Pentecost Sunday
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (I Corinthians 3:16).
Role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and of the Church:
How beautiful is the thought that the Holy Spirit lives within us! Saint Paul reminds the Corinthian community of this fact when he asks, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (I Corinthians 3:16). It is the Holy Spirit who develops our intimacy with God. “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba!‘ (‘Father!’)” (Gal 4:6). “God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (I Corinthians 12:3). Moreover, we know that it is the Holy Spirit Who teaches us to pray (Romans 8:26). By the power of the Spirit, we also know the Lord Jesus through His Church. Pentecost Sunday is the birthday of the Church, for it was the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and Mary that brought the Church into full active life on earth, and is the Holy Spirit Who still enlivens, enlightens, guides, and sanctifies the Church; the Holy Spirit will continue to do these things and more until the end of the world, the Judgment of all humanity, and the presentation by the Father of the Purified Church, the “Bride of the Lamb” to Jesus, His Son and our Lord. The Psalm refrain for this Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 104) says it so well: “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”