Pentecost: The Fulfillment of Easter and the Gift of the Holy Spirit

06-08-2025Weekly ReflectionFr. Albert

At Christmas, God became incarnate. He came to share with us His participation in the divine life and in the grace of God. Easter is the feast of the Resurrection of the soul from sin and of the incorporation of man in the mystical body of the Eucharist. Pentecost is the feast of the visible mission of the Holy Spirit to the apostles, to the Church, to each Christian family and to each individual soul.

By virtue of His death on the cross, the Lord has merited the grace of the sending of the Holy Spirit. Now that He is in heaven He prays for and effects the coming of the Holy Spirit that we may grow in grace and holiness, that we may be strong and firm in faith, that we may reach perfection and share in the inheritance of Christ our head.

During His life on earth and even in His mortal human body, Christ possessed the fulness of the Holy Spirit. but after His resurrection and ascension into heaven He is so completely united to and informed by the Holy Spirit that St. Paul speaks of Him as being into a ''quickening Spirit''. Since we are His members He lives and works in us to the extent that the Holy Spirit lives and works in Him. Thus, for St. Paul ''to live in Christ'' means the same as '' to live in the Spirit''. ''Baptism in Christ is baptism in the Spirit''.

We have been elevated to the divine life by Christ but the Holy Spirit also took part in this operation. where the Holy Spirit is not operating, there can be no body of Christ. ''The faithful become members of the body of Christ when they attain life through the Spirit of Christ'', the Holy Spirit. (St. Augustine). The divine life is always given through Christ, the incarnate God. When we allow Him to do so, He always sends us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love. The spirit always binds us again firmly to the Father, so that we long and strive with all our strength to be true children of the Father and to attain perfect love. Therefore the life of Christ which was implanted in our souls by baptism cannot be made perfect with the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is the complement and the completion of Easter. Easter gives us the beginning of supernatural life and incorporation in Christ. but this new life must unfold, it must be strengthened and enkindled into a burning fire which can resist all things, it must be imbued with a love which is stronger than death, so that we are prepared to suffer all things, even the sacrifice of our life. The strengthening of our Spirit is brought about by our baptism with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The spirit of Pentecost is the spirit that makes confessors and martyrs. it gives light, power, and council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus. (Acts 5;41).

The feast of Pentecost is a day of thanksgiving for the foundation of the church, in which we are contained all the treasures of supernatural riches, and through which all grace and redemption are given to people. Pentecost is a day of thanksgiving for the coming of the Holy Spirit and for the establishment of the sacrament of confirmation. It is a day on which we place a joyful and grateful trust in the operation of the Holy Spirit within us and thank Him for His inspiration and guidance.