Spirituality of the Readings
The Great Sharing
Pentecost is a feast equal to Christmas and Easter in importance. It is the official sending of the Holy Spirit into men and women.
We have been hearing Jesus talk about this moment in the Gospels for weeks now. We have been hearing that he will not leave us alone, but will send the Spirit, the Paraclete, to us.
Now it has happened.
• The Father is so much within Jesus that if you know Jesus you know the Father.
• Just as the Father is within Jesus, Jesus will be within us.
• This will happen through the sending of the Holy Spirit, who is the “insides” of Jesus and of the Father. The Spirit is the love they have for each other, the closeness, the great sharing.
The first sign is that the apostles begin speaking in tongues. People from all different lands and languages gather and each understands the disciples’ words without any translation (First Reading). No small thing.
The reading then tells who the people in the crowd were:
• Parthians, Medes and Elamites,
• inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
of Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia.
• Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene;
• travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism;
• Cretans and Arabs.
Language students of today wish they could talk in so many languages, don’t they? But the real point is deeper than that. God’s Holy Spirit means to bring us together, to allay differences, to let us hear other persons in the way they express themselves, not just to think about our own self. Each one has a “language” that expresses who they are (not a literal language, but an idiomatic way of speaking and acting that comes from the inside of who that person is). If you are able to hear, you can “listen through” characteristics and receive loving knowledge of that person, even if they have no intention of letting us in.
But that is so difficult, you say. Some people you run into are just plain annoying. “So-and-so just talks on and on and I think I will go crazy if there is a minute more.” How in the world can we “hear” another human being?
With the aid of the Holy Spirit.
It is not magic. The work of the Spirit is to listen for the “insides” of the other person, as we saw above. If you take Jesus seriously in the Gospel, you will hear with the aid of the Spirit, the Paraclete, which is Love given to the deepest part of you. Not Love instead of your own freedom, but Love as a help, a push (not a shove) toward caring for everything in God, of course, and what is best in other people, even troublesome ones.
It takes time to learn all this, of course, to clear the various blockages inside us that keep the Spirit at bay. Remember, we are being invited into the greatest closeness possible, the great sharing that is God himself. Yes it does take time. And we make a lot of mistakes. But God is willing to make us “temples of the Holy Spirit,” and to stay with us, strengthening us, guiding us, helping us to make Love a root in us.
John Foley, SJ
**From Saint Louis University