The Solemnity of Pentecost (19 May 2024)

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit whom Our Divine Lord was so eager to send upon the young Church. As God the Father fashioned a human body out of the dirt of the earth and then breathed his own divine life into its mouth and nostrils to begin the human race, so did Jesus our Lord fashion a Church from his disciples, his sacraments, and his doctrine and moral code, and then he was eager to breathe divine animation into that incipient Church. This happened on the morning of that first Pentecost Sunday when the Spirit of the Living God — the third Person of the Trinity — came upon the young Church in a rush of wind which shook the house and of fire that hovered over the head of each of them.

A great many books and articles have been written down through the ages of Christianity trying to define and explain the Holy Spirit and help us grasp this divine reality. I am not qualified to add anything to all that erudition. But I will tell you that the Holy Spirit is presented to us by the Church as the indwelling and loving presence of God in our hearts, both individually and collectively. The Holy Spirit makes us his temple, his tabernacle, his sanctuary, and enables us to live the Christian life as Christ our Lord wants us to.

The ancient and beautiful hymn called a “sequence” which is used on Pentecost prays thus: O most blessed light divine; shine within these hearts of thine; and our inmost being fill. And it goes on to pray: Bend the stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill; guide the steps that go astray.

Let us open our hearts to the brightness of this “blessed light divine.” Let us surrender ourselves totally to the bending of our stubborn wills, the melting and the warming of our love of God and neighbor, and the guidance of our wayward steps into the path of holiness. Let us give ourselves as profoundly willing victims of this Divine Wind and Heavenly Fire which will accomplish in us what God wants. Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, and we are meant to be the living stones of that Church, adoring, loving, and serving God and contributing to the sanctification of the world and our human family.  Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.

Note:  Father Brown composed this message some years ago. Please pray for the souls of the faithful departed, including Father Brown.