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“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:19-23)
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The Holy Spirit is mysterious like the wind – invisible, but everywhere. We can feel the Spirit, we can see its effects, but we just can’t see what the Spirit looks like. That’s why we use images to represent him.
In the Gospels, for example, the Spirit is represented by a dove – gentle, peaceful.
But in the Acts of the Apostles, the Spirit is represented by tongues of fire.
The Irish bring the two together and depict the Holy Spirit as a goose – because that’s a bird with fire in its belly.
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Geese are wild, feisty animals that wander wherever they will.
If you try to contain them, they’ll bite you! Your only warning is that loud, jarring honk!
We’ve all heard it – “Honk! Honk! Honk!”
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Like a wild goose, the Holy Spirit moves wherever he wills. And when he “bites,” you know it!
Whoever has a heart open to the Holy Spirit has felt the difference, because they become like the God they represent – peaceful, and at times jarring, noisy, protective, passionate and courageous. Honk! Honk!
Impossible to ignore.
Think of Mother Teresa, who left her home and her family, dedicating her entire life to the poorest of the poor – bandaging their wounds, washing their feet, giving the sick and homeless a place to die.
She became so poor at one point she wrote in her diary, “I have nothing. Not even the consolation of God.”
And yet she got up every morning and continued the work she was called to do.
Or Jean Vanier, a renowned university professor, who left his teaching position in order to start a home for the mentally disabled.
He spent the rest of his life loving and learning from them. As he once said, “Their weakness brings out my strength.”
Or Dorothy Day, a journalist and social activist, who lived above a soup kitchen in New York City while fighting for human equality.
These – our peers – had the Holy Spirit within them. They had fire in their bellies.
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Like Jean Vanier and Dorothy Day, anyone who’s been baptized has received the Holy Spirit.
But do we have the same fire in our bellies? Are we active in living out our Christian faith?
Or, like the disciples in today’s Gospel, are we still waiting to be sent?
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This was a period of hard transition for the disciples. They’d experienced Jesus’ death and resurrection, but they were still afraid of the future. They needed Jesus to send his Spirit.
And today he does.
“Peace be with you,” he says. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
The mission is clear.
The disciples must leave that locked inner room in Jerusalem, face their peers, and preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
They were like us – at times afraid, weak and limited in their strengths…But I’d say they did a pretty good job, no?
Their work was only be possible because of the strength given them by that wild goose, the Holy Spirit.
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The same is true for us. Whenever we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, something new – something bold – happens.
Maybe our heart softens, allowing us to forgive a family member or a friend we once loved.
Maybe we part with some of our prized possessions and give them to the poor.
Maybe we show up for ALPHA – an eleven-week faith-based program we’ll be running in the parish in the fall.
Maybe we take a bigger risk for God – embarking on a faith-centered career, spending time as a missionary, or getting involved in homeless outreach or prison ministry.
The possibilities are endless. But the experience is the same. Whenever the Spirit “bites,” we’re moved beyond our comfort zones, into the world around us.
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This is the message of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is our Advocate, the one sent to reawaken our hearts to the original message of Jesus:
… a message that challenges us to be reconciled with one another; that urges us to part with our ego, to work for peace, to be generous, to love and serve the weakest among us.
As Dorothy Day wrote while living above that soup kitchen in New York, “Christians are commanded to live in a way that doesn’t make sense — like priesthood —unless God exists.”
Do we live that way, like our life doesn’t make sense…unless God exists?
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Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, enkindle in us the fire of your love… And you shall renew the face of the earth.