The Holy Spirit Comes

Pentecost, Jean Fouquet

The Holy Spirit comes at the price of Christ's “departure.” While this “departure” caused the Apostles to be sorrowful, and this sorrow was to reach its culmination in the Passion and Death on Good Friday, “this sorrow will turn into joy.” For Christ will add to this redemptive “departure” the glory of his Resurrection and Ascension to the Father. Thus the sorrow with its underlying joy is, for the Apostles in the context of their Master's “departure,” an “advantageous” departure, for thanks to it another “Counselor” will come. At the price of the Cross which brings about the Redemption, in the power of the whole Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes in order to remain from the day of Pentecost onwards with the Apostles, to remain with the Church and in the Church, and through her in the world.

-Saint John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem

Let Your Spirit Descend

On this Pentecost Sunday, we remember St. John Paul II’s famous prayer in Victory Square:

Let your Spirit descend.
Let your Spirit descend.
and renew the face of the earth,
the face of this land.

The Spirit did indeed listen to the great saint’s prayer, and we ask that He continue to descend upon the Church today, especially on her mission for the new evangelization.

St. John Paul II, Pray for Us!

Newness, Harmony, And Mission

In his homily for the Feast of Pentecost, Pope Francis reflected on three words linked to the workings of the Holy Spirit. These are newness, harmony and mission.

This reflection is helpful for those looking to go deeper into the significance of Pentecost Sunday. Here at the Shrine, we also find it helpful for connecting the pontificates of our beloved Blessed John Paul II and our new Holy Father, Pope Francis.

First of all, the Holy Spirit plays a role in the newness of change in our lives. In a culture of planners, new direction is not always welcomed with open arms. “Yet throughout the history of salvation,” Pope Francis said, “whenever God reveals himself, he brings newness and change, and demands our complete trust.” He continues:

Noah, mocked by all, builds an ark and is saved; Abram leaves his land with only a promise in hand; Moses stands up to the might of Pharaoh and leads his people to freedom; the apostles, huddled fearfully in the Upper Room, go forth with courage to proclaim the Gospel. This is not a question of novelty for novelty’s sake, the search for something new to relieve our boredom, as is so often the case in our own day. The newness which God brings into our life is something that actually brings fulfillment, that gives true joy, true serenity, because God loves us and desires only our good.

Now Blessed John Paul II and Pope Francis do have much in common. They are both similar in their openness to others and in the genuineness of their prayers. They both have a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, and the chaplain of the Blessed John Paul II Shrine, Rev. Gregory Gresko, also notes that Pope Francis “is continuing the call of Blessed John Paul II in telling us ‘Be not afraid’ to give yourself over completely to the loving mercy of God.”

Yet the two are certainly not the same, and Pope Francis has already made some unique choices during his pontificate that challenge the faithful to look humbly inside of ourselves so that we may better perceive what is going on around us and how we can serve those in need. 

A Strong Wind Blows

Even in our own day, as in the Upper Room at Jerusalem, a "strong wind" blows through the Church. She experiences the divine breath of the Spirit who opens her for the evangelization of the world. 

-Blessed John Paul II, Homily for Pentecost 2001

Holy Spirit leads us through personal conversions and dark nights

Pope Benedict XVI has had some inspiring things to say about a variety of topics this past week.

Last Thursday, the pontiff addressed a group of bishops from Italy, reminding them that personal holiness is the first step in re-converting Europe. This interior conversion builds the foundation for living the New Evangelization. He said:

The fundamental condition in order to be able to speak about God is to speak with God, increasingly to become men of God, nourished by an intense life of prayer and molded by his grace.

An intimate relationship with God is vital if we are to fight evil in this world, and so are “dark nights.” Earlier last week, Pope Benedict addressed those times in his life when things were not all joyful and wonderful, and he thanked God for the good that came out of them.

The Holy Spirit gives us these conversions and “dark nights,” and it is His love that gets us through. The Spirit also gives the Church unity, which is ever more important in this age of the New Evangelization. On Pentecost, Pope Benedict said:

…unity can only exist as a gift of God’s Spirit who will give us a new heart and a new language, a new ability to communicate.

Come Holy Spirit, then. Unite this Church in Christ’s love, and give us what we need to spread the Gospel throughout the world.

 

The Third Glorious Mystery: The Descent of the Holy Spirit

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1-4).

On this day the Church celebrates Pentecost. This is the day when the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles, giving them the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They were given everything necessary in order to fulfill Jesus’ commands.

