Homily for Pentecost Day, 2005.
Forty years ago we knew him as the Holy Ghost. And a nice character you couldn't meet. He was quiet, modest and unassuming person who took care not to ruffle any feathers. He kept to himself and didn't intrude at all. If he did have something to say, he whispered discretely in the Pope's ear and told him to pass it on to the crowds below, the great unwashed! The Holy Ghost had held the hand of the four evangelists as they wrote down the four gospels for the first time. In the same way he holds the hand of the Holy Father as he writes his encyclicals. He even guided the hand of those great scholars who wrote canon law. On his really good days he kept bishops from making fools of themselves, an achievement that should not be underestimated! But he had the good sense to leave the laity alone. When he had to work at all, he worked through the church's hierarchy. No doubt about it. The Holy Ghost knew his place.
Then, about forty years ago, the cardinals elected a Pope in Rome who no longer spoke about the Holy Ghost. Instead he spoke about the Holy Spirit. The individual he had in mind was not the discrete operator that kept his head down and spoke Latin only. This particular Pope was convinced that the Holy Spirit had escaped from the Vatican and he was creating chaos everywhere. He was this great wind of freedom screaming through the Church, blowing the cobwebs of centuries from musty corners and infusing entire communities with renewed energy. This individual spoke to every nation, and every tribe and tongue understood this Spirit in their own way. In fact, if you want an easy life, you should organise a campaign with its single slogan: "Give us back the Holy Ghost."
Catholicism as had problems with the Holy Spirit. Our Church never found it easy to describe this element, this personality. We can all on our imagination visualise and personalise Christ. He was a man. He took human shape. The image of the Father too is familiar and homely, even if he does have a long, grey beard. But how many of us can, in our human imagination, visualise or personalise the Holy Spirit. Maybe life was easier when he was a simple Ghost! 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. All of these images and more were employed in the Acts of the Apostles. And what all the images hold in common is energy, freedom, generosity and a wild exuberance. I say generosity because, whatever happened that little community in our first reading today, they were determined to share that experience with the rest of humanity. They didn't simply form a holy huddle and keep that gift for themselves. They went out to the whole world, the scriptures tell us, sharing the good news with all they met. A generation later, Paul is confronted with the question: 'how do we know a community or an individual has received the Holy Spirit'. Paul, never short of an answer, shot off a letter to the people of Galatia. Essentially, he invokes the old tried and tested biblical yardstick: by their fruits you shall know them! And he made a list of the most obvious fruits they should look out for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If you identify these characteristics or fruits in a community or in an individual, then the chances are that he or they are under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit cannot be confined. Perhaps that is why the Church has felt uncomfortable with the reality of the Holy Spirit. The image of the Holy Ghost whispering in the Pope's ear only doesn't at all fit the evidence of the Scriptures. As Paul told the Corinthians: "There are 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." The Church is not just a hierarchical organisation administered from without. It is primarily, a living organism animated from within. And the animator, the life-giver, is the Spirit himself. And his function is not just a corporate one of keeping the body alive. It is a personal one too. He renews and revives each one of us.
The Holy Spirit is a harmonious spirit, but also a spirit of diversity. Enforced uniformity breaks the spirit of a people, makes them dispirited, listless. The Holy Spirit, on the contrary, is characterised by an energetic, boundless diversity. He is the Spirit of Judaism, he is the fire of Islam, he is the silent stillness of the Eastern religions. Indeed no one has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit. He breathes where he wills. 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?" The Tower of Babel has finally fallen. The different languages, up to this, barriers dividing people, have suddenly become bridges uniting them. Babel, once seen as chaotic confusion, is now seen as enriching variations, enhancing humanity. The Holy Spirit 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.