Pentecost Sunday (Fr. Simham)

Inflame our hearts with fire; Pentecost Sunday

Today is the one day in the whole of the liturgical year which is dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the often forgotten or neglected person of the Most Blessed Trinity. I am not complaining, because the Holy Spirit himself is someone who takes back seat and lets others shine. Anyway, today I thought I can reflect with you on that wonderful prayer which we say to the Holy Spirit. The prayer we are encouraged to say everyday. You remember that prayer:

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

The first part of this prayer sum up the whole truth about what happened on the day of Pentecost. Let us look at the prayer. There, we ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill the hearts of the faithful enkindling them with fires of love. Then they being renewed can renew the whole world. That is exactly what happened on the day of Pentecost.

On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles as tongues of fire. Something unusual. In the gospels the Holy Spirit is usually represented in the form of a dove. But on the day of Pentecost, Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire. Why? It is the sign of what the Holy Spirit is doing to them. It is the sign of inflaming their hearts. Look at the picture of the sacred Heart. You can see it aflame with love. In the same way the holy Spirit set aflame the hearts of the disciples, that were cold, fearful with the love for the Lord. Why was this necessary? You must have heard the famous Greek proverb: BETTER A HEART FILLED WITH LOVE THAN A MIND FILLED WITH KNOWLEDGE. Jesus realised the meaning of this proverb through his own experience with the disciples.

Go back to the famous scene where Jesus meets Simon Peter who went back to fishing his old profession after the death of Jesus. He was a fisherman and Jesus called his to be fisher of men and trained him for three years, taught him so many things. But after all this Peter went back again to fishing his old profession. So Jesus goes after his resurrection to the lake of Galilee and asks Peter: ‘Peter! Do you love me?’ Then feed my lambs. Meaning to say, you need to learn to love me more; then only you can look after my sheep well, then only you can feed my sheep properly. In other words, You need to be aflame with love for me, then only you can do my work properly.

This is exactly what the Holy Spirit did on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came and inflamed in them the fire of love. Setting their hearts aflame with love for Jesus. They were so aflame with love that they could not resist speaking about Jesus and his resurrection. They were not tired of baptising 3000 men on a single day. The same men who ran for their life at Gethsemane fearing persecution, spoke boldly and said, you are responsible for his death, but God raised him. We are his witnesses. Do whatever you want to do with us. You want to persecute us, put us in jail, and torture us. No problem. But we for our part cannot but proclaim him who is risen from the dead.

Where did these ordinary men get this strength from? It is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who set their hearts on fire with love for Jesus. It is this that made them a new creation and they set out renewing the face of the earth.

Even today, the world needs people filled with love. The Church needs hearts burning with zeal for God. Modern world is after knowledge, power and money and sex. We don’t find many hearts that are generous and genuine. We don’t find many hearts that are genuinely interested in doing something for others or for the world. All this is because of lack of love. The world is bleeding with the great wounds of selfishness, pride, avarice, exploitation and injustice. It needs to be healed. And love is the medicine that can heal these wounds. And it the Holy Spirit who can enkindle our hearts with love.

So it becomes all the more important for us to pray this prayer today and every day.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Fr. Showreelu Simham