8th June 2025: Pentecost

What is the Holy Spirit all about? Jesus talks about a Counsellor, the Spirit of Truth; Luke talks of tongues of fire enabling everyone to speak in different languages. Paul describes the Spirit of Holiness, being controlled by the Spirit, having life by the Spirit.

The late Pope Francis said:
‘Come Holy Spirit, this is the claim of all the Christians at Pentecost as it is today.
Come Holy Spirit, that is the promise of the Father and the promise of Jesus.
So that the Holy Spirit may enlarge and widen our hearts.
We all have a problem, and that is that our hearts tend to shrink, become smaller and close up.
We can’t solve that problem by ourselves. Only the Holy Spirit can solve it.
Come Holy Spirit.
The [Lord’s] prayer … opens the heart and asks the prayer that makes us breathe the Breath of God, the Holy Spirit, come Spirit.
Come Holy Spirit.’

As we receive the Holy Spirit we need to hear God saying:
‘I’m giving you this energy, I’m giving you the capacity to fulfil your calling’.

Bishop Martin Seeley, former Bishop of St Eds & Ips said:
‘When we think about receiving the gift of the Spirit, it isn’t about some warm, fuzzy feeling; it is about enabling us to do something, enabling us to be active in a different way. It’s about doing things differently, behaving differently, living differently, seeing differently, and being orientated in a way so that our lives are directed to God and we are shaped and energized in that way.’

Our prayer for Pentecost must surely echo the words written by Edwin Hatch:
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew;
That I may love what Thou dost love
And do what Thou wouldst do.

Rev Phil