1. A Blessed Pentecost to each of you!

May the Loving Creator Spirit, who has given life and faith to each one of us, sustain and guide us on our way through life so that each of us may truly give glory to God.

The words of Christ that I would like to place at the heart of my reflection this morning are ones that come from his sensitive response to the sadness and uncertainty in the hearts of his disciples as they anticipate his departure. The words I refer to are: “I will not leave you orphans!”

On the morning of his Resurrection, when he first greeted his disciples with a peace they were yet to understand, he breathed on them the Holy Spirit, commissioning them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you!”

He did not leave them orphans!

As he fulfilled his promise to his disciples, he has done the same for you and me. We too are gifted with the same breath of Christ, the Holy Spirit.

2. On that first Pentecost morning, the gathering crowd, not knowing what was happening, asked among themselves in joyous wonder, “How do we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the wonderful works of God? How come there is the same message for all of us in all the various tongues --- the wonderful works of God?”

May I ask, “How do we discern from within the various seasons of our own lives the wonderful works of God and the loving presence and power of the same Holy Spirit?”

In the responsorial psalm, there is a sense of wonder echoed for us:

When you send forth your spirit, you renew the face of the earth.

That renewal is going on day by day through the humble but loving efforts of people as simple and ordinary as you and me.

Frail and aged as we may be, we still contribute to the world’s renewal. Remember last year’s social justice statement of the Australian bishops, A Place at the Table. As people of simple faith, hope, and love, we have something precious to contribute -- our patient, hopeful presence, our love and care, our simple wisdom and compassion.

May we be free to gratefully acknowledge the good we are allowed to contribute, because it is the work of the Holy Spirit within and through us.

On occasion we may be tempted to think, “No, that’s not true of me, for I have known too many moments of my own frailty, when I have felt alone, useless, too needy to be helpful, or simply too engrossed in my own personal pursuits.

I think we all know moments like that but they don’t cancel out the honest efforts we make day in and day out.

Just the simple affirmation “Jesus is Lord,” which, as we heard in the second reading can only be made under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not only an act of faith. It is also an act of hope in humanity.

3. In many passages of St. Paul’s letters, the apostle speaks with such comforting and encouraging words about the Mystery of Christ which is the hidden, inherent reality and living power deep within us.

Let me share some of his teaching.

In his Letter to the Christians at Rome, Paul states the source of our hope. It is “the love of God that has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rm. 5:5). A few chapters later on, Paul explains how that love is our hope. He writes:

“When we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows how perfectly well what he means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God” (Rms.: 8: 26, 27).

Do we dare to sense and own the wonder, the comfort, and compassion in those words -- the Holy Spirit within us, praying for us?

How often have we laid awake at night worrying about a child, a partner, a job, a relationship, not knowing what to do; unable to put words on the turmoil within, as if we knew something of the experience of Christ in the Garden, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.” Yet, somehow we survived.

These words of Paul help us to understand how we survived: “the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows how perfectly well what he means.”

Jesus did promise, “I will not leave you orphans!”

In another way of speaking, those words of St Paul tell us that at the deep spirit level of our being, at the level of our heart, our inner-most self, at the level of grace, we are actually in a state of prayer; but we are generally unaware of it.

You might think that I am being a bit mystical here or that, maybe I’ve lost it. But I believe this to be the truth! Perhaps, we underestimate the richness and depth of life that our faith calls us to.

Each one of us is incredibly gifted by the Holy Spirit!

Let me share one last passage from this same Letter of Paul to the Christians in Rome. He writes, “Everyone moved by the Spirit is a child of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of children, and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’

The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, sharing his sufferings so as to share his glory” (Rms. 8: 14-17).

In the realm of faith and grace, there is so much more to us than meets the eye!

“The Spirit and our spirit bear united witness!” How blessed and gifted we are!

4. Conclusion:
In all of what I have shared, and there is so much more of the same that could be added, the point I would like to make is this: The basis, the content and the outreach of the Spirit in our lives and for that matter throughout the mystery and complexity of the whole universe is always LOVE and LIFE. The Spirit is a Creator Spirit, and also a Comforter.

LOVE, after all, is not just something that God does. LOVE is the GODNESS of GOD.

And God’s LOVE has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us!

In time, that same indwelling Gift of God’s love allows us “to grasp the ungraspable and comprehend the incomprehensible” (William of St. Thierry).

Truly, Christ has not left us orphans!