Jn. 20: 19-23
Today we commemorate the historical moment in the Church’s history, the official inauguration of her journey as a pilgrim of Christ here on earth. This day we recall to our mind the remarkable transformation that apostles and all the other disciples had when they received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Those who afraid of being a Christian witness even after experienced the risen Christ became the Spirit-driven people. They were renewed in the strength of the Spirit and started to set the world on fire. In the gospel, we see, before his ascension, Jesus commissions them to set forth their journey to the whole world with the divine power to forgive the sins of humanity. Anyhow, they were not prepared enough to fulfill this mission because so far, they did not receive the strength of the Spirit, that is, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the fire that we all gained through the meritorious sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Jesus breaths his Spirit so that they may be blessed with a disposition that helps them to thirst for the Spirit that he promised and empowered by his charism.
On Pentecost day, we see they were blessed with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the fire. We could observe a total transformation in the life of the apostles. The fearful disciple becomes the courageous witness of Christ. Out of their fear for Jewish authorities, those who remained in the closed room started to proclaim Jesus in public. Later we see all were threatened to death by authorities; even then, they could not stop them. The Spirit empowered them to transcend all the barriers of culture, language, etc. Their horizons were expanded. Though they did not know the foreign languages, they started to speak in tongues, and the Jewish pilgrims gathered over there from different nationalities could hear in their own tongue. It shows that how they became filled and driven by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit transformed their fragility into great fidelity, their weakness as their strength. Thus, the impossibility of being a courageous witness of Christ became a possibility.
The Pentecost experience of the apostles and early disciple shows that we need the assistance of the Spirit to become effective and fruitful disciples of Jesus. It is not men/women who proclaimed Christ and built the Church. Instead, the Spirit used human instruments to proclaim Christ and build the Church. In this first letter to the Corinthians, Paul affirms this truth: “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”(1Cor. 12:3). Isn’t it true? After two millenniums, the same Spirit is present in the Church but do we recognize his animating role in our lives? Are we docile to the promptings of the Spirit? The reality is that we don’t give due importance to this third person of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit remains a forgotten reality. We try to practice a Christianity that was caught up in rituals and conditioned by the fulfilment of our gains. The charismatic movement reminded us about this baptism that we need to long to become authentic disciples of Jesus. Even then, many of us wanted to remain with the bare minimum graces and namesake follower of Christ. Let us take Christ seriously, and the Holy Spirit needs human instruments to proclaim Christ and accept his salvific mission to the ends of the earth. It is you and me who are those chosen instruments by our heavenly Father. Let us remain docile to the Spirit and allow the Spirit to transform our lives to build the kingdom of God…