Pentecost 2025
Jesus once described the Holy Spirit using the image of the wind: “The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or wither it goes; so is it with every one who is born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3:8) Today, on the day of Pentecost, “a sound from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind” is the first sign of the gift of the Spirit.
For us on the Island, the wind is a very telling image. We live near the sea. We know the formidable energy of the wind and how uncontrollable and unpredictable it can be. It is the most volatile of the elements of nature. Water and even fire seem to be somehow more manageable. The wind speaks to our bodies, too. We know the need to breathe regularly and the value of fresh air. Breathing is the same thing as living. All the time, our life is sustained by the air we breathe.
The Spirit, says Jesus, is a breath of life and we immediately think of the moment in the creation of man and woman when God “breathed into” their “nostrils the breath of life” (cf. Gn 2.7). The communication of life from our Creator to us is continued on the day of Pentecost when God sends the Holy Spirit as a new breath of life. Don’t we pray to the Creator Holy Spirit that He gives us new breath, new life? He bestows on us the gift of the life of Jesus risen from the dead.
Here St Paul comes to our aid when he teaches: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit who dwells in us.” The Breath of life comes from the Father. He raises Jesus from the dead and He gives us their common Spirit of life as a promise of immortality and eternal life. Yes, we shall die for our bodies belong to this world. But our souls, filled with the Spirit are invited to share in the life of God Himself and this sharing will potentially have no end.
Let us now listen to St John: “I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth” and “we will come to him and make our home with him”. We see the Breath of life coming from the Father, filling the house of our heart, and preparing a place for the Father and the Son so that the whole Trinity dwells in us.
On the day of Pentecost, all begins with a great wind. This becomes a breath of life entering our souls and making us children of God and hosts to the Trinity. The great noisy wind blowing over the whole world at the beginning soon becomes the kind and quiet wind of an intimacy of love between God and us.
Is this the end? Is the tempest over? No, the energy of the Spirit goes further. We are sent into the world. The same Spirit who draws us within to welcome the peaceful visit of our God sends us forcefully without to proclaim the Gospel of life. He makes us witnesses to the new life brought by Jesus in His resurrection. We are called to announce to all the Name of the Father whom Jesus revealed to us and whom we have to proclaim, in the same Holy Spirit. We are charged to announce the hope of salvation to all who believe, in the same Spirit of Truth. We are sent to love one another as He loved us, in the same Spirit of love.
Today we are reminded that our whole Christian life relies on the gift of the Holy Spirit. Without Him, we are dead. This is why we pray to Him unceasingly: Come, Holy Spirit!