The doors were locked. The bar was firmly in place. The Temple police who had hunted Jesus down Thursday evening would not so easily get into the Upper Room on Sunday. The disciples really didn’t know what they should do now that Jesus was dead. What they did know was that for the time being they were in a safe place. They were there on Easter Sunday. Perhaps they were there all fifty days after that fateful Passover. The Acts of the Apostles has them there for those fifty days, thus the name Pentecost. The Gospel of John doesn’t mention how long they were there. But it also points out that the disciples were in a safe place.
Safe, until the Lord called them out of their safety. In John’s Gospel He breathed on them. He gave them life just as His Father had breathed on Adam and gave him life. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” Jesus said. And in those words they were called out of comfort, out of safety and into the dangerous life of proclaiming Jesus Christ.
In the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles received the Holy Spirit in the symbols of fire and wind, and immediately left the safety of the Upper Room to proclaim the Good News. The apostles were doing exactly what Jesus did before He was put to death. They were risking their lives, losing their lives, for the Kingdom of God. They gave up their safe place, for the safety of the Kingdom.
It is easy to stay in a safe place. It is easy to cling to our comfort level. But Christ continually calls us out of the Upper Rooms of our lives. He continually calls us to embrace the challenges of the Gospel.
We have our group, our safe place. Perhaps our safe place is populated by the popular crowd in school, at work, in the neighborhood. Perhaps the goal of so many of their lives is nothing more than to live for themselves. They embrace and glorify the pagan values of a material world. And we are comfortable being with them. Why should we be the one who is different? Why should we be the one who is going to challenge values? And then Jesus calls us out of the Upper Room. He calls us to be different, to be holy. He calls us to be the one who embraces virtue. He calls us into the insecurity of proclamation.
Or perhaps our safe place is a relationship with a person that we have grown accustomed to. We can’t say that we really love him or her, but if we are honest with ourselves we have to admit that we would rather have a relationship going nowhere than no relationship at all. As a result, we are not growing. We are merely existing. And then Christ calls us out of this Upper Room to seek His Presence in others, and to bring His Presence to others. It is scary. It is frightening venturing out alone in the world. But we cannot be true to ourselves and hide in a flawed relationship. So we take a leap of faith into the arms of the Lord. His call, His message, His Gospel is infinitely more important than our comfort.
Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta said, “If you want to give God a good laugh, tell Him your plans.” That is because He has plans for each of us beyond our imaginations, plans, ways, that we can bring His love to others.
So a young couple learns that the baby coming will be a special needs child. They give the child the life he or she has a right to. And they realize that the child is a gift. This child has made them more loving than they could imagine.
So an older couple meticulously plan their retirement. There will be travel, and golf, and a home near the beach. But sickness changes everything before it has even begun. Money for travel goes to the doctors. The care giver spouse does not regret one second of the direction he or she has been called to. Golf and travel are not important. Love is important. And in the fortieth, fiftieth, or even sixtieth year of marriage, they give witness to the overwhelming Presence of the Lord in their marriage.
He calls us out of our Upper Rooms. But He does far more, infinitely more than that. He doesn’t just call us to proclaim the Good News. He gives us the ability to proclaim the Gospel. He gives us His Spirit. The Spirit that forms us into Church, the Spirit that is itself the Third Person of the Trinity is poured into us. That Spirit allows us to speak with our lives the language of the Love of God. That Spirit allows others to hear God in every one of us.
The strength that the young couple has to care for their special child is an empowerment of the Spirit. The strength that the elderly husband or wife has to care for their sick spouse in an empowerment of the Spirit. The strength that we have to
step away from relationships that are stifling our growth is an empowerment of the Spirit.
The strength of the Holy Spirit is given to us so that our lives might be proclamations of the Gospel.
Today we celebrate the Spirit that empowers us to leave our comfort zone, to leave our places of safety, to leave our security, and to leap into the challenge of the Gospel. Today we pray that we might have the courage of our convictions. Today we pray that we will be people of Pentecost.
