The Holy Spirit was given definitively to the Catholic Church on the Day of Pentecost, fifty days after Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit was given also to each of us at our Baptism and Confirmation. Yet always and in principle there is room for more; and as the Church celebrates each year the Feast of Pentecost, she boldly asks for and expects ever new graces of the Holy Spirit to come in answer to her prayer.
The Church as a whole needs this; and each of us individually needs it! Not, that is, simply a new self-induced enthusiasm; certainly not just a new emotionalism; not merely a fervour stirred up by passionate speakers or crowds or music. No: we are speaking here about God Himself, entering us in power; God giving Himself; God under the images of wind or fire or water; God as life and as love: God transforming, energising, making new; God working miracles, for our good and his glory.
The rather lengthy Collect of today’s Mass twice uses the idea of pouring down, or pouring forth - in Latin “defunde” and then “perfunde”. First then the prayer asks God to pour the gifts of the Holy Spirit across the whole breadth of the world. We can think here of the Holy Spirit drawing peoples who have never heard the Gospel to Jesus and to his Church. We can think of the Holy Spirit also as overcoming hatreds and rivalries wherever they may be; bringing reconciliation and peace out of war - please God even in the Holy Land, or in places like Northern Ireland, or South Sudan, or Ethiopia. Or we think of the Holy Spirit drawing various nations together in harmony and mutual assistance; putting aside any history of hostility and antagonism. We can think of the Spirit too bringing together Christians who are divided from one another; bringing about unity within the Church, and overcoming the disunity that exists between the Churches. We can think even think of the Holy Spirit filling people’s hearts everywhere with some ray of his divine love, to effect a real renewal of the face of the earth.
That was the first request of our Collect. But then, secondly, the prayer goes on to ask specifically that God pour out the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers: to fill their hearts with Himself. So we ask this for believers everywhere throughout the Church as a whole; for all Prelates and Church leaders; and above all for ourselves, and those particularly dear to us. We ask that the Holy Spirit re-kindle faith that has grown weak or lukewarm. We ask him to correct faith that has gone astray, or been contaminated or compromised by alien ideas or unhealthy loyalties. We ask that the Holy Spirit fill, or set alight, or direct, or sustain, our own prayer. We ask Him to give us the courage and clarity of vision we need to stand by our faith, to defend it, to resist all pressure to change it or water it down or even renounce it. We ask him also to give courage and supreme charity to those many who in our day are asked to bear witness to Christ even to martyrdom.
In today’s Gospel, taken from the final discourse according to St. John, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as bearing witness to Himself; as leading to the Truth. The Holy Spirit does this of course in leading unbelievers to faith. But he does it also in all of us, whenever he enlightens our minds or warms our hearts with new insight, or new conviction, about Jesus. How often it happens that we feel we somehow understand some very familiar aspect or mystery of our faith as if for the first time! Then we realise, as if in a new way, who Jesus is, and what he has done for us. Then we understand why we should love him above all things; why he is more important to us than anything else whatever; why we can do no other than rejoice in him and praise him without end.
Of course we can block the Holy Spirit. We do that by any sin whatever: pride, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, sloth, and the rest. Undue attachment to anything less than God, or worldly attitudes, or selfish ungenerosity, or imperfect chastity of mind or body: all such things can serve as a block to the free action of the Holy Spirit. So of course can refusal to forgive, or refusal to give up any personal hatred or contempt for others. So we pray especially today that the Holy Spirit blows apart the hardness of our hearts by his mighty power; that he gives us hearts of flesh in place of our hearts of stone; that he overcomes all resistance we put up to his divine grace: that he makes us understand how nothing whatever is more desirable than to be filled by the Holy Spirit, and transformed in Him!
Nowadays Christianity as a whole seems to be on the back foot. We easily think of it as rather weak, maybe somewhat passive, perhaps not able to be defended as particularly attractive or relevant in the modern world. But no: that’s a parody of the truth, and today’s feast calls us to reject it entirely! No: the Holy Spirit is omnipotent love. He is divine power and divine act. He cannot be limited or controlled or contained. He sanctifies and consecrates whatever he touches; he gives life; in him we are drawn to share Christ’s own divine Sonship. In the Holy Spirit we share the victory and the glory of Jesus. In Him, both now and in eternity, we are able to give fitting glory, in endless joy, to God the Eternal Father.