Pentecost 2024

Pentecost is the day when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit with fire, setting the hearts of the Apostles and the Blessed Mother ablaze in prayer and making a spectacular display to all the world of the power of God in His Church. It is also the day when Catholics are brought into full communion with the body of the Church through the Sacrament of Confirmation. This Sacrament, in which the Bishop, as the successor of the Apostles, invokes the Holy Spirit for the Confirmandi, however does not derive its root directly from Pentecost. In John’s Gospel, chapter twenty, our Lord appeared to the twelve in a locked room. He said to them, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. He then breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.

The breath that He breathed hearkens to the Old Testament, when God breathed on the dust He had fashioned and made it man. His life is in His breath, and when God first breathed, He gave man his soul. When God breathes here, He gives man something far greater than placing a soul into a being of dust. He places His own Spirit into a creature. The Holy Spirit comes softly here, in the silence of a breath, but what He brings is true power: power over sin. Christ stated in His great commission, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Here, He gives His authority, bought by the Cross and claimed in the Resurrection, to His apostles. It is not visible like at Pentecost, but the authority and power that He gives is greater than signs and wonders.

The Bishops of the Church are the successors of these Apostles, consecrated by consecrated hands and carrying that same authority bestowed by Christ. They bring Him with their very presence, and they give Him as He gave Himself. In their breath and the touch of their hands we receive the Holy Spirit. Through their words and their touch, the host becomes the Bread of Life. In persona Christi the Apostles continue the work of Christ, and through faith we receive the Spirit and the Body, brought in the Sacraments. Cherish that soft touch of the Spirit, the sweet aroma of your chrism like the incense which are your faithful prayers offered before the throne of the Most High. Taste the simple bread and relish the sweetness of the life-giving Christ who makes Himself a banquet for your soul. The gentle hand of Christ, extended through His Apostles, is the mercy of the Father—and the promise of the eternal Pentecostal fire, not of damnation, but the fire of Love beyond all telling which burns without consuming in the Sacred Heart of Love Himself.