Today we end the Easter Season with the celebration of Pentecost and the coming of the promised Holy Spirit upon the Church. It’s really the celebration of the beginning of the Church. The eleven apostles, along with the Virgin Mary are in the cenacle, the Upper Room, united in mind, heart and voice, praying for the coming of the Spirit. And as a result, they receive Him in a most dramatic manifestation, as we just heard from the book of Acts. With the coming of the Holy Spirit and His sweet anointing from above the apostles are transformed from men cowering with fear to bold men proclaiming salvation by forgiveness of sins through the Lord Jesus Christ.
So many times, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict has asked that each one of us become more effective witnesses of hope. He has stressed that the world, so mired in despair and hopelessness, needs a strong witness from each and every Catholic. However, when we hear these words of our Holy Father, words that challenge us, we too can cower with fear just like the apostles did before that miraculous event occurred in the upper room.
I am sure if we try, we can make a long list from our daily lives of times when we have been called by God to give witness to Christ and our faith in Him and His Catholic Church, but failed in fear. Fear is that emotion which causes us to cower and so “go with the flow”, saying, “I am just plain afraid of what following Christ unreservedly might cost me!” Fear is what causes us to make excuses like, “everyone is doing it” “who I am to judge;” and so we can mediocre Catholics, becoming lukewarm and indifferent to what is really important in our life.
And what is most important in our life? It is our faith in and relationship with Our Loving God shown by our worship and adoration of Him in the Sacred Liturgy; that is, the Holy Mass and the other Sacraments. Additionally, flowing from this faithful and proper worship is our concern and love for the salvation of our neighbor; that is concern for whether or not those we know and love make it to heaven; especially the members of our family and parish family.
Because Christ has sent us the advocate we need no longer be afraid to witness to the truth; the Holy Spirit will strengthen us and console us; if we ask Him, if we call upon Him to help. Today He offers to each of us the very same supernatural gifts that transformed the apostles. These gifts, which we received at our personal Pentecost, that is at our Confirmation, these gifts have the divine power to transform us, to make us holy so we can live holy lives; and holiness of life is that universal language which speaks to the hearts of all men regardless of their tongue.
If we open our hearts and minds to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, these sublime gifts will enable and transform us to be bold witnesses to the hope and joy that we hold in our hearts…to be bold witnesses to the Risen Christ, just like the apostles in our reading today; we can lead others to Jesus and His love for them. The question for us today is however, “How do we more fully open our hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit in order to use, in our daily lives, His gifts that we received at our confirmation.
To begin with, we must be more docile to the Holy Spirit workings within our soul. It is He who directs our thoughts to the good, to the only one who is good and that is God. He directs us to carry out all that God expects of us for love of Him and love of neighbor for love of Him. Those inspirations you have to goodness and holiness are from Him, not from you but from Him.
And so it is He who leads us to be open to Christ’s teachings and commandments and accept them with our whole minds. It is He who gives us the strength to accept them with our whole will in order to live them in our lives, thus proclaiming by our lives the truth of Christ which alone gives authentic freedom and life and so which alone gives the hope that doesn’t disappoint.
Second, we must pray to the Holy Spirit. Prayer to Him opens us up to his working in our soul. Christian life in fact, requires a constant dialogue with God, One in three Persons, and it is to this intimacy that the Holy Spirit leads us. In our live of prayer we discover that because of our baptism and confirmation, the Holy Spirit and His divine power and love is present and moves in us. Only by Him can the praise and adoration of God grow within our hearts, fill our minds and come off of our lips. Through prayer, especially the prayer of the Holy Mass, we are able give ourselves to the Holy Spirit in the obedience of love and the meekness of love and become united with Him and become transformed by Him in love.
Finally, the Holy Spirit leads us to union with the cross, because in the life of Christ, the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost were preceded by Calvary. This order must be followed in the life of any Christian…The Holy Spirit comes to us as a result of the Cross—that is as a result of our total abandonment to the Will of God and His truth, of seeking only His glory and of renouncing ourselves and our wills completely.
The Holy Spirit leads us to accept the fruits of Christ cross in our lives by helping to offer ourselves unreservedly at the Altar and by leading us gently to the Sacrament of Penance, to confess our sins there, to raise our heart to God throughout the day and to carry out some particular work well. It is He who suggests to us and gives us the strength to live the Holy Mass by accepting all of the crosses in our daily lives, including doing our daily work well and by making some small sacrifice or accepting some discomfort, irritation or inconvenience as and act of love for God and sorrow for our sins and the sins of others.
Let us ask today for a renewal of the gifts of the Holy Spirit we received at confirmation; if you have been confirmed see me. Because you need, we all need these seven-fold gifts of grace to help us transform our lives and to help those around us to have faith and hope in Jesus Christ. It is impossible to lead an authentic Christian life without the Sacrament of Confirmation.
If we are docile to the Holy Spirit we can grow in the intimacy of our prayer and union with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will transform us into other Christs by helping us to die to self so that Christ may live and love in us. We will then participate in His work of Redemption, bringing the hope of Christ to the world around us by the power of the same Spirit who through the apostles first brought to the world the light of faith, the promise of hope and the fire of God’s love! (pause)
If we want to have a deeper friendship with the Holy Spirit, nothing is so effective as a close friendship with Mary. She it was who was opened, followed and obeyed, as no other creature ever did, the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles, before the day of Pentecost, with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the woman and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, Let us do the same at this Holy Mass and every Holy Mass as the Holy Spirit through the Sacred Priesthood makes present Heaven on earth in the Holy Eucharist, which is our only hope on earth. Come Holy Spirit come, come by means of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy well-beloved spouse. (x3) Amen.
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