COME, HOLY SPIRIT
Come, Holy Spirit, and arouse our weakened, small and feeble faith. Teach us to live trusting in the unfathomable love that our Father has for all children, those inside or outside the church. Should this faith be put out from our hearts, it will soon die out also in our communities and churches.
Come, Holy Spirit, and let Jesus be the centre of our Church. Let no one or nothing take his place or overshadow him. Stay with us and bring us closer to the Gospel and make us your followers. Let us not forget your Word or your commandment of Love. Let the world not forget you.
Come, Holy Spirit! Open our ears that we may hear the many cries that come from the men and women of today, who are suffering, confused and, simply, at a loss. Keep us open to receive your power to generate the new faith which this new society so badly needs. Let your Church invite us to be more open to what is new and alive; and let our hearts be encouraged by hope rather than weakened by nostalgia.
Come, Holy Spirit, and purify the heart of your Church. Let Truth prevail among us, so that we can recognize our own sins and limitations. Remind us of what we really are: fragile, mediocre and sinful. Deliver us from our arrogance and false security. Help us to walk among men with more truth and humility.
Come, Holy Spirit: teach us to look from a different angle at life, at people and at the world. Let us learn to see as Jesus saw, those who suffer, those who weep, those who fall, those who live alone and forgotten. If we can change the way we look at the world and people, we will also change the heart and the eyes of the Church. Christ’s disciples, then, will radiate so much better the solidarity, understanding and closeness that Jesus showed to those most in need. We will be more like our Master and Lord.
Come, Holy Spirit: make of all of us a Church with open doors, compassionate hearts and contagious hope. Let no one and nothing distract or deviate us from Jesus’ project: building up a world that is more just and humane, more loving and happy – showing the way to the Kingdom of God.
RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT
Little by little, we learn to live and survive without our interior spirit.
We don’t need to keep in touch with our own inner self. All we need is to stay entertained. We are satisfied to survive without a soul and satisfy our hunger with bread. We don’t even try to look around for the truth. Come, Holy Spirit, and deliver us from this interior emptiness.
We have already learned to live without roots or goals. We have enough as long as they program us from outside. We keep running around agitated all the time, although we don’t know why or where we are going.
We get more and more information about everything, but we seem to be more at a loss than ever. Come, Holy Spirit, and deliver us from this disorientation.
We are no longer interested in the great questions about our own existence. We don’t care if we don’t see the way to deal with the big problems of life. We have become more sceptical and, consequently, more fragile and insecure. We want to become intelligent and well informed. How come that we never crave for peace and self-acceptance? Why, then, are we so uneasy and unsatisfied? Why do we always look sad? Come, Holy Spirit, and deliver us from this inner darkness.
We want to live longer and better in every way, but why and what for?
We want to feel good, enjoy more, but how and what for? We wish to enjoy life to the full, get the most out of it, but we never seem to end up completely satisfied. We do what we like. There is hardly anything that is forbidden or any place that is blocked to us. Why do we still crave for something else? Come, Holy Spirit, and teach us to live.
We want to free and independent, but we feel ever more lonesome. We need to live and we lock ourselves in our own small world, which is so often very boring. We need to feel loved and accepted, but we don’t know how to establish human and friendly contacts. We refer to sex as “love” and pleasure
is called “happiness”; but neither seems to quench our thirst. Come, Holy Spirit, and teach us to love one another.
In our own lives, there seems to ne no place for God. His presence has been hiding or locked up within our own selves. There are so many “noises” within us that we can’t hear God’s voice. We are poured out with so many wishes and sensations that we cannot perceive His presence or closeness. We learn to communicate with everyone except with God. We have learned to deal without the Mystery. Come, Holy Spirit, and teach us to believe.
Believers or unbelievers, good or bad believers: that’s the way we have got used to get through life. On this feast day of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is telling us what He once told his disciples, as He breathed the Spirit over them: “Receive the Holy Spirit”. This is the Spirit that sustains our feeble lives and feeds our weakened faith – may He one day lead us to ways only He knows.