As well celebrate Pentecost today, think about how we start mass each time we gather around the table of the Lord. After we make the sign of the cross, we begin the holy sacrifice of the Mass, commemorating the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord that Jesus first celebrated with his disciples at the Last Supper and quoting from St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." God as a Trinity, as 3 divine persons that comprise one God, is a central mystery of our Christian faith. The Holy Spirit is an essential part of God.
Today, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world. St Augustine, one of the great theologians and leaders of our Catholic faith, who was Bishop of Hippo in northern Africa in the early 5th century, prayed this beautiful prayer to the Holy Spirit:
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.
No matter what path God calls us to in life, no matter what our accomplishments or our accolades, no matter what our gifts and talents, we need the Holy Spirit of God as a beacon of light and guide in our lives just as St Augustine invoked the Holy Spirit in his prayer.
As Paul tells us today in his first letter to the Corinthians, it is the Holy Spirit that allows us to call Jesus “Lord”; it is the Holy Spirit that forms us in the Church, to form one Body out of so many parts and so many diverse gifts. As we celebrate the Holy Spirit and the end of the Easter Season today, as we celebrate with all of our graduates, we pray that the Holy Spirit of God come into our lives, to renew us, to renew our Church, and to renew the face of the earth.
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