Today's readings: Acts 2, 1-11; Romans 8, 8-17; John 14, 15-16.23-26
There is a certain difficulty in speaking about the Holy Spirit, even a certain danger. We do not know what to call him or how to represent him. Metaphors only represent one aspect of his manifestations. They would present him as breath, fire, wind, a dove, living water, a seal.
But his presence is mainly recognised by his well-tried effects. His action seems manifest to the eyes of believers, yet recognising him is a real act of faith.
Today's readings go from the promise of the Spirit and the right conditions to receive him in John's gospel to its manifestation in the event of Pentecost in Acts, down to the workings of the Spirit in the perennial conflict we all carry within our inner selves.
Talk about the Spirit cannot be based upon pure theory but must touch on experienced reality. Experience alone does not suffice. It must be tested and tried experience so that the Holy Spirit is never substituted by one's own spirit.
Pentecost is about the radically new relationship that the Spirit inaugurates between Jesus and his community. As it described in Acts, the eruption of the Spirit is disturbing. These men, who for the most part were remote from Jesus, at the decisive moment felt the irresistible need to proclaim in the city of Jerusalem. And surprisingly, their proclamation was received and, in spite of the many languages and hostility, was well understood.
Even today in our churches, the Spirit can establish the common discourse that is so much missing yet so much longed for.
Today's celebration is not just about what happened once at the origins of the Church but about the way the gospel is received in time both by the whole community and personally, by each and everyone. There have been times and circumstances throughout the history of the Church when the Spirit encountered resistance.
This continues to be experienced by many in diverse moments in life. Because, as John emphasises in today's Gospel reading, the Spirit can only manifest himself in the context of love. Love alone opens the way to ever new insights, to deeper understanding of the scriptures, and to the unfolding in our lives of God's revealing wisdom.
As we read in Acts, the Holy Spirit is sent to build ever new networks of relationships between us, and to establish the inner connections within everyone. That is the meaning of Jesus' words when he says "He will remind you all that I have said to you".
There is so much we cannot take in life. With the Spirit, things start falling into place, and it becomes easier for us to connect with God. It is the Spirit who translates the scriptures into God's Word for us in the here and now of life. Without the Spirit, the scriptures would remain a dead letter.
Listening to Jesus is obeying his commandments; it is doing what he says. Often we experience his commandments as burdensome and high above our realistic possibilities. But as Paul writes to the Romans, "my friends, we have an obligation, but it is not to live as our human nature wants us to. For if you live according to your human nature, you are going to die."
In this sense, the Spirit is the giver of life. As we repeat in the Creed, the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life. It is a Spirit of communion, of love that comes from the Father through the Son. The Spirit can heal disconnections in our families and societies. It also heals our inner-self disconnections, particularly when we experience the distance between what we desire at times, and the challenge of his commandments.
The Church itself, at this point in time, needs the healing power of the Spirit. The Body of Christ has been disfigured, defiled, humiliated. We need a new Pentecost, a new dose of the Spirit, which is not a Spirit of fear but of courage and boldness in the face of difficult times.