The Holy Spirit is here. Don’t be afraid.

A few years ago, I went to the Holy Land and spent a week in the Galilee and two weeks with our Capuchin brothers in Jerusalem.

One day the passage from the eleventh chapter of John came to my mind—the one we read on Pentecost Sunday. The Apostles, Mary, and some other unknown disciples were together to pray. Jesus was brutally killed a few weeks ago. He came back and spoke to them several times, but then he was taken to heaven and they knew they would never see him again. I’m sure they were confused, sad, probably anxious, as we hear in the gospel. After all, they could be crucified just like Jesus. 

According to old tradition, they would hide at the place where Jesus had his Last Supper with them. It was the first time he gave them his body and blood, the very first Eucharist. On the day I visited that place in Jerusalem with my brothers, we walked from there to the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount where you can still see remains of old city gates leading to the Court of the Gentiles.

This was the closest to the Temple where people who were not born Jewish could get. Suddenly everything started making sense. I realized it’s only about ten minutes walking from the place of the Last Supper.

When the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, everything changed for them. Just like Jesus entered the house despite the doors being locked, so did the Holy Spirit enter their hearts being paralyzed by despair and fear. 

Both in Greek and Hebrew, the word for Spirit can be also translated as breath. The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples like God’s breath, fresh air that made them find new life. The Holy Spirit filled them with the joy of the Resurrection and fervor to proclaim Jesus to everyone around them. That joy, that fervor, were stronger even than the fear to lose their own life.

And so it only made sense for them to go to where a huge crowd of people from all around the world, as it was known for them, could be found: the Court of the Gentiles. 

Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, is called the birth moment of the Church. It is that very moment, when the disciples stopped worrying about themselves, but found the power to go out—to go out into the world and spread the good news to all people.

Without the Holy Spirit, without Pentecost, Christians wouldn’t be here today.

But it wasn’t just a singular event some 2,000 years ago. God wants to send us his Holy Spirit again and again, to break through our confusion, sadness, and anxiety, that we all, each and every single one of us, may find a path to life in freedom—from death, sin, and darkness.

In every mass we pray for the same Spirit to come upon bread and wine, that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ, our spiritual food and drink. Let me suggest this: The Holy Spirit wants to come to your heart. To mine. We need to not be afraid, because this is true breath and true life.