Today is the Feast of Pentecost. It’s a good day to reflect on what a bunch of ninnies the Apostles were before they became the pillars of the Church. If these guys managed to keep the faith and share the Gospel, there is hope for each of us.
The disciples spend their days learning from Jesus Himself. They watch Him perform miracle after miracle. They are sent out to perform miracles themselves. And yet, somehow, they totally don’t get it. It’s like the secret comic relief of the Bible.
But the disciples of the Acts of the Apostles are a different story completely.
Hapless and confused and worried and not able to understand stuff Jesus is saying right to their faces one minute, starting the Church and spreading the Gospel across the globe, and enduring hardship and slander and martyrdom like hero geniuses the next.
Of the ten Apostles who fled in fear on the night of Jesus’ arrest, each eventually goes boldly to his martyrdom.
So what’s the pivot point?
It’s Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples, including the Apostles and Mary, in the upper room and changes everything (see Acts 2:1-4).
It’s the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we see at work in the Acts of the Apostles. Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord replace their former identifying traits of confusion, misunderstanding, and fear of miracles.
And, good news for the rest of us: God, through the Catholic Church, has given us the same “special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost” (Catechism of the Catholic Church § 1302) in the Sacrament of Confirmation.
So, if you are confirmed, today is the day to celebrate that fact, and to ask the Holy Spirit to open you up more fully to use those gifts. And if you’re not confirmed . . . girl, what are you waiting for? Talk to a priest today about how you can fulfill and enrich the promises of your Baptism in Confirmation and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit just like the disciples did on this feast day two thousand years ago.
Recieve the Holy Spirit. // @kendra_tierneyClick to tweet
Holy Spirit, give me the bold grace to live out Your gifts.
Kendra Tierney Norton is grateful to be a wife, mother, and stepmother. She lives in the wilds of unincorporated Los Angeles County in a big old fixer-upper house with her husband and a varying number of their combined fourteen children, plus one fish, two cats, and twenty chickens. She likes to say that her goal is keeping Catholicism weird. To that end, she is the author of books including the Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life with Ignatius Press and O Come, Emmanuel: Advent Reflections on the Jesse Tree for Families with Emmaus Road Publishing, the creator of the TV series Catholic All Year At Home on FORMED, and the CEO of Catholic All Year, an apostolate dedicated to helping parents live out their Catholic faith and pass it along to their children.
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