John 20,19-23:
Sunday, 28th May 2023 (Pentecost)
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you”. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they are retained”.
We have all made an image of God. We imagine him with certain characteristics: an older Lord, serene and majestic, with white beard, transmitting peace and goodness?
It is easier to make an image of his Son, for he took a body like ours in Jesus of Nazareth, the one who went about doing good, who told us that his Father was all love and mercy, who died nailed to a cross and who rose from the dead and appeared on various occasions to his friends and to those who trusted in him. Young, in his thirties, and to whom everyone gives the face they like best.
What about the Holy Spirit, is he for me just like a white dove that appears at certain moments in the life of Jesus, and what do I know about him?
He is God’s love that acts in Mary and makes her a Mother. He is the one who urges Jesus to give Himself to the end and then raises him from the dead. He is the strength that Jesus gives to his friends so that they may be the continuators of his work in this life. He is the inner impulse that makes us pray to God, seek goodness and peace, and love others. He is the one who puts us on our guard when the spirit of evil is lurking.
We receive him in the sacraments. We celebrate him on this Solemnity of Pentecost and remember him in the words of St Luke.
May this Spirit strengthen us and grant us his gifts to be true witnesses of the Risen One. Happy Pentecost!
Juan Ramón Gómez Pascual, cmf
And you, are you filled with the Holy Spirit?
