The story is told of Napoleon Bonaparte boasting to a Vatican cardinal that he would destroy the Church. Replied the official insouciantly to the perplexed emperor, “Good luck, Your Majesty. We priests have been attempting to do just that for centuries.”
In effect, the bishop was doffing his scarlet biretta in salute to the Holy Spirit. That Spirit dwells comfortably and sometimes, I suspect, very uncomfortably within the Church. Try what anyone might, the Church will not go away precisely because the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is on the job around the clock. Napoleon thought the prelate was pulling his imperial leg. He took on the Church. He was rudely dethroned. The Church survived. The former emperor wound up beating off mosquitoes as a full-time occupation on the damp island of Saint Helena somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
Think of the top athletes in any sport you can name – baseball, cricket, soccer, whatever. Without these players, their respective teams would be a big nothing. With them, their teams are contenders for first honors. Sometimes the stars and their fellow players because of them will wear championship laurels. These top-of-the-line performers lend an all-important spirit to their teams. Without them, the other players would be non-contenders and possibly losers.
Without the Holy Spirit, the Church would be at best a third rate operation or, perhaps better, a non-operation. But with the Spirit the Church is today able to survive its many difficulties. Some commentators go further and say with the Paraclete the Church played a strong hand in bringing down the Communist empire in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and in eastern Europe in the last century. And who are you and I to say they are wrong?
What everyone does agree on is that it is the Holy Spirit that keeps the Church on her feet, sometimes bruised and bloody but still valiantly swinging away. Many times that swing is good enough to be a knockout punch. And all of this is happening twenty centuries plus after its foundation in Palestine by Jesus the Nazarene!
Scientists tell us that space ships are moved out of the atmosphere of the earth by a particular fuel combination that results in millions of pounds of all-important thrust. Racing car enthusiasts giddily inform us that sleek race cars move around the track at an outrageous 200 miles per hour. They are of course propelled by an exotic mixture of powerful fuels.
And, as in the case of the space ships and racing cars, we Christians and our Church are likewise fueled by an awesome fuel. But in this case the name of that fuel is the Holy Spirit. And pound for pound, the Spirit is a winner. What other figure in the five thousand years of recorded history can match His track record? None of the champion players you can name are hardly in His league. But who or what is?
The Acts of the Apostles 2:2-3 speak of the Spirit in terms of wind and fire. A writer has noted that a wind can move a clipper ship across an ocean at a brisk pace. First though it must take the effort to unfurl its sails. A fire can warm the corners of a cold room, but it must be lit and then tended.
So it is with you and me. We possess the gifts of the Holy Spirit from day one of our Baptisms. They were quadrupled by our respective Confirmations. They rest unpeacefully in our spirits waiting to be called to birth and life. If they are, then we fly and we take on a golden glow. Try as one might, there is no way of disguising a genuine Christian. Unhappily there are so few genuine ones. Thus the real article stands out like that famous sore thumb.
Soren Kiergegaard sums up the situation of many of us. He most unflatteringly compares us to domesticated geese. Invariably we talk of flying. So, we say, “We have wings. We should fly. Let us use them.” But says the professor mournfully we stay firmly glued to the ground.
But perhaps this Pentecost might be different for us. Why? Well, listen to Gerard Manley Hopkins: “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”
However, do remember, as somebody has put it, we do not need more of the Holy Spirit. Rather, He needs more of us.
Do stand out like a sore thumb this Pentecost season.