The Solemnity of Pentecost, May 19, 2024

John 20, 19–23

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.” As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

 At Pentecost, fifty days after Easter Sunday, the Holy Church celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  With them, at that time, in the upper room of the house in which the Lord had celebrated the Last Supper, were a number of disciples, making one hundred and twenty souls in all.  This descent of the Holy Spirit occurred during Shavuot, or, the Feast of Weeks, which marked fifty days since Passover.  The Christian feast and the Jewish feast coincide, though not exactly.  

We read little (but much) about the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, though it is he who inspired them.  This is very much like the case of the Evangelists Matthew and John who were Apostles of Jesus Christ, but never speak in their Gospels in the first person and hardly refer to themselves at all.  They saw their work as all about Jesus and referred to themselves only when necessary.  So the Holy Spirit speaks through the sacred authors of the Biblical books about the Father and Son but, in his awe and love of them — though he himself is equally divine — does not reveal much about himself.  He does, though, especially through the Gospel of St. John.  But even here, he does this in order to highlight the care of Jesus for his Apostles and for his Church.  Still, in the relatively few words we have about the Holy Spirit we can understand many things.  In the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, we learn of his power, coming as a hurricane-force wind, and in the second readings, either from First Corinthians or from Galatians, we see how he unifies and brings harmony.  We should properly understand what is meant by “unifies” because the way we use this word today is not correct.  To unify means to bring two or more things together on the level of being without any of the things losing their individual existences.  So, on the one hand it means more than two or more things having something in common, and, on the other, it does not mean a mixing up of things.  It is a most profound joining.  Thus, the Holy Spirit is the nexus of the Father and the Son, the Love that is their embrace.  Likewise, he joins disparate people together and makes them one in the Body of Christ.  

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”  The Holy Spirit is not born of the Father.  Only the Son is born of the Father.  He does not process from the Son as though a creation of the Son.  He processes from the Father and the Son as the Person of their infinite love for one another.  He is equal to the Father and the Son in divinity, in power, and in majesty.

“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  The power of the Holy Spirit enables the Apostles and those to whom they give this power through ordination to forgive and to retain sins.  As the Jews remark in Mark 2, 7, only God can forgive sins.  By sharing in the divine life, conformed to Jesus Christ the High Priest, the Apostles (and those ordained by them) have the power to forgive sins.  The two powers of changing bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and of forgiving sins, are greater powers than that of creating worlds, and they are entrusted to men by God for the salvation of souls.

We ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit to bind us ever more closely to Christ, the love of our lives, and to one another, that we might better assist one another in our salvation.