Living in the Power of the Spirit

In the early days of the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Montini, who later became Pope Paul VI, said that one of the main purposes of the Council was to ensure that the fresh breath of the Spirit swept through the Church.   He wanted families to be renewed, old quarrels mended,  nations to be at peace with one another.  It was a dream, and like all dreams part of it faded into the darkness of reality.  Yet the hope remained.

That was in 1963, 49 years ago.  Look at the world around you. Has this dream faded into antiquity?  No. Has it survived intact?  As a hope, yes! As a reality in our lives? Only partly so.  Why is this? Well we don’t have to look beyond ourselves.  We have been baptized, confirmed, educated in the faith for many years perhaps, and yet we still remain unfulfilled, static even.  Is that the fault of the Holy Spirit?  Emphatically “No!”  We know very well that the fault lies with us.  We lack that spark, that passion, that intense desire to bring about, in our time, a new Pentecost which will transform our world, transform our Church, transform ourselves, so that we become communities of faith, reaching out to one another through our prayer, through our lives.

The First Christians seemed so happy, so alive.  Didn’t  they? They shared their goods, they prayed together each day, they lived lives of honesty, integrity and joy. But reading between the lines of the Book of Acts we see the struggles they had – the differences of opinion between the apostles themselves with regard to the work they had been given to do, and much more.  We see Paul, that loose cannon, thrown among them by the Damascus event, allowing the Jewish converts to keep their food laws, his implacability when opposing Peter, their leader, when he clearly believed him to be wrong.  We see the greed of some of the converts,  Ananias and Sapphira, for example, who wanted to defraud the community of part of the money they had promised them.  It couldn’t have been easy for those First Century Christians, even though they had received the Holy Spirit in a blistering, never-to-be-forgotten way through huge globules of fire that rested over each of their heads.   Is anything that is worth-while easy?

We know it isn’t. But those Early Christians never forgot the experience of receiving the Holy Spirit.  They clung on to it through thick and thin, and passed its wonders and its effect, on to their children and their grandchildren.  It became a reality for them.  A transforming reality that made others say in amazement: “Look how the Christians love one another!”   Acts, Chapter 2: 42-47 give us a picture of the transforming power of the Spirit:

They remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood (and sisterhood!), to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.

The many miracles and signs worked through the apostles made a deep impression on everyone.

The faithful all lived together, and owned all things in common: they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves, according to what each one needed.

They went as a body to the Temple every day, but met in their houses for the breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously.

They praised God, and were looked up to by everyone.

Day by day the Lord added to their community those destined to be saved.

(Acts 2: 42-47)

So now we know what we have to do. It won’t be easy, but it will be transforming, alive, joyful, enriching, and life-giving.  We could go on, but it isn’t necessary.  God will do the same for us, if we let him.  There’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say.  We have to give ourselves to him generously, openly, courageously, and he will transform the world through us.  It is as simple as that.  Maybe not in our lifetime, maybe in years to come, but he will do it.

This Pentecost, which is on 27^th May this year, is an opportunity for us to give ourselves again to God, so that the fresh breath of the Spirit may blow on us again and wake us up from our stupor. Let’s start on the 18^th  May and say this prayer as a novena prayer each day.

Come Spirit, who is our light, shine among us;  warm and transform our hearts.

Come Spirit, who makes a home in us, change our way of thinking and acting

Come Spirit, our comforter and consoler, heal our woundedness, soothe our anxieties

Console all those who grieve and ache.

Come Spirit who energises us, keep us from the distraction of fleeting pleasures,

and lead us to moments of prayer and silence.

Come Spirit, consuming fire of love, fill us with enthusiasm for your vision,

That the desire for truth may be vibrant in us always.

Come Spirit, joy of our souls; teach us to dance your dance of love

among the wounded, the lost, the lonely.

Come Spirit, heart and centre of our world, warm the hearts of those grown cold,

and launch us into life!

Have a lovely Pentecost.  We will be praying for you.

Click on the picture for a song on the Holy Spirit

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!

If I were to ask you “What is a favourite hymn that you associate with Mary, the Mother of God during this month?”  What would you answer, I wonder?   I’m not a betting woman, but I’d come near to it by guessing that you might say “Bring flowers of the rarest.”   Well I’ll hedge my bets and say that this would be true only for many people who live in this part of the world. 

 May has always been associated with the Mother of God.  When we think of May we usually have a picture of green fields, perfumed blossom and bluebells.  Isn’t that true?  The older ones among us remember May processions in school or in our parishes, with youngsters leading the procession through the fields or out in the streets dressed in the shining white of their First Communion dresses, followed by the colourful columns of priests, altar servers and people dressed in their best Summer clothes – lovely pinks and blues and greens and yellows. At the back of the line was a statue of Our Lady decked with flowers which was carried on a huge trestle. We always trembled for its fate, as it usually was carried by the altar boys who were of varying sizes, so it tended to slope to one side, often leaning right over as it was carried, not with the slow, measured tread of the men, but with the lolloping run of the boys who were used to tearing around the roads!

The hymns and prayers were carried on the evening breeze as we sang with great fervour “Bring flowers of the rarest, bring blossoms the fairest, from garden and woodland and hillside and dale. Our full hearts are swelling, our glad voices telling the praise of the loveliest flower of the May!”

Then the voices, young and old, got louder and more joyous as we shouted: “O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the angels, and Queen of the May!  O Mary we crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the angels and Queen of the May!”   It was wonderful.  If you were chosen to actually crown Our Lady, that was a memory to be savoured right through the rest of your life.  Standing tip toe on rickety steps, lifting up your trembling hands to put the lovely wreath of flowers around Mary’s head, imagining that she smiled at you as you did so – that was entering the field of dreams! 

In medieval times, children ran up to put their own nosegays around Mary, wild flowers that they had gathered from the woods and from the fields, and they tossed them on the cart to show that this was their way of saying “I love you Mary – thank you for being my Mother!”

Today we don’t have so many processions, sadly, but we do have lots of opportunities of showing our devotion to Mary.  She loves it, the candles we light around her image in the church, the flowers we put around the May altars.  We are saying to Mary, whose image is in front of us to remind us of her, “We love you, we want to honour you, we know that you love us and are interested in everything we do!”  That is prayer.  The Rosary is also a wonderful way of praying to Mary, and at the same time, meditating on the life of her son, going over in our minds the scenes that made up his life and hers.  If you haven’t tried that way of praying, do start.  It is a very powerful prayer, and brings great blessings.

Let’s try to be very close to her this month.  She is always close to us, but we are not always aware of it.  That is a lost opportunity. 

Let’s tell her about the things that we keep locked in our hearts, the people we always hold fast in our hearts because we love them;   tell her what things trouble or annoy us, what was good or bad about the day when it is over.  All mothers love to chat with their children and Mary is no exception.   She’ll look forward to your conversations at the beginning or end of each day.

We’ll end with an observation by Edwina Gately who started the Volunteer Missionary Movement for young people.  It’s about the field of dreams we talked about earlier.

There is a dream I have not dreamt,

A vision I have not seen.

There is in me a fire not kindled,

glowing like a lone and passionate sentinel

awaiting the dawn.

                                (Edwina Gately)

Let us pray:

Spirit of life, by whose power the Word was made flesh in the womb of Mary, the woman of attentive silence, make us experience that dream. Walk with us, dream with us, live with us today and always.

Have a lovely month of Mary!