Blessed John Paul II reflected upon the descent of the Holy Spirit during his 1979 Mass at Victory Square in Poland:

The liturgy of the evening of Saturday the Vigil of Pentecost takes us to the Upper Room in Jerusalem, where the Apostles, gathered around Mary the Mother of Christ, were on the following day to receive the Holy Spirit. They were to receive the Spirit obtained for them by Christ through the Cross, in order that through the power of this Spirit they might fulfil his command: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you" (Mt 28:19-20). Before Christ the Lord left the world, he transmitted to the Apostles with these words his last recommendation, his "missionary mandate".

In the face of a Communist regime which worked tirelessly to take God out of the Poland’s past, present, and future, Blessed John Paul II then fearlessly called for a “second baptism”—a baptism that would change the history of the twentieth century and eventually lead to the fall of Communism:

St. Philip Neri, Pray for Us!

In his Wednesday Catechesis last week, Pope Benedict XVI addressed those who are struggling to pray. He said:

…prayer is above all the work of the Holy Spirit within our hearts, the fruit of God’s presence within us. The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, teaching us to pray to the Father through the Son. In the eighth chapter of the Letter to the Romans, Paul tells us that the Spirit intercedes for us, unites us to Christ and enables us to call God our Father. In our prayer, the Holy Spirit grants us the glorious freedom of the children of God, the hope and strength to remain faithful to the Lord amid our daily trials and tribulations, and a heart attentive to the working of God’s grace in others and in the world around us.

There are times in our lives when prayer becomes difficult, and usually these times are when we need God most. Simply asking the Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray is a strong prayer in itself, bound to bring us hope and strength.

St. Philip Neri, whose feast we celebrate today, often asked for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One time in prayer, while he was earnestly seeking the Holy Spirit, a flame entered his mouth and took a place in his chest. His heart miraculously caught fire, and after bearing his breast to cool himself, St. Philip joyously felt his heart swell. Doctors later discovered that his heart dilated due to the sudden impulse of heavenly love.

The Holy Spirit gives us amazing gifts when we sincerely ask for them. As we prepare for Pentecost, let us ask the Holy Spirit for fruitful prayers and hearts ablaze with love for God and man.

St. Philip Neri, pray for us!

The Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary

May is Mary’s month, so we will celebrate here on Open Wide the Doors by meditating on the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary. Here’s what Blessed John Paul II said about The Glorious Mysteries in his letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae:

The contemplation of Christ's face cannot stop at the image of the Crucified One. He is the Risen One!”(29) The Rosary has always expressed this knowledge born of faith and invited the believer to pass beyond the darkness of the Passion in order to gaze upon Christ's glory in the Resurrection and Ascension. Contemplating the Risen One, Christians rediscover the reasons for their own faith (cf. 1Cor 15:14) and relive the joy not only of those to whom Christ appeared – the Apostles, Mary Magdalene and the disciples on the road to Emmaus – but also the joy of Mary, who must have had an equally intense experience of the new life of her glorified Son. In the Ascension, Christ was raised in glory to the right hand of the Father, while Mary herself would be raised to that same glory in the Assumption, enjoying beforehand, by a unique privilege, the destiny reserved for all the just at the resurrection of the dead. Crowned in glory – as she appears in the last glorious mystery – Mary shines forth as Queen of the Angels and Saints, the anticipation and the supreme realization of the eschatological state of the Church.

At the centre of this unfolding sequence of the glory of the Son and the Mother, the Rosary sets before us the third glorious mystery, Pentecost, which reveals the face of the Church as a family gathered together with Mary, enlivened by the powerful outpouring of the Spirit and ready for the mission of evangelization. The contemplation of this scene, like that of the other glorious mysteries, ought to lead the faithful to an ever greater appreciation of their new life in Christ, lived in the heart of the Church, a life of which the scene of Pentecost itself is the great “icon”. The glorious mysteries thus lead the faithful to greater hope for the eschatological goal towards which they journey as members of the pilgrim People of God in history. This can only impel them to bear courageous witness to that “good news” which gives meaning to their entire existence.

The Glorious Mysteries, which are typically recited on Wednesdays and Saturdays, are also quite appropriate for the season our Church is currently celebrating—Easter.

Let us begin to contemplate the face of the Risen One as we begin our Rosary. Find some quiet time for prayer today, and start your rosary with an Apostles’ Creed, an Our Father for the Pope’s intentions, three Hail Mary’s for the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love, and a Glory Be. As you begin, meditate on Blessed John Paul II’s reflection above.