Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Spirit.  On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended with power upon the Apostles; and thus began the mission of the Church in the world.  Pentecost is a central Feast in the Church’s year, for many centuries regarded as second only to Easter.  Jesus had been preparing the Eleven for their mission, appearing to them on many occasions after his Resurrection.  Prior to his Ascension into Heaven, he ordered them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.”  He wanted them to stay together to prepare themselves to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  And they gathered in prayer with Mary in the Upper Room, awaiting this promised event, the arrival of the Spirit of God, proceeding from the Father and the Son to animate the Church and to fill the hearts of the faithful until the end of time. 

The Holy Spirit had been active from the very beginning of creation, but in a more hidden way.  Genesis says that the Spirit of God was moving over the chaos, over the waters of the abyss, to create and form the universe.  The world does not exist by itself; it was brought into being by the creative Spirit of God.  As were we.  And both the world and our hearts are re-made, by the coming of the Spirit into our lives.  The Holy Spirit remakes what is broken and heals what is injured.  Sin brought division into the world.  This is seen and represented in the experience of Babel, when people’s differences became division.  At Babel, the beautiful gift of language becomes babbling, a source of irritation and misunderstanding.  Human sin takes legitimate diversity and turns it into separation.  But the Spirit repairs all that.  The Spirit unites legitimate differences, like race, and people, and tongue, and brings all together in the Truth of Christ.  All of a sudden, on Pentecost, everyone can understand each other again: a powerful image of the unity that the truth of Christ brings. 

From time to time, the Holy Spirit acts in very dramatic and visible ways like this.  Like that great day of Pentecost, when the Spirit descended upon Mary and the Apostles like tongues of fire.  But that’s not the way the Spirit usually works.  Most of the time, the Holy Spirit is very subtle, quiet, hidden, and mysterious.  It’s why we have to pay attention.  The Holy Spirit is working constantly, in our lives, even right now.  And he usually prefers to work in the silence, in the sublime.  In the beginning the Holy Spirit breathed over the unorganized chaos to bring creation into being: no one was there to see it: it was a quiet moment.  Or think of our own personal creation.  The Holy Spirit was present at the moment of our conception in our mother’s womb, that precious hidden moment when new life sprang forth for us, when the Spirit infused our human soul into our newly formed body, giving us life.  The Spirit was also present and active when we received new and eternal life in Baptism.  And certainly the Holy Spirit was powerfully present again in his own special sacrament of Confirmation.  The Spirit is present right here, right now.  And he will be present in full glory in just a few minutes, when through the simple hands of a man, he will come down upon bread and wine, transforming them into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Lord, Jesus Christ.  Love the Holy Spirit.  Pray to him.  Honor and worship him, especially in the Holy Mass.  And in our noisy world, carve out times of silence for yourself, every day, to listen…listen for the quiet voice of Holy Spirit whispering softly in the depths of your heart.  Come, Holy Spirit: fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.