Paraclete

The Pentecost Sunday, one of the most essential parts of the Christian Liturgy. It is written in the Second chapter of Acts. It is the Third Glorious Mystery of the Holy Rosary. It is, also, the eighth week of the Easter Season. Today is the end of the Easter Season, The Holy Spirit is the most unrecognized or should I say unappreciated person of the Trinity. Our God is not only a Father, not only a Son, but also a Spirit. A Divine Spiritual being He is. Perhaps some would say that it is hard to relate with the Holy Spirit because He doesn't have a feature in our mind like that of a person. Still, the presence of the Spirit is very vital. I would like to give pointers coming from the three readings of this Sunday Mass.

"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them."

Acts Ch. 2 verse 3 gives us the fact that the Spirit may come in different physical form because being spiritual He doesn't have any exact physical feature. He comes like a dove during the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. He can be in a form of light or a fire. Still, we have to bear in mind that the Holy Spirit is not a physical reality but a spiritual one and only assumes physical forms for specific purposes. It is in our capacity of expressing ideals, wisdom, love and other abstract traits that teh Holy Spirit is ever present.

"Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language."

After the Pentecost, the apostles begun speaking in different languages. That is symbolic to the start of their entrance to foreign world. You see, our word is our world. It is very hard to learn a different language which is not truly native in you because it has nothing to do with your world. You have to enter the culture of another group of people. You have to enter the world of an alien persona. That is very impossible. But the Spirit enables the Apostles to do such impossible things. It is a proof of the Holy Spirit's mission of unifying the Church as one. If on the Tower Babel the people of God started to be divided because of language, the Pentecost is the opposite. The Holy Spirit is here to give oneness among God's people.

"Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says 'Jesus be cursed!' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;"

Related to that idea is the words from St Paul saying we have one Spirit but different gifts. We have to use the gifts fro our ministry. As a metaphor to that, he use the body of a person as analogue. One body but different parts, that is what we are as Church.



"And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"

From our Lord Jesus we read that the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son. The truth which we proclaim every Sunday in the Nicene Creed "...Spirit, the Lord the giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son."

The Spirit is the giver of life. If God the Father did not breathed on us we won't have physical life. If Jesus Christ did not breathed unto the Apostles then we will not have spiritual and ecclesiastic life. Physical death is the separation of the body from the soul. We receive our souls from the breath of the Father. It is the same Spirit. Spiritual death on the other hand is the separation of our soul from God because of sin. When Jesus breathed on the apostles, he gave them also the authority to forgive and take away sins from anyone. That means, there is a way to regain spiritual life. Isn't that marvelous, the same Spirit can give both physical life and spiritual life. The Church is alive because the Lord send the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The source of ecclesiastic life. What would happen to us if the Spirit leaves the Church? There will be no forgiveness of sins which makes it impossible for us to be with God again. Our Church will be dead. We will be dead.