***
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, which is why we use images to represent him.
In the Gospels, the Spirit is represented by a dove – a gentle, peaceful bird.
But in the Acts of the Apostles, the Spirit is represented by tongues of fire.
Quite a difference!
The Irish bring the two together and depict the Holy Spirit as a goose, a wild bird with fire in its belly.
***
***
Geese are fiery animals, wandering wherever they will.
If you try to contain them, they’ll bite! Your only warning before that painful pinch is a loud, jarring honk! We’ve all heard it – Honk! Honk! Honk!
Watch out!
***
Like a feisty 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; 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.
She bandaged their wounds, washed their feet, fed the hungry, gave 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.
Then there’s Dorothy Day, a journalist and social activist, who lived above a soup kitchen in New York City for decades while fighting for human equality.
These – our peers – had the Holy Spirit within them.
They had fire in their bellies.
Honk! Honk!
***
Like Mother Teresa 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 as active in living out our Christian faith?
Or, like the disciples in today’s Gospel, are we still waiting to be sent?
***
This was a period of hard transition for the disciples. They’d experienced Jesus’ death and resurrection, but they were still filled with grief, afraid of the future.
They needed Jesus to send the fire of his Spirit upon them.
And 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.
Before Pentecost, they were like us at times – timid, fearful, bound by grief.
But after the Spirit rushed upon them, they were transformed; unstoppable like wild geese, preaching to the ends of the earth with fire in their bellies.
***
The same was true for Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day – and can be for us. Whenever we open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, something new, something bold, something unexpected happens.
Maybe our heart softens, allowing us to forgive someone who’s hurt us deeply.
Maybe we part with some of our prized possessions, giving them to the poor or unemployed.
Maybe we take a bigger risk for God.
Think of the thousands of healthcare workers who’ve voluntarily fought COVID. Or those who’ve embarked on a faith-centered career, spent time as a missionary, discerned religious life, or gotten involved in lay leadership in the Church.
The possibilities are endless. But the experience is the same. Whenever the Spirit “bites,” we’re moved beyond our comfort zones, challenged to do something new.
Something bold.
***
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 unless God exists.”
Do we live that way, like our lives doesn’t make sense…unless God exists?
***
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, enkindle in us the fire of your love… And we shall renew the face of the earth.
***
