Pentecost and the Blessed Virgin Mary

We find ourselves at the conclusion of the novena to the Holy Spirit, in preparation for the great feast of Pentecost. What I would like to do today is to say a few words about what the Holy Spirit did for one particular woman, for it was the Holy Spirit Who made Mary both Mother of Jesus and Mother of the Church.

All of Mary’s greatness as a Christian can be traced to the fact that the Holy Spirit came upon her, and that she lived in the presence of God, continuously aware of His presence in her life. Our Lady cooperated with the Spirit’s promptings in loving obedience to God’s Word, daily renewing her fiat of the Annunciation. Mary the Virgin heeded the Lord’s plan for her and thus became fruitful. Her life was an ongoing Magnificat; she was a woman of peace and joy because she gave the Spirit of God free rein in her life. When Mary experienced the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, she did not keep Him to herself; she immediately went forth to share that experience and its meaning with others. She also realized that a life in the Spirit necessarily involves service to others; therefore, not considering her own precarious situation, she went through the rough hill country to tend to the needs of her elderly cousin, Elizabeth.

What does all this have to do with you and me? A great deal, for what happened in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary can and must happen in our own lives. Each of us has received the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation, but what have we done with the Spirit? Are we more peaceful, more loving, more joyous for having received those sacraments? If not, the fault is not in the sacraments but in ourselves, that we have not activated the power of the Spirit in our lives.

Looking forward to tomorrow’s birthday of the Church, we cast our glance on the first and greatest Christian who ever lived, knowing that what the Spirit did for Mary, He will do only too gladly for every one of us. Today I would suggest taking some time out for a test to see whether or not you are a Spirit-filled person. The question is very simple: What have you done with the gifts the Spirit of God has given to you? Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them” (Mt 7:16). We know the fruit Our Lady brought forth, for every day we say: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” Are you possessed by God’s Spirit?

Another way of asking that same question is: Have you brought forth Christ to the world in which you live?

The inestimable English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, with his flare for attention-getting style, produced a grand work, entitled, “The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe”. Interestingly, in Hebrew, ruah encompasses a number of meanings: breath, wind, spirit – all of which come into play in the Pentecost event. Listen to how Hopkins brings all this together in a sampling of his verses here:

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd;
whoThis one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

Did you pick up on some of those lovely, key lines: “world-mothering air,” “nursing element,” “breathe its praise,” “mothers each new grace,” “let all God’s glory through”? As we enter spiritually into the Upper Room with Mary and the apostolic college, we gain confidence in a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us and upon God’s Holy Church – because we, like those first disciples, are united in prayer with the Mother of Christ, who is also our Mother in the order of grace.

A perhaps more famous poem of the Victorian Jesuit, “God’s Grandeur,” reminds us that “the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” That’s the same Holy Spirit who, at the dawn of time, hovered over the abyss, bringing creation from chaos; the same Holy Spirit who hovered over the Virgin of Nazareth, making her the Mother of her Creator; and yes, the same Holy Spirit who hovers over the elements of bread and wine, transforming them into the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ. The founder of the Communion and Liberation movement, Monsignor Luigi Giussani, encouraged his followers to pray: “Veni, Sancte Spiritus. Veni per Mariam” (Come, Holy Spirit. Come through Mary).

Holy Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, pray for us.
Holy Mary, Queen of the Apostles, pray for us.
Holy Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Holy Mary, Queen of Mothers, pray for us.

(Editor’s note: This homily was preached and posted originally on the Vigil of Pentecost, June 7, 2019, for the Catholic Writers’ Retreat at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.)