Vigils Reading – Office for Vocations

RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT

From a commentary by St Augustine5

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The happy day has dawned for us on which Holy Church makes her first

radiant appearance to the eyes of faith and sets the hearts of believers on fire. It

is the day on which we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit by our Lord Jesus

Christ, after he had risen from the dead and ascended into glory. In the gospel it is

written: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me,

rivers of living water shall flow from his heart. The Evangelist explains these words

by adding: Jesus said this about the Spirit which those who believed in him were to

receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Now the glorification of Jesus took place when he rose from the dead and ascended

into heaven, but all was not yet accomplished. The Holy Spirit still had to be given;

the one who made the promise had to send him. This is precisely what occurred

at Pentecost.

After being in the company of his disciples for the forty days following his

resurrection, the Lord ascended into heaven, and on the fiftieth day – the day we

are now celebrating – he sent the Holy Spirit. The account is given in Scripture:

Suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and there

appeared to them tongues like fire which separated and came to rest on each one of

them. And they began to speak in other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them power

of utterance. That wind cleansed the disciples’ hearts, blowing away fleshly

thoughts like so much chaff. The fire burnt up their unregenerate desires as if they

were straw. The tongues in which they spoke as the Holy Spirit filled them were a

5 Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels – Year A. Ed. Edith Barnecut, OSB.

New York: New City Press, 1992. 72-73.11

foreshadowing of the Church’s preaching of the Gospel in the tongues of all

nations.

After the flood, in pride and defiance of the Lord, an impious generation

erected a high tower and so brought about the division of the human race into

many language groups, each with its own peculiar speech which was unintelligible

to the rest of the world. At Pentecost, by contrast, the humble piety of believers

brought all these diverse languages into the unity of the Church. What discord had

scattered, love was to gather together. Like the limbs of a single body, the

separated members of the human race would be restored to unity by being joined

to Christ, their common head, and welded into the oneness of a holy body by the

fire of love. Anyone therefore who rejects the gift of peace and withdraws from

the fellowship of this unity cuts himself off from the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So then, my fellow members of Christ’s body, you are the fruits of unity and

the children of peace. Keep this day with joy, celebrate it in freedom of spirit, for

in you is fulfilled what was foreshadowed in those days when the Holy Spirit came.

At that time whoever received the Holy Spirit spoke in many languages, individual

though he was. Now in the same way unity itself speaks through all nations in

every tongue. If you yourselves are established in that unity you have the Holy

Spirit among you, and nothing can separate you from the Church of Christ which

speaks in the language of every nation of the world.