Come, Holy Spirit
Call upon Him at all times and He will grant every one of your desires
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”
—Luke 4:18
Friends, we have been graced with the freedom to orient ourselves in humility and weakness to receive the greatest gift possible: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who is God Himself, and to act as His instrument. Let us not squander this gift.
The Solemnity of Pentecost, while its initial graces were received by the Apostles following the Ascension of Our Lord, is celebrated today not as a one-time occurrence over two thousand years ago but rather as a very immediate, substantive, and present reality for all those who have been baptized in the Spirit and call upon Him.
How often do we fail to rightly call upon the Spirit of the Lord who dwells within us, or fail to recognize His movements in our daily lives? It is surely not the deprivation or lack of His love in our lives, but rather our own inability in pride and sin to dispose ourselves properly to receive this gift that causes such failure and heartache.
We say: I wish to be loved. I wish to find a spouse. I wish for an end to my suffering. I wish for a new life with new circumstances and a new outlook. Yet, these wishes do not seem to come. Why is this? Do we truly believe the great power that dwells within us, who wishes to bless us and fulfill every one of our desires (Psalm 20), if we but humble ourselves before Him and call upon Him for aid? We either believe or we do not. Yet, we are told to ask and we shall receive (Matthew 7:7), seek and we shall find (Jeremiah 29:13). This is our reality as baptized believers.
So when can this truth permeate our own lived experience in such a way as to accurately manifest the gift of this reality in a way we can be sure is true and trustworthy, and which guides us on ways level and smooth? When we learn to call upon our Lord and God, who is the Holy Spirit, and allow Him to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:79).
As the Old Testament revealed by way of the Father and His love the coming of Christ, so did Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension reveal to us the person of the Holy Spirit, who is God. This same Spirit now dwells within us.
The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 1421
As we struggle to see the truth, beauty, and goodness in a world mired in darkness, so does our need for healing become all the greater. Thus is healing the essential dimension of the apostolic mission and of Christianity (Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth).
We live now in the Age of the Spirit, and have only this great gift upon which to rely in an increasingly broken world. Call upon the Advocate, the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit who is God by praying: ‘Come, Holy Spirit’ (CCC 2671). This is the weapon - the exercise of our agency to dispose ourselves to receive the Lord’s blessing and to act as His instrument - that the world cannot take from us, as it is not of the world but of God.
Primacy is His in every way. Amen.
Happy Solemnity of Pentecost! Come, Holy Spirit!
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