From the last weeks of Lent, through all the time of Easter, until today, we are located in a landscape that we would never have imagined, nor desired: confined to our homes, interrupted activities, cities, roads, air and sea spaces without traffic, deserted temples. In contrast, a feverish activity in hospitals and funeral services. We were not able to stop the terrible tsunami of people infected by the pandemic and wounds of disease and death. Today we are in mourning. But also today, we celebrate the day of Pentecost. Doesn’t the feast come at an untimely moment?
Not everything is as bad as it seems!
There are cruel diagnoses that plunge us into despair. In them the part is taken for the whole. A few breakdowns are enough for the organism in which many things work to announce the gloomiest of the future. This is how many of the diagnoses are make about society, about politics, about the Church, about our groups: cruel diagnoses in which the part supplants the whole!
But, even if we don’t detect it at first glance, our world is not as bad as it seems. Pessimism as a norm:
- is a disease that leads to the belief that each generation is worse than the previous one;
- it makes us insensitive to new forms of good;
- it makes us believe that evil that makes us violent, corrupt, angry, envious, dependent …—is invincible!
- And yet, it is mortally wounded by the Spirit that has been given to us!
As long as there is Spirit there is breath and as long as there is breath there is life
The Spirit is the breath of the world.
- The Spirit is “the guarding God“: He is on active mission from the day that Jesus breathed him out from the Cross, as the last breath in this life (Jn 19:30) and his first breath as Risen (Jn 20:22) and as streams of living water (Jn 7:38-39) and as tongues or flames of fire (Acts 2:3-4).
- The Father God who is in heaven, the God Son who is also in heaven, they have not left us orphaned! They have jointly sent their Spirit to us, as Breath, to be the Breath of the world! Like rivers of living water so that there is life and life in abundance! Like flames of fire, so that the energy multiplies and everything works!
- The Spirit fills the face of the earth, penetrates even the most intimate part of the hearts of human beings.
- The Holy Spirit makes us breathe, live, dream, love, create.
- The Spirit in the grip gives us breadth, in the disease invites us to believe in healing, in chaos makes us creators.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life! This confession of faith is not a mere theological formula. It is the testimony of a permanent, historical experience. Without the eyes of faith, the plot of history is disturbing and depressing. Under the gaze of the Spirit the diagnosis is decidedly positive.
A permanent Pentecost … that never ends
Sometimes we long for the arrival of a new Pentecost, when we carry so many centuries of permanent Pentecost. And it is that we give too much importance to evil. Whoever loves passionately and waits without distress, does not give importance to evil. Jesus confronted the Evil One with the conviction that its power is limited: it is enough to ask the Abba: “Deliver us from Evil!” For Jesus, the Evil has an expiration date. The life that He gives us… does not have it.
- Jesus never promised us a society without the poor, a world without evil, a body without disease;
- But he promised us the Paraclete Spirit, that He would always be with us and would make possible the dreams of God over humanity; in this time—apparently of such misfortune—have we not discovered an unsuspected kindness on earth? There has been a spring of good attitudes, of friendship, mutual aid, creativity …
Negative people: heat of life on ice!
- They give up the oxygen bag to drown from their breathless lungs.
- They are unable to discover the Spirit that encourages all of creation and all of humanity and connect to Him to breathe.
- People who allow themselves to be ignited with the flames of the Spirit, who let themselves be aired by the strong wind of the Spirit, or refreshed by the rivers of living water, experience in them and in others an unusual blossoming of charisms, of gifts, which do possible the impossible. They trust in the rhythms of God. They celebrate that for many centuries now there has been in humanity a source of Living Water that fertilizes everything, a divine Breath that makes us breathe, a Fire of God that energizes everything, a Spirit that guides us towards Paradise, when it seems that everything is lost.
Those who breathe out the Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Breath of the world. We live thanks to the Spirit. And when a person, filled with the Spirit, dies, he or she does not lose it … he or she breathes it out on others! The risen Jesus breathed out the Spirit. The risen Mary exhales the Spirit wherever she shows herself. Those who on earth are recognized as fathers and mothers of the nation, of culture, of art, of spirituality … even though they have disappeared, they continue to breathe out the Spirit.
May the Abba and Jesus grant us on this day the grace to “breathe as it should and that after filling our lungs with Spirit, the whole Church become more smiling and hopeful:
“In the Last Days,” God says,
Acts 2: 17
“I will pour out my Spirit
on every kind of people:
Your sons will prophesy,
also your daughters;
Your young men will see visions,
your old men dream dreams.”
To contemplate:
MEMORIES – MAROON 5
LYRICS
[Chorus]
Here’s to the ones that we got
Cheers to the wish you were here, but you’re not
‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
Of everything we’ve been through
Toast to the ones here today
Toast to the ones that we lost on the way
‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
And the memories bring back, memories bring back you
[Verse 1]
There’s a time that I remember, when I did not know no pain
When I believed in forever, and everything would stay the same
Now my heart feel like December when somebody say your name
‘Cause I can’t reach out to call you, but I know I will one day, yeah
[Pre-Chorus]
Everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody hurts someday, ayy-ayy
But everything gon’ be alright
Go and raise a glass and say, ayy
[Chorus]
Here’s to the ones that we got
Cheers to the wish you were here, but you’re not
‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
Of everything we’ve been through
Toast to the ones here today
Toast to the ones that we lost on the way
‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
And the memories bring back, memories bring back you
[Post-Chorus]
Doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo
Memories bring back, memories bring back you
[Verse 2]
There’s a time that I remember when I never felt so lost
When I felt all of the hatred was too powerful to stop (Ooh, yeah)
Now my heart feel like an ember and it’s lighting up the dark
I’ll carry these torches for ya that you know I’ll never drop, yeah
[Chorus]
Here’s to the ones that we got (Oh-oh)
Cheers to the wish you were here, but you’re not
‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories
Of everything we’ve been through (No, no)
Toast to the ones here today (Ayy)
Toast to the ones that we lost on the way
‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories (Ayy)
And the memories bring back, memories bring back you
[Post-Chorus]
Doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo
Memories bring back, memories bring back you
Doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo
Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo (Ooh, yeah)
Memories bring back, memories bring back you
[Outro]
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no
Memories bring back, memories bring back you
(Translation from Spanish to English: Fr. Alberto Rossa, cmf)
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