Wait there for the promise of the Father
At the Ascension we heard how Jesus, before he returned to the Father, told the Apostles not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the “promise of the Father… in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). The Apostles and other disciples, together with Our Lady, waited in the Upper Room, where the Lord had celebrated the Last Supper, where they had hidden in fear after his death, and where he had appeared to them on Easter Sunday. They waited, and waited. A day and a night passed, and then another, and then another. Only ten days later, on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, did the promised Spirit arrive, in wind and flame.
We might ask why the Lord made them wait so long. Pentecost, the Jewish harvest festival and celebration of the giving of the Law, was an appropriate day for descent of the Holy Spirit, who is the law of the New Covenant placed in the heart of believers and the power to harvest men and women for Christ’s kingdom. A long wait gave them plenty of time to learn from Our Lady about the Lord’s early life, as a lovely tradition tells us, and to be formed by her to cooperate with the Holy Spirit whom she had known since her Conception.
Perhaps the most fitting explanation for the long wait was that God wanted the early Church to grow in desire for the Holy Spirit promised by Christ, to long for the Spirit’s presence, to see and know all the reasons why they needed his guidance and help, so that they would be totally receptive and responsive, like Our Lady, to his power coming down upon them.
This experience of desiring the Spirit is a lesson the Church wants each of us to learn — not just as we wait for the yearly celebration of Pentecost, but every day of our lives. We pray “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love”. The Holy Spirit has already come into our hearts, at our baptism, at Confirmation, every time we receive Holy Communion and the other sacraments. The Holy Spirit comes with every absolution of our sins, and speaks in our hearts in every prayer and good work. And yet we keep praying, “Come!” Our need for the power of the Spirit is always the same, and yet always new, as we encounter new challenges, meet new obstacles, have new needs.
In the Veni Creator Spiritus hymn for Pentecost we beg the Holy Spirit to take up his rest in our hearts, to come with his grace and heavenly aid, to fill the hearts he has made, to give us his sevenfold gift of grace, to illumine our minds, inflame our hearts, strengthen our bodies, repel our enemies, give us peace, and help us to know God the Father and the Son. The Sequence for the Mass of Pentecost asks the Spirit to comfort us, give us rest in labour, refreshment in heat, solace in tribulation, cleansing what is impure, irrigating what is desiccated, healing what is wounded, bending whatever is stubborn, warming whatever is frozen, putting back on the narrow way whatever leads us astray, granting us the reward of virtue, the end of salvation and eternal joy. That is quite a list!
The more we realise our need for the Holy Spirit and the more we ask of him, the more he is able to do for us. And so we wait, and pray, and implore: “Come, Holy Spirit.”