God knows.  This is a simple truth to express but one that is profoundly difficult to wrap our minds and understanding around.  From the time that I was a child I have been living in this mystery, the mystery of God’s knowing.  Of course you will be wanting to ask me:  “What is it that God knows?”  “Everything“ is a little too simplistic and is not an answer that really communicates any understanding to me and so I would probably prefer to answer, “Life.”  God knows life.  He holds it so gently in his hands. 

     My grandfather was a shoemaker all his life, he knew shoes.  He knew the feel of the leather in his knowing hands.  People from all over town would bring him their favorite shoes and he would give them new life.  My other grandfather was a farmer and he knew hard work and growing things, he knew the earth and its seasons, he brought living things to harvest.  God is Creator and he knows and understands life in the way that my grandfathers knew their crafts, from the inside, because it was a part of who they were.  New life came forth from their knowing hands.  God knows life because it is something that is poured out from deep inside of him, something he shares with creation.  God pours out life through his life-giving Spirit. 

     Over the years I have come to believe in and trust the knowing of God.  When I don’t understand the deeper and darker mysteries of life, the things that lay hidden in shadows and clouds of unknowing, I trust to the knowing of God.  I understand why St. Paul would say that he wanted to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified because it was there on the cross that the fullness of life was revealed.  God knew that we had turned away from life in our sinning and he knew that the only way to turn us back to life lay in a giving of a love poured out through the Spirit that would allow us to live in the newness of life.

     God loves.  This is another truth that seems simple to express.  However, embracing it in true understanding can often be a life-long struggle.  God reveals his love in the giving of a newness of life.  My grandfathers put love into everything that they did.  You really couldn’t know them and the love that was in them until you saw them at work.  They revealed their love in the way in which they gave of themselves to others.  God reveals his love for creation in giving us his Son and in sending the Holy Spirit.  Our lives in Christ open us to the mystery of God’s love and help us to place our faith and trust in that love.  Even when we do not love as we ought, God’s love is given to us to redeem us and restore a newness of life in us.

     This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, the sending of God’s Spirit to his chosen ones, the Church, and the promise of God to be with us always through his indwelling Spirit.  God plants his Spirit of life in our hearts and forms our inner being with loving hands into something that is glorious and full of life, into his image and likeness, into something that can share his divine nature.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit of God.  It is God’s knowing and loving.  It is the work that God continues to accomplish in the midst of our lives, until all is fashioned according to his will and purpose.  God gives us knowing and loving as a gift that is poured out from heaven, from the eternal source.

     God gives his gift of the Holy Spirit through word and sacrament in ways that we name Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety, and Fear of the Lord (reverence and respect) (cf. Isaiah 11).  These gifts accomplish the work of God in our lives and bear the fruits of the Spirit that we name love, peace, joy, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, humility and temperance (cf. Galatians 5).  Through the Holy Spirit we are formed as pastors, prophets, teachers, apostles, healers, pray-ers, marriage partners, parents and children of God to continue the work of God in building a kingdom of heaven here in God’s creation.

     On this beautiful feast day of the Church we pray, “Come Holy Spirit, fill us with knowledge and love, and renew the face of the earth.”  We celebrate our life in Christ and bring this life to bear on our communities, our families, our marriages and vocations and become living witnesses to God’s enduring presence in creation.  Come Holy Spirit, come!