Where is the Holy Spirit Today?
The disciples in today’s combined Scriptures are initially frightened men and women, some might even say cowardly. They see the world around them as rife with challenges, not the least of which is their own safety. The one they thought had all the answers, their leader, is gone. Their initial faith has been shaken. They fear they will be sought out and eliminated as he was. He had offered them peace and the promise of the power of his presence. But they found themselves alone, doubting, and afraid.
In the midst of this personal and communal chaos, suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind. With that biblical symbol of a theophany, an amazing transformation takes place. They now appear confident, self-assured; some would say, even courageous. The Spirit promised by the Risen Christ has come upon them and compels them to proclaim the Good News. Their faith is not just restored, it is magnified. Leaving the safe shelter of the upper room, they boldly enter the chaos represented by the crowds of many languages, and everyone hears their message in her or his own language. The presence of the Holy Spirit has come upon those women and men and transformed them.
The same promise offered and fulfilled for those earliest disciples is a promise that the Christ promised to all his disciples “to the end of the age.” So we might ask, “Where is the Holy Spirit today?”
We are a people also infused with that Holy Spirit, not just at our sacramental initiation, but every time we hear the Sacred Stories, every time we partake of the Sacred Meal. Make no mistake about it: every encounter with the Word, every celebration of the Eucharist is a mini-Pentecost. We may not see the “tongues of fire,” but the Spirit of the Risen Christ is available to every one of us. For all our diversity, the Spirit infuses us with a sense of oneness in the message and mission of the Christ. Embracing that Spirit as we gather to celebrate the Word and Sacrament empowers us as much as it did those first disciples, enabling us, each in our own way, to proclaim the Good News with word and deed that resonates with divine energy.
That belief in the unifying power of the Holy Spirit can impact every aspect of our lives. The community of believers, what Vatican II proclaimed to be the People of God, is called to accept diversity, not as an obstacle to unity, but, in fact, as an essential element of becoming one. St. Paul’s treatise on the gifts of the Spirit gives testimony to that. He’s not speaking of uniformity. He is saying the community is one in its diversity. The gifts of each person are for the common good. As gifts, they are the gracious effect of the Spirit. To deny the exercise of those gifts is to violate the Holy Spirit. Throughout the Sacred Scriptures, God chooses the least likely in the eyes of the world to exercise the divine will. The Spirit moves as the Spirit wills. No one should ever be denied the exercise of the gift of the Spirit. No one should ever deny that she is gifted by the Spirit.
That same Spirit should be present within our local communities of faith. Too often most Catholics, unlike our brothers and sisters of other Christian denominations, see our parishes as places we go to fulfill an obligation, rather than as a life-giving fellowship of disciples using the gifts of the Spirit to build the Reign of God. There is a great need in our parishes for all members to discern the gifts of the Spirit in their lives so that the marvelous diversity of our members can work together for the common good.
My experience over the last twelve years, celebrating and preaching in nearly 600 churches through this country, has taught me that there is one very effective way to accomplish that vision. I would propose that the formation of small faith communities within the larger community has the same power as that Pentecost community. The Sunday celebration of the wider community should lead to the contemporary disciples meeting in homes on a regular basis to share the Word proclaimed in the assembly and to chart specific ways that Word can become flesh in our daily lives. The Sunday Eucharist is the beginning, not the end of our weekly call to exercise our gifts for the building of the Reign of God
.
The Cursillo Movement, Christ Renews His Parish, and Renew, are some of the organized programs that attempt to create the small communities of faith that flow from the Sunday celebration. There are other resources that provide the guidance that might be needed in beginning one’s own faith sharing group. One such resource comes out of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania. Monasteries of the Heart,
… a movement of seekers interested in becoming part of a
community of seekers, either online or with others of their
own choosing, who form to support one another in shaping
their spiritual lives around Benedictine values and priorities.
There are other wonderful resources available, such as the Online Ministries of Creighton University. All of these resources speak to bringing the diverse gifts of the Spirit into greater focus and more effective use.
The Spirit is also present wherever people of whatever faith come together from the chaos that surrounds them to bring about the peace the risen Christ promised. A recent article in the Cleveland newspaper reported the inaugural meeting of Greater Cleveland Congregations, an interfaith and faith-based organization whose stated purposes are "to organize and campaign for good jobs, accessible and affordable health care, safe and productive schools for our children, fair and equal treatment in our criminal justice system, and sustainable and healthy food." The Spirit is also often at work in the messiness of the human experience.
In an age of such division and discord, we celebrate, on this annual feast of Pentecost, the presence of the Spirit of the Risen Christ in our day. Unity in diversity is one of the hidden messages of the feast of the original Pentecost. How much more separated can people be than by language? Failure to communicate and understand creates all sorts of problems that can lead to alienation and even greater division and discord. The Spirit led those early disciples to use their gifts in a way that generated a unity in diversity. Today, the Spirit is waiting to lead us in the same direction.
