A Reflection for the Feast of Pentecost
imple superna gratia quae tu creasti pectora.[1]
Come creator Spirit - visit the minds of your people:
fill with heavenly grace the hearts that you created.
The words of this lovely eighth century hymn carry our minds and hearts back to the Upper Room in Jerusalem where, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit infused the community of Christ’s first disciples with “superna gratia”, empowering them to continue the mission of Jesus who will be with them always. St. Luke[2] underlines the fact that the Holy Spirit came to the disciples as they were gathered in prayer, united with the apostles (including the newly elected Matthias), together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Picture that scene. One might even speculate that after Our Lord’s ascension, they prayed in the style of the Veni Creator Spiritus since they had been promised explicitly that the Father’s “advocate”[3] would come. There it is in St John’s account:
The advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will make everything plain, and will recall to your minds everything that I have said to you.[4]
And again:
It will be for the truth-giving Spirit when he comes, to guide you into all truth……..
for it is from me that he will derive what he makes plain to you.[5]
The text emphasizes that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit makes our knowledge of Christ’s already revealed doctrines fuller and more precise. Moreover, meditating on St. Luke’s account in the same chapter of Acts, we discover the force of the creed, that our belief must remain apostolic: “…they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles…”[6] In the language of the text, it is not simply a listening to the apostolic teaching, but persevering in it by living the doctrine.
Later in Acts, the admonition of St Paul to the overseers (episkopoi) of the church at Ephesus gives even deeper meaning to the element of persevering for they are the ones responsible for this.
“Keep watch then over yourselves and over God’s church in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops; you are to be the shepherds of that flock, which he obtained with his own blood. …there will be men among your own number who will come forward with a false message, and find disciples to follow them. Be on watch then and do not forget the three years I spent instructing every one of you, continually and with tears”[7]
It is abundantly clear then, that minds as well as hearts must be engaged in the reception of the gifts of the Spirit and this in the context of being gathered in prayer and living in fidelity to the teaching of the apostles, in unity with the traditio: what has been handed on by them.
St. Thomas More lamented that this keeping watch faltered dramatically at the time of the English Reformation. He might well have been describing the present times.
“Since they have succeeded in the place of the apostles, would that they would reproduce their virtues just as eagerly as they embrace their authority… for very many are sleepy and apathetic in sowing virtues among the people and maintaining the truth, while the enemies of Christ in order to sow vices and uproot the faith are wide awake.”[8]
And in another place in the same De Tristitia Christi (on the Sadness of Christ) he writes from his prison in the Tower of London:
“Christ is also betrayed into the hands of sinners when His most holy body in the sacrament is consecrated and handled by unchaste, profligate and sacrilegious priests. When we see such things happen (and they happen only too often, alas) let us imagine that Christ Himself again says to us ‘Why are you sleeping, get up, and pray that you may not enter into temptation, for the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.’ From the example of bad priests, the contamination of vice spreads easily among the people. And the less suitable for obtaining grace those persons are whose duty it is to watch and pray for the people, the more necessary it is for the people to stay awake, get up, and pray all the more earnestly for themselves – an not only for themselves but also for priests of this sort.”
The Holy Spirit brings the church to birth at Pentecost by entering into a community at prayer and one that is united around Mary and the apostles. The DNA of this community has been forged at the Last Supper where the sacrifice of Calvary is encapsulated in the institution of priesthood and Eucharist: Haec quotiescumque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis.[9] “They devoted themselves continually to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and the breaking of bread and to the prayers”[10].
The Holy Spirit brings fertility to the community, providing for its stability and expansion for it speaks all languages and encompasses all cultures, “for each has been hearing them tell of God’s wonders in his own language”.[11] How important, then, to continue to promote and nourish such a united, holy, catholic and apostolic ecclesial ecology where, in the words of St Luke, “there was one heart and soul in all the company of believers...where everything was shared in common……where great was the power with which the apostles testified to the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ and great was the grace that rested on them all.”[12] How essential that those receiving the sacrament of Confirmation mirror this devotion to prayer, to the Mass and participation in the sacramental life of the Church in order to be filled with the ‘superna gratia’.
It is evident that this Pentecostal fertility is established primarily through the spiritual works of mercy. They too are sevenfold, like the gifts of the Spirit and the corporal works of mercy. They consist in counselling the doubtful; instructing the ignorant; admonishing sinners, comforting the afflicted; forgiving offenses; bearing wrongs patiently and praying for the living and the dead. In fact, wherever these works of spiritual mercy are carried out, they give impetus to the corporal works of feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned and burying the dead. Imagine the transformation of our Catholic community if all these merciful works, both spiritual and corporal were embraced and lived diligently!
In celebrating this Pentecost we can invoke the time-honoured hymn
“O breathe on me breath of God,
fill me with life anew;
that I may love what Thou dost love
and do what Thou wouldst do.”[13]
Our minds would be filled with understanding and treasure more deeply the mystery of God in his manifestation of himself for our redemption. Our hearts would swell with love, enabling a sense of awe and a capacity for persevering in loving and doing his will “on earth as it is in heaven”.
PMW.
[1] Plainchant text: Rabanus Maurus, 776-856 AD.
[2] Acts 2: 1 et seq.
[3] The Greek word used is ‘the Paraclete’
[4] John 14:25
[5] John 16: 13-15 (Knox translation)
[6] Acts 2,42
[7] Acts 20:28.
[8] Thomas More, De Tristitia Christi, vol.14, Yale Complete Works.
[9] Canon of the Mass -The consecration: ‘As often as you shall have done these things, you will do them in memory of me.’
[10] Acts 2: 42 et seq.
[11] Acts 2:11.
[12] Acts 4:32-34
[13] Text of an anonymous ancient Irish hymn.