Sunday after Ascension 20.5.12 Come Holy Spirit
The prayer for this time of year is: Come, Holy Spirit. We relive in this week the Upper Room experience of the apostles, praying with Mary.
They might not have said precisely those words – Come, Holy Spirit – but the essence of their prayer was: Lord, send whatever it is you want to send and we need to receive; and we are willing to receive it (Your grace making us willing).
Ever since we have been making the same prayer, Come Holy Spirit. Why do we repeat the prayer when He has already come? We always need more because there always is more, more of God that we have not yet encountered; and more in us that needs healing and transforming.
And even if we did possess God fully we would still need to pray to Him in praise and thanksgiving. There is always a need to pray, if prayer is understood as communion with God.
Why pray so long as the apostles did? They, in particular, needed a tremendous amount of grace for what they had to do. We are small fry by comparison, but we also have to pray a lot to grasp the seriousness of the commitment needed to be a disciple of Christ.
Many Catholics do not realize how much time and effort is involved in being a disciple of Christ. Always we are tempted to downplay or slacken off our response to his will and how much business we do with Him.
We are reminded at this time of the Church year that we are seriously implicated in this business. We are not talking about someone else or somewhere else. We are involved, connected, implicitly at least putting our lives on the line, in the sense that we are willing to be known as his disciples.
Were you not with that man? We do not want to repeat Peter’s denials.
We live in a world where religious fervour is seen as a private matter like a hobby and if you take your spiritual life even slightly more seriously than average you will be viewed with suspicion.
We must risk the ridicule of others. Our predecessors in the faith have been through much worse. We can think of the times when others have been to Mass in fear of their lives, expecting the sound of soldiers any moment. Many have been tortured and killed for taking part in what we are now doing. It gives us pause for thought.
If we are afraid of deeper commitment the fear itself is covered by the prayer, Come Holy Spirit - Come, and make me what I need to be; override my fears and my self-imposed limits.
We are implicitly saying all this just by being here, and any time we pray. So that we can be ready to die, ready to live; to stay or go; ready for anything pleasant or unpleasant; that each one of us, and all of us together, be responsive instruments in God’s hand.
The apostles received what they asked and probably more than they expected. So can it be for us. We have to pray for longer than nine days and the different tasks we are given are more varied than for the apostles, but the principle is the same.
We need more people praying, more often, more fervently, with more expectation.
It should be the norm rather than the exception that people pray like this. A town like ours would be a very different place if God were taken as seriously as He deserves to be.
It starts with us. More than ever before we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit.
Until we see improvement, and after that as well.
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