Last weekend our small group met, and I asked them what they’d like to hear about this weekend on the feast of Pentecost. They immediately started coming up with questions about the Holy Spirit. So, I’m going to start by going through some of their questions and then talk about how we can make the Holy Spirit more real in our lives.

First question: if Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to His apostles when he breathed on them, why did they receive Him again at Pentecost? The Church’s understanding, going back to at least the time of St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the 4^th century, is that on Easter, the apostles received the Holy Spirit partially, as a power to forgive and retain sins, and this was an anticipation, it pointed forward to Pentecost when they would receive the full indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This is actually similar to our reception of the Holy Spirit at Baptism and then again at Confirmation.  We receive the Holy Spirit at baptism but it’s in Confirmation that we receive “the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit”, CCC 1302. Like Pentecost, Confirmation “gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross.” CCC 1303. So, in baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of faith, hope, and charity, and we are made children of God. Then, in confirmation, there is a fuller outpouring of the Holy Spirit empowering us to give witness and build up the body.

Another question: what is the difference between the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the Holy Spirit? The gifts (understanding, wisdom, piety …) are dispositions which help us follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. CCC 1830.  The fruits are the effects in us that result from living by the Holy Spirit. We can see this very clearly in Galatians 5 where Paul lists the fruits because he contrasts the effects of living according to the flesh versus living according to the Spirit. He says:

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, ²¹ envy,^[b] drunkenness, carousing, and the like. … ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control…

So, the gifts help us follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the fruits are the effects of following those promptings.

Another question – what is Pentecost? What does that mean? Pentecost was actually a Jewish feast day. The word is a Greek word that means the 50^th. It was the 50^th day after the first fruits festival, called a sheaf offering, and it was on the first Sunday after Passover (i.e., Easter). 50 days later was Pentecost, which was another harvest festival in which they would offer the first fruits of the Spring harvest. But, in addition, it was also a memorial of the giving of the 10 Commandments on Mt. Sinai. So, on Pentecost, they celebrated both the Spring harvest and the giving of the law on Mt Sinai.

Now, what’s really interesting about that is that when God descended on Mt Sinai to give the law, He came down as fire. So, now here are the disciples and the Holy Spirit is coming down on them as tongues of fire. They would have made the connection. The Holy Spirit that is coming down on them and filling them is God.

Okay. Last question, and my wife Joni is always asking this – why did Jesus have to leave us? Well, look at the disciples, look what happened to them? They went from being scaredy cats to boldly proclaiming Jesus Christ. Look at the very first manifestation of the Spirit – everybody heard them speaking in their native tongue. It was the exact reversal of Babel. The Holy Spirit is uniting people, bringing people together in God. That was the plan all along. Everything Jesus did was to prepare for this. The Catechism says Pentecost is the fulfillment of Jesus’s Passover. CCC 731. In His prayer at the Last Supper in Jn 17, 4 times he prayed to His Father that His disciples may be one, even as They are one! Let me read just a little snippet:

²⁰ “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, … so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. 

This is the endgame. And notice the Holy Spirit always unites people, always brings people together in God.

Okay, how can we do our part to make this a reality?

Well, I’m going to recommend a book. I mentioned earlier how the gifts help us follow the prompts of the Holy Spirit and the fruits are the effect of doing that, and this book does a great job of explaining that in easy-to-understand language. It’s called “In the School of the Holy Spirit” by Fr. Jacques Philippe. He demonstrates that the fastest way to holiness is following the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, then gives recommendations on how we can foster inspirations and finally how to discern what’s from God and what isn’t. It’s not an exact science but he gives really good advice. So, I strongly encourage that book, but I also want to give a couple quick examples, so I asked Joni and here’s two stories.

This first one is God woke her up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming sense that she had to pray for someone. I think a lot of us have experienced something like this where out of nowhere, someone is in our mind, and we may have a sense that we need to pray or reach out to them. So, Joni prayed and then a little while later she bumped into this person, and she asked if everything was okay because on such and such a night she felt called to pray for her. Her friend kind of freaked out and quickly walked away. Two days later she called and apologized and explained that on that night, some issue in her family boiled over and became a crisis and everyone was really a mess, but then the next day, the problem seemed to resolve itself. Sometimes, God just wants someone to pray for Him to step in.  

Another example was one time she was praying the rosary and on the 4th glorious mystery, the Assumption, she felt the Holy Spirit telling her to write a children’s book on saints. So, she did. She had done illustrations of some saints for her t-shirt business, and she said these poems about the saints just started coming to her; like each day there would be a poem just there in her head. This is another thing that happens sometimes. I remember Fr. Gaitley said that he felt called to write a book on preparation for Marian consecration and so he wrote his well-known book “33 Days to Morning Glory”. I think he said he wrote the whole book in about 10 days. Sometimes the Holy Spirit just makes things happen. So, Joni finished the book and then sent it to Bishop Lori, who was the Auxiliary bishop here at the time, to get an Ecclesiastical Approval. 3 times, his office lost the book. Finally on the 4^th try, he got it, read it, and gave the approval. Remember she got the idea while praying the 4^th glorious mystery. The date of the approval – August 15, feast of the Assumption.

So, today is a great day. Rejoice, thank God, and let us resolve to faithfully follow His promptings. For those of us who maybe haven’t given this a whole lot of thought, read the book. Let’s do it. God bless you!