The Feast of Pentecost celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Church through the apostles.  Jesus instructed his apostles to wait in Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Spirit.  The entire ministry of the Church through the apostles is only possible “in the Spirit”.  Jesus doesn’t just say goodbye to his apostles and tell them to do the best that they can in getting the word of the gospel out to the world.  They are not to rely solely on their own knowledge, experience, understanding, planning abilities and personalities to carry out the commission to spread the gospel to the corners of the world and build up the Church as the visible manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth.  Rather, they are to wait until the Holy Spirit is poured out on the earth and sent to them to lead them and guide them in the truth and fill them with the gift of love that will allow them to fulfill the command to Jesus to love as they have been loved.  The mission that is entrusted to the apostles is thus carried out “in the Spirit”.

     From the very beginning the self-communication of God in revelation is only possible because of the gift of the Spirit.  It is the Spirit that becomes a personal bridge between the ineffable and unfathomable Divine Mystery of God and human beings.  God is able to communicate with human persons in a personal way and reveal his love for humanity because of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit represents the eternal mutual love between the Father and the Son and their being-in-communion.  In the economy of salvation on earth this is also the role of the Spirit.  The Theological-Historical Commission for the Jubilee Year 2000 put it this way:  “God places himself in communion with his creatures “in the Spirit,” and this “in the Spirit” fills the infinite distance which separates the uncreated from the created, God from human beings, and becomes God-for-us, God-with-us, and God-among-us.”  Without the Spirit there would be no possibility of an experience of the Divine Mystery of God and all divine revelation is given to us through the gift of the Spirit.

     Pope John Paul II affirms:  “In his intimate life, God ‘is love,’ the essential love shared by three divine persons:  personal love is the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the Father and the Son.  Therefore, he ‘searches even the depths of God,’ as uncreated love-gift.  It can be said that in the Holy Spirit the intimate life of the triune God becomes totally gift, and exchange of mutual love between the divine persons, and that through the Holy Spirit God exists in the mode of gift.  It is the Holy Spirit who is the personal expression of this self-giving, of this being-love.  He is person-love.  He is person-gift.  Here we have an inexhaustible treasure of the reality and an inexpressible deepening of the concept of person in God, which only divine revelation makes known to us.”  St. Paul tells us clearly in his letter to the Corinthians that “no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.” (1Cor 2,11)

     In our dialogue with the world today we must keep in mind the importance of living, believing, hoping and loving ‘in the Spirit.’  God is not what we make him out to be in our own personal constructs, forming an image of God that is consistent with our chosen lifestyle.  We can’t just create a God that understands and approves of our contemporary “everything is good and acceptable” philosophy.  We have to receive the gift of God’s self-revelation that is given to us ‘in the Spirit’ through Scripture, Tradition and Magisterial teaching and that creates a true unity of faith in the truth that only the Spirit can know through searching “the depths of God.”

     On this Pentecost Sunday let us pray that God will continue to give us the gift of himself ‘in the Spirit’ and that we will continue to grow in his love and truth until everything is consummated in his glory and swallowed up in eternal life.