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."
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