Inviting the Holy Spirit to Heal the Things You Cannot Talk About
Homily for Pentecost Sunday - 19 May 2024
This week I saw a short video on one of the social media platforms which I found very moving. I know there are all kinds of reservations about these videos, that they are either staged or exploitative of people’s emotions and their privacy. The concern is, of course, that some things are so sacred, so personal, that they shouldn’t be filmed.
Nonetheless, this video showed a note being passed from a stranger on an escalator to a young man who was with a group of his friends. The note said something like, “May you experience healing for the things you cannot talk about.” It had such an impact on the young man. He was visibly emotional. Perhaps even more moving for me was that his three friends gathered around him and held him.
The thought of this has stayed with me this week. I tried Googling the message of the note in the hope of seeing the video again, and I was surprised at just how many video and chat feeds there are with this essential message about healing for the things we cannot talk about. So, what are the things you and I cannot talk about? What are the wounds we carry within us, perhaps through our own faults and failings, or through the faults and failings of others? Who is with us in the things we cannot talk about? Why is this message so moving for me and perhaps for you, and why is it such a common thread on the internet?
It strikes me that it is in this inner space of few or no words, in this space where we know our vulnerability and woundedness, that we can meet God, that we can know God’s grace, that we can experience God’s love. St Paul’s Letter to the Romans, says that the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Spirit of God dwelling within us. Jesus promised the sending of the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also called the Advocate, or the Paraclete, meaning the one who stands by us, defends us,
and protects us. The Holy Spirit is also the Comforter. In our inner space of no words, in the space of our woundedness, the Holy Spirit comforts us and speaks the words we cannot speak.
Nonetheless, isn’t it true that most of us have a complicated and difficult relationship to the Holy Spirit? I heard a priest say this week that the Holy Spirit is not very photogenic in terms of depictions in art over the centuries. Pictures of the Father and the Son are so much easier relate to and there are plenty of them. Not so much of the Holy Spirit. It is so much more difficult to picture the Holy Spirit. And yet the Holy Spirit is not just a force, such as in Star Wars; the Holy Spirit is God within us, a Divine Person who loves us and whom we can love and depend on.
Today we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, the gift of this Holy Spirit to the Church at the beginning of its history, and the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church since that time. The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells the familiar Pentecost story. Fifty days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the disciples were gathered together in Jerusalem. A strong driving wind filled the house where they were; and tongues of fire rested on each of them; and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Consider that we who are here today, are like those first disciples gathered together on the day of Pentecost. We are their spiritual descendants 2000 years later. As the Holy Spirit came upon that first small community in the Upper Room, making them the Church, the Holy Spirit comes to us again today, to renew and recreate us. This Holy Spirit is given to us again today, to us as individuals, as a parish community and as a whole Church.
The theological maxim goes that the Father sent his Son to give us his Spirit. The Father sent his Son, Jesus, that through his death, resurrection and ascension, we might be given his Spirit. This maxim shifts the emphasis and importance to the role of the Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not an afterthought. We see that God goes to extraordinary lengths to give us his Spirit.
Jesus promised his disciples that they would be given the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptised have received the Spirit. We who have been confirmed have received the fullness of the Spirit. We have been confirmed to strengthen our relationship with Jesus, to defend the Christian Faith, and to be missionaries of the Gospel.
We need to allow God’s Spirit to energize us, drive us, awaken in us a deep longing for God and the things of God. We need to make room for the Spirit and allow him to challenge us, teach us and guide us. The Holy Spirit keeps us on the right path. He will empower us and equip us for mission. Today we pray for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We need to cultivate a sensitivity to, and a reliance on the Holy Spirit, so that we can listen to his promptings as we make our life’s journey each day.
Consider that the Holy Spirit is the greatest possible gift that God can give us. And this Holy Spirit within us prompts us to pray, prays in us and for us and with us. In all our prayers, each time we intentionally raise our hearts and minds to God, the Holy Spirit is praying with us and in us. St Paul says that when we do not know how to pray the Holy Spirit prays in us with sighs and groans too deep for words. Not only can we experience the Holy Spirit deep within us, in the places of our vulnerability and need, in the places where we have no words, the Holy Spirit is with us, wanting to bring healing and a deep sense that we are loved.
In the gospel reading from John, in Jesus’ farewell sermon at the Last Supper, he promises to send the Holy Spirit from the Father. He says the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who will lead us into the truth. Jesus promised that the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, will teach us everything and remind us of all he has said to us. The Holy Spirit helps us to know Jesus and live in relationship with him.
Today the gift of the Spirit is renewed in us, and we ask him to enter our lives more fully. From today on we need to be animated by the Spirit as Jesus was, and as those first disciples were after Pentecost. In the words of St Paul in the second reading to the Galatians, we need to live by the Spirit, and walk by the Spirit.
St Paul speaks of the beautiful fruits of the Holy Spirit. These fruits will be the natural evidence of our cooperating with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. No one should need convincing that these are qualities we should be wanting in our lives. They are the qualities of the saints. They are the qualities of happy, fully human persons. The Spirit will produce these fruits in us if we welcome his presence in our lives.
Too often we suffer from an inferiority complex or a lack of self-esteem. We fail to recognise the extraordinary dignity that we have as children of God and Temples of the Holy Spirit. The love of God, the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts. The Holy Spirit want us to know that we are loved beyond measure, that God wants to bring healing to the parts of our lives of which cannot speak.
On this Solemnity of Pentecost, think of the Spirit and talk to him. Invite the Spirit, welcome the Spirit, ask Jesus to send his Holy Spirit. In the depths of our hearts, in our wounds that we cannot talk about, the Holy Spirit is there wanting us to know his love and healing. Today we are invited to be “pentecosted”.