Acts 2:1-11 1Cor 12:3b-7,12-13 Jn 20:19-23
How often we make prayers
addressed to the Holy Spirit directly? In our prayer sessions, usually we
address our prayers to the heavenly Father or Jesus Christ or Blessed Virgin
Mary or any saints, but hardly we invoke the Holy Spirit. It is because we have
not been habituated in that way in our upbringing. This is a point of thought
today as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Spirit which is a commemoration of
the Pentecost event as we heard in today’s first reading from the Acts of the
Apostles.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is
not an unbelievable thing. People easily deny the working of the Holy Spirit
for many reasons. One of the reasons is Holy Spirit is not visible to the naked
eyes. On the contrary, it is surprising to note that people easily believe the
presence of the evil spirits and its various activities like unusual paranormal
phenomenon, demonic possession, black magic, witchcraft, sorcery, etc. From
another angle of thought, if Holy Spirit is denied on the ground of
non-visibility, then the human spirit or soul should also be denied on the same
ground. But, the human soul in an undeniable aspect of the human features. Many
religious and other traditions have affirmed its indispensable presence. These
traditions say that the human physical body may perish but the human soul
continues to exist even after a person’s death. We look for eternal life which
is founded on the existence of the human spirit. This is a foundational belief
of the human existence. But we should be surprised to note, that a few
religious traditions and some philosophical schools have even denied the
existence of the human soul.
One of the
first stumbling blocks that people often encounter when they learn about
Buddhism is the teaching on Anatta,
often translated as no-self or no soul. This teaching is a stumbling block
because it does not fit well with the pre-dominate Judeo-Christian background,
which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic
presupposition: If there is no self, what is the purpose of a spiritual life? A
spiritual life is necessarily primary for the human soul or spirit.
Even otherwise, if we deny the
presence of the Spirit based on non-visibility then we have to deny the various
forces that act in the universe such as inertia, potencies, energy,
electricity, magnetic force, gravitational force, which are the physical
properties that exist and act and also proven to be scientific. Moreover, the
atomic bodies like electron, neutron, proton which has inherent force within an
element also proved to exist but unseen to the naked eyes. If science could
categorically affirm the existence of all these, then thinking in a logical
line, the existence of the spirit could not be denied because somehow, we feel
the presence of it. Just think about the paranormal reality shows that are
telecasted in the western television channels. They speak in volumes about the
presence of the unseen forces that affect human existence.
In today’s first reading, we note
the powerful acting of an unseen force. There was an unseen force that made the
people of 17 different ethnicity to hear in their own vernacular even when
others spoke in their own mother tongue. It was translation of various language
on the spot without any third-party intervention. In today’s internet world,
translations are available at hand, on single mouse click. When we open some of
the webpages, our desired language can be opted. And there is a back-hand
technology doing that process. This is no miracle, since it is just an
execution of a pre-installed computer programme. But to think of, on the spot
translation being heard directly to human ears without any gadgets 2000 years
ago, is a miracle. Even today given the advancement in technology, that mode
of, on the spot translation without the intrusion of the technical gadget is an
impossibility. That was the powerful working of that unseen force during the
feast of the Pentecost. God’s Spirit or Holy Spirit was that unseen force.
Even today that unseen force is
acting but we fail to realize it. Every baptized Christian is a beneficiary of
that unseen force already from the time of baptism. You and I are its carriers.
Today is a day to be reminded of Holy Spirit’s presence within us and to
realize its functioning modality. God has a way of his own to trigger the
functioning of His Spirit among each individual.
One of the inspiring spiritual
books I have ever read and reflected is one by the author, Rick Warren. The
title of the book is The Purpose Driven
Life. Some of you may be quite familiar with this book. Rick Warren shares
a beautiful reflection on the writings of St Paul in the letter to Galatians,
chapter 5, verses from 22-23 which exposes the fruits of the Holy Spirit and
the way in which how God makes His spirit function: When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of
fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
These nine qualities are an
expansion of the Great Commandment, Love and portray a beautiful description of
Jesus Christ. Jesus is perfect
love, joy, peace, patience, and all the other fruit embodied in a single
person. To have the fruit of the Spirit
is to be like Christ. How, then, does the Holy Spirit produce these nine fruits
in your life? Does he create them
instantly? Will you wake up one day and
be suddenly filled with these characteristics fully developed? No.
Fruit always matures and ripens slowly.
This
next sentence is one of the most important spiritual truths you will ever
learn: God develops the fruit of the
Spirit in your life by allowing you to experience circumstances in which you
are tempted to express the exact opposite quality!
For
instance, God teaches us love by putting some unlovely
people around us. It takes no character
to love people who are lovely and loving to you. God teaches us real joy
in the midst of sorrow, when we turn to him.
Happiness depends on external circumstances, but joy is based on your
relationship to God. God develops real peace within us, not by making
things go the way we planned, but by allowing times of chaos and
confusion. Anyone can be peaceful
watching a beautiful sunset or relaxing on vacation. We learn real peace by choosing to trust God
in circumstances in which we are tempted to worry or be afraid. Likewise, patience
is developed in circumstances in which we’re forced to wait and are tempted to
be angry or have a short fuse. God uses the opposite situation of each fruit to
allow us a choice. (Cf. Rick Warren, The
Purpose Driven Life, pp.201-203)
It is true that some
of the fruits have not ripened in our being. Let us understand this functional
mode of the Holy Spirit and learn to appreciate the situation we are placed
with, because it is a God planned situation to make the fruit to mature in us.