Be open and responsive to the gift

June 4, 2006 -- Feast of Pentecost

By Bishop Robert Morneau

	Bishop Robert Morneau
	Questions for reflection: 1. What is your relationship to the Holy Spirit? 2. How have you experienced the Holy Spirit operative in history? 3. What gifts of the Holy Spirit have you been given?

Back in 1997, the Crossroad Publishing Company in New York released I Believe in the Holy Spirit written by Yves Congar (1904-1995). Congar was a brilliant Dominican theologian who was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1985 in recognition of Congar's major contributions to Catholic thought. Congar died on June 22, 1995, at age 91.

Here are three passages from I Believe in the Holy Spirit that might help us to appreciate more deeply various aspects of the Holy Spirit, the gift given on this feast of Pentecost.

"Through His breath-Spirit, God will be the principle of faithful life and holy life for Israel" (9).

Is it possible on this human journey to be faithful and holy? How quickly all of us come to the realization of our limitations, indeed, of our sinfulness. Doubts assailed; we find it so difficult to love those who are "different" from us. But we need not become discouraged. We have a source of power to believe and to love that is freely given by our God: the gift of God's very self, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

In our reading from "Acts" we hear that "All were filled with the Holy Spirit." Through baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist, each of us is invited to receive the power and wisdom of God's Spirit. Our task is to be open and responsive to that Gift. If we are, then a life of fidelity and holiness becomes a real possibility.

"The whole of the liturgy expresses and brings about a movement of God toward us and of us toward God. This movement passes from the Father through the Son in the Spirit and returns in the Spirit through the Son to the glory of the Father, who takes us, as His children, into communion with Him. The Spirit is therefore invoked in every liturgical action, to be active and present in the liturgy" (104).

St. Paul reminds us that though there are different gifts, everyone has been given to drink of the one Spirit. It is this Spirit that is present in the Eucharist, wherein God draws near to us and we to the Lord. The two prepositions "through" and "in" are central to our understanding and experiencing the Lord's Supper. It is through Jesus and in the Spirit that communion with the Father is accomplished. Ours is a Trinitarian spirituality.

"The Holy Spirit is active in history and causes new and sometimes very confusing things to take place in it" (115).

Two major realms in which the Holy Spirit is operative are creation and history. As the poet Hopkins reminds us, it is the Holy Ghost who broods over the bent world. It is that same Holy Spirit working in history. Whenever world events result in truth and charity, in freedom and justice, we can be assured that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of those happenings. Such events as the Emancipation Proclamation, the apostolic work of Mother Teresa's community in Calcutta, and liberation of the oppressed are all aspects of the Kingdom of God being realized.

One last comment from Card. Yves Congar on the Holy Spirit: "The Spirit, then, is unique and present everywhere, transcendent and inside all things, subtle and sovereign, able to respect freedom and to inspirit it." It is this Holy Spirit that is God's gift to humankind.

(Bp. Morneau is the auxiliary bishop of the Green Bay Diocese and pastor of Resurrection Parish in Allouez.)