A Homily for Pentecost Sunday

+ Whom or what is the Holy Spirit? The question might sound somewhat irreverent, particularly on this feast of Pentecost, but it is sometimes true that He is “the forgotten God” as a bishop from my youth liked to say somewhat provocatively. For as much as we hold firm to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in practice God the Father and God the Son are more often to the fore, whereas God the Holy Spirit can be overlooked in our prayers and devotions—even though we invoke Him in every sign of the cross, address Him each morning the ancient Terce hymn Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus, and appeal to Him at the end of every prayer and hymn in the Church’s liturgy.
 
On this solemn feast of Pentecost, however, and throughout its ancient octave, our Holy Mother, the Church, seeks to heal our amnesia, as it were, and to rekindle our explicit faith and devotion to He Whom Our Lord describes in the Holy Gospel of this Mass as: “the Counsellor…whom the Father will send in my name [Who] will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
 
This promise must have seemed somewhat vague to the Apostles who were, after all, in the days after the Resurrection, on something of a very steep learning curve. They had probably come to accept the reality of the humanly impossible, but one could forgive them for wondering what this promise meant—for wondering what would happen next (as if Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead was not itself enough)!
 
Yet, as this morning’s Epistle recounts, the Apostles experienced a noise like a great wind that came to rest upon their heads as tongues of fire, and “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”—an ability, indeed a charism, not ordered to their own self-aggrandisement, but given to be used for the preaching of the Gospel, for the conversion of sinners, for the salvation of souls: a gift, the exercise of which would carry the apostles to the very ends of the earth and see all but one of them shed their blood for Christ.
 
This is the gift of God the Holy Spirit. This is its power. To enable sinful men to become great apostles and martyrs: nothing less! And lest we be tempted to think that that is all well and good back in the times of the apostles, we have the witness of countless saints and martyrs of all ranks and stations in life who have similarly been transformed throughout the ages, down to our own. Indeed, we are called thus to be renewed, recreated and restored so that we can bear witness to the Truth that is Christ Jesus in the circumstances in which we live and work, be they quite ordinary humanly speaking, or be they sometimes, according to God’s Providence, utterly extraordinary. Ordinary, fallible men were called to become Apostles and, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, accomplished extraordinary things. Our baptismal vocation is, in reality, no different no matter what our circumstances in life.
 
Throughout the Octave of Pentecost, at Mass, we sing the Sequence of this feast, the Veni Sancte Spiritus—that most beautiful medieval poetic and musical flowering the Church’s contemplation of the gift of God the Holy Spirit (a true example of the riches of our liturgical tradition developed over the ages. Whilst the liturgical texts and melodies of Pentecost are quite simply an indulgent feast of beauty and devotion that serves week to underline its importance, the Veni Sancte Spiritus, ), known also as the “golden sequence,” shines amongst them for its all-embracing realistic piety. Let it be our inspiration and guide not only today, not only in the Octave, but always. Let us not ‘forget’ God the Holy Spirit. Let us turn to Him and re-turn to Him constantly, in every circumstance and need, seeking His purifying, instructive and inspirational light and strength.
 
Let us pray frequently and fervently:

Come, Holy Spirit,
and send out from heaven
the ray of your light.

Come, father of the poor,
come, giver of gifts,
come, light of hearts.
 
Greatest comforter,
sweet guest of the soul,
sweet consolation.

In labour, rest,
in heat, temperateness,
in tears, solace.

O most blessed light,
fill the inmost heart
of your faithful.

Without the nod of your head,
there is nothing in man,
nothing that is harmless.

Cleanse what is unclean,
water what is parched,
heal what is wounded.

Bend what is inflexible,
warm what is chilled,
correct what has gone astray.

Give to your faithful,
who trust in you,
the sevenfold gift.

Give virtue's reward,
give salvation's end,
give joy eternal.

Amen. Alleluia! +