Receive the Holy Spirit

Written by BPNews Team | 28 January 2010

Pentecost Sunday
(Red) Cycle A/ Year II (May 11, 2008)
Acts 2:1-11/ 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13/ Jn 20:19-23

In the Old Testament, we can see the Holy Spirit active in the creation of the whole world and the humanity. The Book of Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God moves over the face of the waters and then God creates all (Gen 1:2). When God creates man, He breathes on him His Spirit and the man becomes alive (Gen 2:7). During the time of Noah, after the great flood, Noah lets go of the dove to find out whether there flood has died down already (Gen 8:8). The dove then hovers over the waters. After then, there has been a new world and a new humanity. We can therefore see in the Old Testament texts that the Holy Spirit is always connected with the creation. 

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit still acts actively. During the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit descends upon Mary, lo and behold, there is a new man, new Adam in the person of Jesus Christ (Lk 1:35). The same happens during the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist at the Jordan River. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove (Mt 3:16). God then recreates the whole world through His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. At the cross, before Christ dies, He breathes His last breath giving to us all His Holy Spirit (Mk 15:37). But this gift of the Holy Spirit has been fulfilled completely during Pentecost when the Risen Lord, as the gospel says, breathes unto them, saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22b). The Holy Spirit is permanently given to the whole world and humanity but most especially to the Church through Christ’s Apostles and Mary. 

Let us remember that when the Holy Spirit acts, it is always an act of recreation. It is true that the Holy Spirit has many actions, gifts and charismas. Yet all these are meant to recreate the whole world and humanity through the recreation of the persons who receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives new life through the Sacraments. In Baptism and in Confession, we are cleansed from all our sins and are given the grace to fight temptations and sins and to live according to the Will of God. Through the Holy Eucharist we are shared with the very life of Christ that makes us truly children of God. 

As we celebrate this feast of the Pentecost where in we remember when God sends His Spirit on the Church and on each of the Apostles, we must bear in mind that such celebration is not limited only in the memorial of the event. Rather, the feast makes us realize that God continuous to send to each of us the Holy Spirit to give us new life and recreate us into a new being. Helpless at the freedom of man for respect of the divine design, creation and human dignity, the Holy Spirit can only enter into our lives if we accept Him to work in us. 

The challenge now for us is to accept the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we accept Him, we accept the fact that we must leave our old life, we need conversion and new life. Unless we are willing to change, we can never accept the Holy Spirit. The problem with us today is that many are willing to accept the Holy Spirit but nobody is willing to sacrifice a lot to change his life and his ways of life. It seems that we are comfortable with our old life, our vices and sins.

Worst still when we do not see ourselves as sinful and we believe that we do not need conversion. When we think that we do not have sins and that we are not sinners, this manifests the fact that we are depraved of grace and presence of God. God’s presence and grace should manifest our sinfulness. The more proximate we are to God, the clearer we see our sinfulness and unworthiness in the presence of God. That is why no saint has accepted that s/he is holy but rather that s/he is always a sinner. If we feel that we are not a sinner or we are holy, most often than not we have a lot of sins and we need confession and conversion. If we feel that we are a sinner, then the grace of God is near. We only have to accept Him in our lives and be converted. In both cases, we need conversion and new life since our relationship with God is a lifetime continuous conversion. We then always need the Holy Spirit.