Welcome him today. Both ways bring his peace.
The Holy Spirit comes in two ways in the readings for this Sunday, Pentecost
He also comes in two ways to each of us, bringing something very different in
each kind of visit. First, there is the private, person-to-person visit of the Spirit after the Resurrection.
The drama of Pentecost comes in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. But the Gospel records an earlier, no less important, event:
Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you. … As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
This is a remarkably intimate gesture. Jesus comes to his friends where they are, tells them to have peace, and breathes on them. His breath is the breath of God, and it confers the Holy Spirit, the animating principle of their spiritual life.
This is the same encounter we have in the blessed Sacrament, when Christ comes to each of us in Communion, where his flesh is "given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit."
In these intimate visits, the Spirit leaves his stamp on each of us uniquely.
When you experience this kind of visit by the Holy Spirit, you realize you are entirely known and utterly unique.
There is another kind of visit from the Holy Spirit, though.
The second way the Holy Spirit comes is all about uniting us, not singling us out.
Compare the gentle breath of Jesus in the Upper Room to what happens in the Upper Room on Pentecost Day: "Suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were." Fire "parted" and came to rest on each of them.
Before, the Spirit came to each in a singular way, with a specialized task. Here, the Spirit comes to them all and makes their differences go away.
This is the uniting power of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit to remind us that we aren’t so special after all, tie us together, and make us no longer a collection of individuals but an army, a unit, a people, a Church.
There are very specific, named ways the Holy Spirit does this in the Church.
The Holy Spirit is the quiet voice of conscience in each of us. But he is also the mighty voice of the moral teachings of the Church.
He comes to each of us in the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, granting us personal wisdom, insight and knowledge. But he also comes in the seven sacraments, guaranteed channels of supernatural grace.
He inspires our personal prayer but also the Bible; our personal devotions but also the Liturgy; individual holiness but also the canonization tradition in the Church.
Tom Hoopes , Aleteia, Jun 06, 2019
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