Power From Above
Gospel Commentary for Feast of Pentecost

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, MAY 9, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Everyone has on some occasion seen people pushing a stalled car trying to get it going fast enough to start. There are one or two people pushing from behind and another person at the wheel. If it does not get going after the first try, they stop, wipe away the sweat, take a breath and try again. ...

Then suddenly there is a noise, the engine starts to work, the car moves on its own and the people who were pushing it straighten themselves up and breathe a sigh of relief.

This is an image of what happens in Christian life. One goes forward with much effort, without great progress. But we have a very powerful engine ("the power from above!") that only needs to be set working. The feast of Pentecost should help us to find this engine and and see how to get it going.

The account from the Acts of the Apostles begins thus: "When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all together in the same place."

From these words, we see that Pentecost pre-existed Pentecost. In other words, there was already a feast of Pentecost in Judaism and it was during this feast that the Holy Spirit descended. One cannot understand the Christian Pentecost without taking into account the Jewish Pentecost that prepared it.

In the Old Testament there were two interpretations of the feast of Pentecost. At the beginning there was the feast of the seven weeks, the feast of the harvest, when the first fruits of grain were offered to God, but then, and certainly during Jesus' time, the feast was enriched with a new meaning: It was the feast of the conferral of the law and of the covenant on Mount Sinai.

If the Holy Spirit descends upon the Church precisely on the day in which Israel celebrated the feast of the law and the covenant, this indicates that the Holy Spirit is the new law, the spiritual law that sealed the new and eternal covenant. A law that is no longer written on stone tablets but on tablets of flesh, on the hearts of men.

These considerations immediately provoke a question: Do we live under the old law or the new law? Do we fulfill our religious duties by constraint, by fear and habit, or rather by an intimate conviction and almost by attraction? Do we experience God as a father or a boss?

I conclude with a story. At the beginning of the last century a family from southern Italy emigrated to the United States. Not having enough money to pay for meals at restaurants, they took bread and coagulated milk with them for the trip. As the days and weeks passed the bread became stale and the coagulated milk moldy; at a certain point their child could not take it anymore and could do nothing but cry.

The parents took the last bit of money that they had and gave it to him so that he could have a nice meal at a restaurant. The child went, ate and came back to his parents in tears. The parents asked: "We have spent all the money we had left to buy you a nice meal and you are still crying?"

"I am crying because I found out that one meal a day was included in the price and this whole time we have been eating bread and coagulated milk!"

Many Christians go through life with only "bread and coagulated milk," without joy, without enthusiasm, when they could, spiritually speaking, every day enjoy every good thing of God, it all being included in the price of being Christians.

The secret for experiencing that which John XXIII called "a new Pentecost" is called prayer. That is where we find the "spark" that starts the engine!

Jesus promised that the heavenly Father would give the Holy Spirit to those who asked for him (Luke 11:13). Ask then! The liturgy of Pentecost offers us magnificent words to do this:

"Come, Holy Spirit ...

Come, O Father of the poor,
Ever bounteous of Thy store,
Come, our heart's unfailing light.
Come, Consoler, kindest, best,
Come, our bosom's dearest guest,
Sweet refreshment, sweet repose.
Rest in labor, coolness sweet,
Tempering the burning heat,
Truest comfort of our woes!"

Come Holy Spirit!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

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Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher. The readings for this Sunday are Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23.

The first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, describes in detail, the miraculous transformation that took place during the first Pentecost. The disciples experienced the power of the Holy Spirit as it flooded them like tongues of fire. As a result of this experience, the frightened apostles were transformed into brave witnesses of Jesus, powerfully proclaiming Him as the promised Messiah - the Lord and Saviour of all mankind. On this occasion, the Jews and proselytes from other countries, who knew very little of Aramaic or Hebrew, miraculously heard the Word of God in their own languages. The Holy Spirit gave this “power of tongues” to the apostles in order that their message could reach every heart. He empowered the early Christians to radiate the love of Christ and witness to their strong faith. This "anointing by the Holy Spirit” supported the early Christian martyrs during the period of brutal persecution that followed.
Today’s gospel relates how the resurrected Jesus confers the Holy Spirit on His apostles by breathing on them, and how he gives them the power and authority to forgive sins. “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained”. These wonderful words which bind together inseparably the presence of the Holy Spirit and the gift of forgiveness are referred to directly in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But they have a much wider meaning. Those words indicate the power we are all given of being the agents of forgiveness in the world of today, which is often fiercely judgmental and vengeful.
Message: 1) Permit the Holy Spirit to direct our lives.
i) By constantly remembering and appreciating his Holy Presence within us, especially through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. ii) By fortifying ourselves, with the help of the Spirit, against all types of temptations. iii) By seeking the assistance of the Spirit in our thoughts, words, and deeds; and in breaking our evil habits. iv) By listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Bible and through the good counsel of others. v) By fervently praying for the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Holy Spirit. vi) By renewing our lives through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Life in the Holy Spirit is a life of commitment, of sacrifice, and of joy. It is a call to love as Jesus loved, not counting the cost. As Saint Paul exhorts us, "Walk by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16, 25).
3) Observe Pentecost every day. Without the Spirit, the church is a field of dry, dead bones. Fulton J. Sheen once said about the church that "even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people--frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith." Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love. Let us repeat Cardinal Newman’s favourite little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit:”
Come Holy Spirit
Make our ears to hear
Make our eyes to see
Make our mouths to speak
Make our hearts to seek
Make our hands to reach out
And touch the world with your love. AMEN.