A new Pentecost

Pentecost continued

The outpouring of the Spirit, however, is not an event in the past that is over and done with: Pentecost, as a transformative experience brought about by the Holy Spirit, is still going on in the Church.

The acts of the Apostles already highlights other experiences of the Spirit breaking through and bringing about conversions, cures, new pastoral orientations.

Pentecost remains pertinent

In the recent past, when he was announcing the Second Vatican Council, John XXIII did not hesitate to claim a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit and to ask the bishops to join in prayer with Mary, begging the Holy Spirit “to work marvels once more in our day, as on a new Pentecost”.

After John XXIII, Paul VI asserted that “The primary need of the Church is to live out Pentecost at all times”. And in our time, John Paul II has repeated on many occasions that the New Evangelization must derive its momentum from the grace of Pentecost.

The experience of the Holy Spirit, lived in response to prayer – an experience of conversion, of recognizing the living Christ, of openness to the Holy Spirit with his gifts, his charisma, his power – is to be found taking place before our very eyes, through that current of grace which is called the Charismatic Renewal. In order to do justice to its scope and avoid any suggestion of exclusivity, it might be better named the Renewal in the Holy Spirit.