Fr Robert Hendrickson
Dear Friends in Christ,
I have generally had trouble with trying to pin down just what the Holy Spirit is. Of course, we have the technical definition of the Holy Spirit being the third person of the Trinity. We also have the promise from Christ that the Spirit will come. We have the Pentecost story, which we mark today, on the Feast of Pentecost. But if you were to ask me to describe the Holy Spirit, I would have trouble.
Jesus we can describe in all sorts of ways ranging from the historical to the theological. God the Father, for good and ill alike, has a pretty definable nature if we want to reduce him to what we can imagine. We can box him in with some metaphors or familiar images.
I think the Holy Spirit may only come into focus with time and experience. The Holy Spirit becomes a clearer thing when we realize that we are in a moment in which God is doing something special -- something we cannot do. For example, though I celebrate the Eucharist I am not the one making the bread become Bread. We ask for the Holy Spirit to come down upon these gifts and change them. We wait for the Spirit to descend upon them and change their essence, their purpose. We ask the Holy Spirit to change what comes of encountering them.
Time and experience tell us what is normal. They help us recognize patterns that we come to know as the way things are. So when the Holy Spirit comes we recognize that something is different. Something is happening that defies explanation. Something is changing. Something deep us under way.
Just as we ask the Holy Spirit to come down and change bread perhaps our greatest prayer is for the Holy Spirit to come down and change us. To change our essence and our purpose - and to change what comes of people encountering us - finding the Body of Christ dwelling in us and ready to feed and bless.
May the Holy Spirit descend on you this week. May you find yourself knowing that something is different and that something is new. May you find yourself changed by the fire of love.
Fr Robert