Week three: Getting to know Jesus Christ - Day 7
The Descent of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Church. Jesus christening with the Holy Spirit
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
O Holy Spirit, inspire me. God’s love, engulf me. Holy Mary, my Mother, guide me in the right ways, look at me, and together with Jesus, bless me. Keep me from all evil, from all delusions and all threats. Mary, The Spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtain for me the grace of getting to know Jesus Christ, encountering Him in the mystery of the Church and discovering that the Lord constantly immerses me into God’s love. Amen!
The Word of God
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts 2:1‒4).
Meditation
It all happens seven weeks after the Resurrection. The entire Church gathers in the Cenacle. And the Holy Spirit descends Day 7 201 from heaven. Parakletos (this name of the Holy Spirit may be translated as “sent for to assist us”) is the spirit of the Church— God’s People of the New Covenant. The Holy Spirit brings love that links the Father and the Son. It is the Spirit of Jesus about whom the Lord said that He would teach the apostles everything and remind them of the Gospel (cf. Jn 14:26). The descent of the Spirit of Jesus is for the first Christian community a confirmation—the outpouring of the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of God. The Church receives a mighty help from heaven!
The descent of the Holy Spirit is a breakthrough in the history of the disciples of the Lord. Sisters and brothers of Jesus feel like newborns. That’s when Nicodemus, the Pharisee, starts understanding what Jesus meant by saying the following words at night: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:5‒8).
The spirit comes and is like the wind. “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). The Church hears the breathing of Love of the Father and Son. And there starts an echo which carries till this day and won’t stop. Because the Holy Spirit acts and will act forever and ever. Seeing what is happening, people are surprised: “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine’” (Acts 2:12‒13). It’s nine o’clock in the morning (cf. Acts 2:15), and the disciples of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, act as if they were drunk. There is a Polish book written by Father Jan Góra entitled Pijani Bogiem (Drunken with God). It refers to the experience 202 WEEK THREE: GETTING TO KNOW JESUS CHRIST of Pentecost. Because this is what happened then. The Fathers of the Church described it as a sober intoxication with the Holy Spirit. A fascinating experience! Great enthusiasm! Euphoria! Ecstasy! The first members of the community feel the overpowering presence of Jesus, who comes in the Holy Spirit. And everything changes. They get from the Lord new eyes, new ears, new senses, new sensitivity, new heart, new spirit, new Life. Everything new. They are no longer afraid.
What St. Luke writes in the second chapter of Acts always amazes and touches me. What happens to the Church at Pentecost bears the fruit of miracles. Saint Peter speaks, and after a short sermon to the first community that amounted to about one hundred twenty persons (cf. Acts 1:15), “that day about three thousand persons were added” (Acts 2:41). It’s Jesus sending the Holy Spirit who does it! Jesus lives in His people! The Lord lives in the Church!
I still wonder: How did it happen? What happened that made the experience of Pentecost so strong? Why it was a breakthrough in the life of the first Church?
The answers may be found in the Acts:
1) They are “all together.” What a marvellous testimony! Even the day before Pentecost, the Church is united. “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers” (Acts 1:14).
2) They are “in one place.” What was that place? It was Jesus! They were by Jesus, so they lean on the Lord—they are around Christ arisen, in the space of Eucharists, by the Body and Blood of Christ.
3) They don’t move. The Church Fathers describe the triple stability of the first disciples of Jesus as stabilitas loci— stability of place (physically, they are in one place, in the Cenacle, and metaphysically they gather day and night around Jesus); stabilitas mentis—stability of thoughts (they incessantly think, ponder over and meditate about the Lord, they delve into the words of promise); and stabilitas cordis—stability of heart (they constantly remain with their heart by the Heart of Jesus).
4) They have a great spiritual desire—the thirst of the Holy Spirit. And again, it reminds us of St. John’s Gospel: “On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink’. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (Jn 7:37‒39).
Mary is in the Cenacle. She remains silent. And she waits. She absorbs the Holy Spirit. Called by the Fathers of the Church Pneumatophora, i.e., “carrier of the Holy Spirit,” she accepts the fire from heaven. Let’s ask Mary to give us the experience of Pentecost and a sense of belonging to the Church, which is Christ’s Body, and our being open to the rain of graces from heaven.
Jesus is in His Church! The Lord lives in us! It means that He needs us! That’s how the reciprocity starts. We belong to the Body of Jesus, but also Jesus belongs to us! We live in Jesus and thanks to the Lord, but also Jesus lives in us. We are the continuation of the hands and feet of Jesus. Living with the Lord and in the Lord, we need the power from above, a new breath of the Holy Spirit! Also today, Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit and fire, setting aflame the hearts of His friends! The Lord promises that the gates of hell won’t prevail in the Church!
Spiritual reading “The soul of our Blessed Lady will communicate itself to you, to glorify the Lord. Her spirit will enter into the place of yours, to rejoice in God her salvation, provided only that you are faithful to the practices of this devotion. Sit in singulis anima Mariae, ut magnificent Dominum: sit in singulis spiritus Mariae, ut exultet in Deo (St. Ambrose),—‘Let the soul of Mary be in each of us to glorify the Lord: let the spirit of Mary be in each of us to rejoice in God.’ Ah! When will the happy time come, said a holy man of our own days, who was all absorbed in Mary,—ah! When will the happy time come, when the divine Mary will be established mistress and queen of hearts, in order that she may subject them fully to the empire of her great and holy Jesus? When will souls breathe Mary, as the body breathes air? When that time comes, wonderful things will happen in those lowly places, where the Holy Ghost, finding His dear Spouse as it were reproduced in souls, shall come in with abundance, and fill them full to overflowing with His gifts, and particularly with the gift of wisdom, to work the miracles of grace. My dear brother, when will that happy time, that age of Mary, come, when souls, losing themselves in the abyss of her interior, shall become living copies of Mary, to love and glorify Jesus? That time will not come until men shall know and practice this devotion which I am teaching. Ut adveniat regnum tuum, adveniat regnum Mariae.”
St. Louis de Montfort, A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 217
Homework
I will entrust to Mary all my matters, my whole life, all my joys and suffering, and I will beg her to plead the coming of the Holy Spirit with His power that can change my life and lead me to her Son.
Prayer of consecration
I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours, O most loving Christ, through Mary, Your most holy Mother. Amen!