Have you ever started to do something, no matter how simple it may be, only to find that you haven’t got what you need? It could be something as simple as making a cup of tea only to find you have no milk? It could be trying to mend or make something only to realise that you don’t have the correct tool? Sometimes it might be the case, that you set out to do something, realise that you don’t have the right tool, only then to find the very tool that you needed some time later, in the bottom of your ‘box-of-tricks’? Well Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, is a bit like that.

You see, Jesus, gave us a job to do; “…so am I sending you…”; “go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News…”. The job HE gave us is not easy. Jesus knew that to be a follower of HIS, to ‘proclaim the Good News’, would mean that you have to be counter-cultural. That’s why HE gave us a ‘box-of-tricks’. We call this box of tricks the gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel (Right Judgement), Fortitude (Courage), Knowledge, Piety (Reverence), and Fear of God (Wonder and Awe in God’s presence).  but the thing about the gifts is…we have to use them. Using the gifts is called ‘Co-operating with grace’.

We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) “Grace is first and foremost the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies us. But grace also includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church.” (CCC #2003) Notice the words used in the CCC: “associate…collaborate…” We are not meant to be passive receptors of the grace of GOD. It is not intended for us to sit back and just receive. Yes, GOD does pour Grace into us, grace is made readily available to us, ordinarily through the sacraments, but not for us to allow it to remain unused. St Paul says this: “…so work out your salvation in fear and trembling. It is God who, for his own generous purpose, gives you the intention and the powers to act.” (Phil. 2:12-13). The intention and the powers to act, as St Paul says, are his way of saying grace has been poured into you, now use it to work out your salvation and, as the CCC says; ‘the salvation of others.’ We are not meant to be solo runners there is an old saying that says: No one goes to heaven alone.”

We may be tempted to think of the coming of the Holy Spirit as some sort of magical intervention, “I’m here now, everything will be alright.” A more accurate understanding might be: ‘Here is a free gift, well actually seven of them, they are on offer to you, but what are you going to do with them?’ How do we know if we have received this grace? The short answer is we don’t. We return to the CCC: “Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved. However, according to the Lord’s words “Thus you will know them by their fruits” – reflection on God’s blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.” (CCC #2005) In other words we have no idea if we have received these graces, except by the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Veni Sancte Spiritus