Jesus promised that He would send a helper and
advocate to be with the Apostles after He ascended into Heaven. Today we
celebrate when Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to be with His Apostles at Pentecost (which literally means, on the fiftieth day after the
Resurrection) and the Holy Spirit continues to be the way that God comes to us today.
The world Spirit in Greek “pneuma” means breath, for God’s Spirit is closer to
us than even our own breath! Yet God does not force His way into our hearts, He
calls to us to be open to Him so that we might breathe deeply and let the Spirit’s
healing love dwell with us and strengthen us.
Oftentimes the presence of the Holy Spirit
is most easily recognized through our conscience, leading us to making the
right decision, and helping us when we are in need of guidance (or when we
don’t think we need guidance!). Jesus also promised that when we gather as a
community that He is there in our midst. God’s Spirit is most fully present to
us when we gather as a community to celebrate the Sacraments, those outward
signs instituted by Jesus to make Him present to us (grace). The Holy Spirit is
what makes the Sacraments transformative and makes broken hearts healed, unites
two persons into one flesh, and transforms bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Jesus.
We
can see this transformation in action distinctly at Mass at a moment called the
epiclesis (pronounced like EpiPen…’epi’….cleesis), where the priest extends his
hands over the gifts and calls down the power of the Holy Spirit to transform
the bread and wine praying Lord let your
Spirit come upon these gifts that they might become for us the Body and Blood
of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit simple bread and wine become food for
our hearts and souls, uniting the Body of Christ to our own bodies. We are
called to live in a continuous state of Epiclesis, calling the Holy Spirit into
our lives to transform us. As we have received the Spirit of God we too are
called to be agents of transformation, carrying that transforming Spirit to our
homes, schools, workplace and to share it with everyone we meet so that we might
become co-creators with God to transform the world so that thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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