Pentecost

In Eucharistic Prayer III we pray: "... for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, by the power and working of the Holy Spirit, you give life to all things and make them holy and you never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name. Therefore, O Lord, we humbly implore you: by the same Spirit ...". Each time we gather for Mass and celebrate a sacrament it is the same Spirit that is at work in us as was present to the disciples at Pentecost. The manifestation is different but the effects and the end results are the same. We are united in faith, given courage to bear witnesses to it, granted charisms and spiritual gifts as well as endowed with the gift of peace. It is that gift for which we pray after the Lord's Prayer and was given to the disciples as related in today's Gospel. The life of the Church is unchanged in its essentials: "The Church was, in this fundamental sense, catholic on the day of Pentecost and will always be the same until the day of the Parousia" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 830). This should give us all hope because the obstacles faced by the Church were far greater than what we face now. It is really a question of our openness to the Holy Spirit and our willingness for him to work in, with and through us so that the works and fruits of the Spirit will be evident in us.