There is an indefinable element in human life that is free, and courageous and irrepressible. We can speak of the 'spirit of a people', or 'the spirit of a nation'. It is regarded as unquenchable. As political dictators invariably find to their cost, you can physically repress a people for a certain time. Almost inevitably, they bounce back and turn upon the oppressor. It is virtually impossible to snuff out the human spirit. In the face of poverty, war and adversity, that spirit clings by its very fingernails to hope and love. Even in the concentration camps of the Second World War, men and women suffered the most unbearable humiliation and degradation, only to come out full of defiance and often, after a time, forgiveness. In our own day we have seen it in the faces of hostages who have been through hell. Who could ever forget the first press conference given by Brian Keenan after his release from captivity in Beruit a couple of years ago. While his body was emaciated and broken, his spirit rose visibly in fun and laughter to celebrate his freedom. The human spirit is defiant, unquenchable, unconquered. It continues to surprise us with joy; it insists on the dance of life even when all about is hatred and death. It speaks simply of humanity when the surrounding world is full of loud voices of despair and vulgarity.
There is a similar element in the Divine Personality, called The Holy Spirit. Our religion never found it easy to describe this element, this personality who today gives life and energy to the Church. Christ who took human shape can easily be portrayed. His words can be written down, his actions described. The Father, although never seen, if often heard from. And he is presented to us in familiar imagery: as father, as a potter shaping the utensils of the world, as a shepherd. We feel at home with these images; we can deal with them. But the Spirit is more elusive. How do we describe him, or her or it for that matter? So a variety of words and images were pressed into service: Breath, Wind, Fire, Dove, the imagination of God. These are all images of energy, freedom, a wild exuberance.
The first clue to the Spirit is on the very first page of the Bible. The breath of God hovers over the void, and sets the planets spinning in space; sets the sap rising in the first trees; that same breath of God is the song of the first bird. That breath of God is the gasp of delight as Adam first gazed upon the beauty that was Eve. That breath of God is the prayer of joy and thanksgiving. St. Paul told the Galatians that the fruits of this energy, the produce of this Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
We need all the different words and many more to begin to understand the Holy Spirit. Yet these words will always be inadequate when faced with this task. The words are only clues, mere pointers to this force, this energy of God.
The Holy Spirit cannot be confined. Perhaps that is why we feel uncomfortable with him. He moves in the darkness beyond our limits. He breathes in people outside our small-mindedness. As Paul told the Corinthians: "There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them." He is the Spirit of Judaism, he is the fire of Islam, he is the silent stillness of the Eastern religions, he is the dream in the imagination of the artists who might have abandoned the Church. Because, like the human spirit, the Holy Spirit will not be confined. He will not be contained or confined within a single Church, religion, culture or language. This feature of the Spirit baffled even the first witnesses in Jerusalem: "Surely" they said, "these men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language?" He is the question mark that hangs over all human institutions, over all human endeavours, ever calling us to new ways, new places. He is the divine restlessness planted in every human heart, the hunger for infinity that propels us towards our God.
The work of the Spirit are best summed up in the Preface to the Prayer of Reconciliation: "Your Spirit changes our hearts; Enemies begin to speak to one another; those who were estranged join hands in Friendship and nations seek the way of peace together; Your spirit is at work when understanding puts an end to strife, when hatred gives way to mercy and vengeance gives way to forgiveness." On this Pentecost Sunday, we pray that God will breathe new life into us through this Eucharist which we are about to celebrate in memory of his Son.
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