted and believe, and that the saving Gospel may shine forth anew, for our good and God’s glory.