Maria, ster van de evangelisatie

Pope Benedict XVI on Pentecost Sunday entrusted the cause of peace in the world to the intercession of those who gave their lives for Christ in concentration camps. The Holy Father was speaking to the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square this Sunday morning, the feast of Pentecost, after the recitation of the Regina Caeli from the window of his study. The Pope especially recalled the witness borne by the young priest and martyr Alois Andritzki, who was killed by the Nazis in 1943 in the Dachau concentration camp, and who is to be declared Blessed Monday in Dresden, Germany.

We all like spectacular fireworks. They are exciting, impressive, exhilarating.

The Church's first Pentecost had some spectacular fireworks.

The Apostles and other Christians were gathered "in one place together". 

• We don't know exactly where.
• Probably it was somewhere inside or near the Temple in Jerusalem, since right after the fireworks, crowds started to gather.
• It may have been the same large room where Jesus and the Apostles had eaten the Last Supper.
• We are not certain.

So they were all in one place, and then a thunderous noise like a strong wind, like a tornado, came from the sky.

• And then flames appeared. Flames of fire just appeared out of nowhere, spontaneously, hovering in the air.
• And these flames divided up and started floating through the air until they came to rest on each of the people gathered.

But the fireworks didn't stop there. 

• All of a sudden the Christians started speaking in languages that they didn't know.
• A crowd had gathered by now, with visitors from all over the world who were in Jerusalem for the festival.
• Each one heard the Christians explaining the gospel in their own language.

It was a dramatic, spectacular display.

But we would be wrong to conclude from this that the Holy Spirit's normal way of acting in our life is through dramatic fireworks.

• In fact, it's just the opposite.
• God's action in our life is most often gentle and hardly perceptible at first.
• How does Jesus send the Spirit to his Apostles after his resurrection? He breathes on them - quietly and subtly.
• How does St Paul describe the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church? Like the soul of a body - powerful, essential, but invisible and subtle.

The Holy Spirit works quietly.