Power for the mission to announce the Gospel.

The Holy Spirit is the power that equips us for the mission to announce the Gospel.

Salvation belongs to those who confess by the power of the Holy Spirit, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe that God raised him from the dead.  Confession with our mouth and faith in our heart are crucial to our justification.

No, no one can confess and believe in such away if not by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And so, it becomes clear, moreover, that he is crucial, if we are to proclaim the Gospel in a saving way.  We can become, for that matter, Jesus’ witnesses by the power of the Holy Spirit.

To bring Good News, of course, means we have to be people of the Good News.  We need to follow Jesus closely and keep his teachings.  And we can do so by the power of the Spirit who leads us to all truth.  He will remind us of Jesus, his teachings and the Scripture.  He will thus equip us for every good work.

Jesus states in another way that we cannot do without the Spirit.  Entrusting his disciples with the mission of peace and forgiveness, he breathes on them.  He then tells them, “Receive the Holy Spirit ….”  It is the power of the Holy Spirit that takes the fearful out of the house of fear.

Jesus wants us who claim to be Christians to look out not for our own interests, our well-being, our security.  Nor does he want us to settle for our inner circle.  That is why he gives us the power of the Spirit to bring the Gospel to the outskirts.

And the bringing of the Gospel to those who live in the outskirts has to be by words and works (SV.EN XII:78-79).  That means we have to help them in every way and have others help them likewise.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can mirror, too, by bringing the Gospel to the poor, the special presence of Jesus among us.

After his resurrection, Jesus keeps coming and going just like that, even going through locked doors.  This shows that his presence is beyond the physical.

We will mirror, yes, this special presence if our search for the heavenly enlivens our concern to better the earthly (GS 39).  Even now, then, there is some foreshadowing of the new age.

Truly, Jesus expects us not to be of this world even while we are in the world.  We live here now, but really it is Christ who should be living us.

And so that we may now behold the Paschal mystery by the power of the Spirit, he gives us the Eucharist.  This remembrance “commits us to the poor” (CCC 397).

Grant us, Lord, the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we get to go about doing good.

4 June 2017
Pentecost
Acts 2, 1-11; 1 Cor 12, 3b-7. 12-13; Jn 20, 19-23