Pentecost: Making Room For The Creator

John 20: 19-23

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

Pentecost: a time of renewal and change. Before Pentecost Sunday comes around, we spend time praying that the Holy Spirit will descend upon us in a fresh way to open our hearts and create growth and expansion. On Pentecost Sunday, we sing to the Spirit and ask him to come to fill our hearts and enkindle in us the fire of his love. At the end of Mass, we receive the blessings of Pentecost and we are sent out just as the disciples were sent by Jesus.

Then on Monday, life returns to normal and nothing feels new or changed at all.

All of us would love to sense the power of the Spirit working in our lives and experience a lively awareness of dynamic changes taking place in our hearts. We yearn to feel the breath of God blowing over us, healing, creating and recreating us. We thirst for the Spirit to move within us and fill us with joy. We are all very open to that so why does Pentecost often come and go leaving us feeling like nothing much has changed at all?

Perhaps it has to do with our mental rooms – our thought habits and the kinds of perceptions we are locked into. When Jesus appeared to the disciples in today’s gospel, they were locked fearfully in a room. Their hearts, minds and spirits were in disarray and the future, from their perspective, was depressing and distressing. Within that locked room, Jesus entered, breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ but it was not at that point that the Spirit began to energize them with power and enthusiasm from on high. A few things had to happen first.

We know that Jesus’ words, ‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained,’ foreshadowed the sacrament of reconciliation but let me just put another little twist on them. Perhaps Jesus was also letting them know that before anything could happen, they had to forgive themselves and each other for their failures during his arrest and crucifixion. They had to get past laying the blame for their own defeat and each other’s inadequacies before they would be ready to receive the power of the Spirit.

Between the time he breathed on them in the locked room and the time when the Spirit filled them with power in the upper room, Jesus was at work healing their self-inflicted wounds and inner self-loathing. He filled them with peace and hope. He served them. He told them he loved them and would never abandon them. He told them the Father loved them and would always be with them. We are privy to a beautiful moment of healing and reconciliation between Jesus and Peter when Jesus asked him three times, “Peter, do you love me?”  Before the Spirit could fill these men with power, they needed to have their attitudes of self-blame, their fears of rejection, their expectations of condemnation and their pessimistic outlooks healed and changed. It is very possible that there were unnamed disciples who refused to believe in the love of Jesus and refused to trust in his love in spite of Jesus’ appearances and reassurances. Scripture mentions that at the Ascension there were disciples present who still had lots of doubts. It is quite possible that a number of these disciples could or would not allow themselves to be healed of their cynicism and simply went their own gloomy way, missing the visitation of the Spirit on Pentecost. 

Reconciliation is one way we can prepare our hearts for the coming of the Spirit. However, reconciliation, as effective and beautiful as it is, cannot prepare our hearts for the bubbling over of the Spirit within if there is no determination in us to put into practice the hope of the forgiveness received. If we leave the sacrament and immediately allow our regular thought habits to fill us again, we are blocking the flow and movement of the Spirit in our hearts. Note that I didn’t say we are blocking the Spirit from being with us. He is always with us. The question is not whether he is present; it’s whether we can be alive to his presence in order to fully experience and participate in his action in our lives.

What are these thought habits that can block the flow of the Spirit in our lives? Here are a few of the more common ones: self-denigration, blaming others, inner complaining, constant criticism of self, other people and situations, resentment, self-pity… There are lots more but you get the idea. These thought patterns and reactions to daily life become normal and habitual – so habitual that often we aren’t even aware that we are engaging in unhealthy negative behavior. These thought patterns are addictive. In the short term, they give us a kind of satisfaction when we engage in them but in the long term, they form us. The longer we think in the negative, the more negative our lives become. These thought habits become our creators instead of the Holy Spirit.

There’s a prayer we often pray, “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…” If we are serious about allowing the creativity of the Holy Spirit to form and shape our lives and have full reign in our spirits, then we must be open to building new and different habits of thinking and reacting. We must be willing to replace old negative thought habits with new life giving ones. We must be willing to prepare our hearts so that the Spirit will find within us an environment that is compatible with his holy and exceedingly positive nature.

St Paul says in Philippians 4.8: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”  Paul knew the power of thoughts and attitudes and how negative thoughts could not only tear apart individual hearts but whole families and communities as well. It’s easy to find what’s wrong with ourselves, with other people and with situations around us and focus on those things but we are called to discover what’s right about ourselves and everything around us and to keep our hearts and minds focused on these things. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit is not a dark faultfinder. He is the High Celebrant of all that is good and beautiful.

An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt and ego.  The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,

"Which wolf will win?"

The old chief simply replied,

"The one you feed."