This coming Sunday, we conclude the annual spiritual renewal of faith, of doing penance and of rejoicing in the offer of salvation that began with Ash Wednesday and runs to the conclusion of the Easter Season. After receiving our ashes back in February, we have followed Jesus to Calvary, to the empty tomb, and to the site of His ascension. 

 

The divine plan still had one more step. That was Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and Mary.

 

As we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, our faith is drawn back to that upper room. We are told that the apostles were gathered in the upper room with Mary, some of the faithful women and some of the relatives of Jesus. (Acts 1: 13-14). That is to say, the early Church was gathered, waiting and praying in keeping with the Lord’s instruction to them.

 

With the external manifestations of the sound of wind inside the room and the visible sign of the tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit descended on that small group of believers. We can only imagine what must have been the sense of joy, of fulfilment  experienced in that moment. A spiritual gift and completeness that had never before been realized in human experience fulfilled Jesus’s promise that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit upon His followers.

 

But with that gift of grace, internal to the nascent Church, came another change. The apostles immediately began to fulfill Christ’s command to the Church. That is, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16:15). As Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “What had then taken place inside the Upper Room, … later, on the day of Pentecost is manifested also outside, in public.” And the Holy Father continued, “The era of the Church began with the ‘coming’, that is to say with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.” (Donum et Vivificantem, 25).

 

Throughout the centuries, the Church has understood that that special outpouring of the Holy Spirit was not limited to that day not long after the Ascension. The gift of the Holy Spirit was established by Christ to be given to the whole Church in every age. That happens in the sacrament of confirmation.

We too, then, when confirmed, must trust the gift of the Holy Spirit. He comes internally to our souls and our faith. As Christ promised, He reminds us of all that Jesus said and taught. He gives us the internal inspiration to fulfill our union with Jesus through faith that is the path to eternal life with Him.

At the same time, we must recognize the courage and strength given us by the Holy Spirit so that we can join the apostles in opening the doors to the world. We need to witness faithfully to our secularized culture, to our families and to those who hunger for the truth. In short, guided and strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we need to live our Catholic faith publicly.

 

Of course, Pentecost and confirmation are not the only moments that we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. We first receive Him at baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states more widely, “Through the Church’s sacraments, Christ communicates His Holy and sanctifying Spirit to the members of his Body.” (CCC, 739). But at Pentecost, the Church and the faithful receive the special presence of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity who confirms in this instance all the other gifts of His grace and presence.

 

Jesus has told us He is with us and His Church throughout the ages. He never abandons us, even in what seem the darkest of hours. Through it all, He and the Father send us the Holy Spirit so that we may remain faith and may witness as we await Christ’s return in glory.