Last Wednesday, 4 June, President Obama joined many other world leaders gathered in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, for a special celebration, which surprisingly was completely overlooked by the British media. Exactly 25 years earlier anti-communist opposition had a landslide victory in the first free, though constrained, general election since World War II. The domino effect soon followed in other countries of the Soviet bloc and led eventually to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Yet that story of success started years earlier, on the Eve of Pentecost in 1979. In the middle of helpless, hopeless and futureless crowds shackled by ideological communism, forcibly imposed by the Soviet Union and the puppet Polish government, a newly-elected Pope John Paul II was celebrating Mass. He finished his sermon with a prayer taken from the responsorial psalm: ‘Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth’ and added: ‘This earth’, meaning “Poland”. Ten years later almost to the day, that prayer came to its fruition.
For me that story is important on several different levels: firstly, as a nation we managed to shake off the hated political system; secondly, it was my first election; thirdly, but most importantly, that whole story is an example of the Holy Spirit at work on a global scale in a mysterious way. The Pope’s visit to Poland and that prayer to the Holy Spirit changed many people in Poland. Imperceptibly to many, they found their courage and perseverance. The great ‘Solidarity’ movement sprang from that determination and led to a bloodless revolution. This is no time or place to tell that fascinating story; but personally, even if I were to lose my faith completely, that story would remain one of the clearest examples of God’s actions.
In today’s readings we listened to two stories of the Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus’ disciples. One happened publicly, in a spectacular way: tongues of fire, a powerful noise like a powerful wind, the Apostles speaking foreign languages, and a multilingual crowd attracted by such powerful manifestations. And then we’ve listened to the gospel, when Jesus, after his Resurrection, visits his terrified and hopeless disciples, locked in behind closed doors. He welcomes them with the words of peace, then says: ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you’, breathes on them, and continues: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ There’s nothing spectacular here, nothing public, just simple words and a simple gesture. Yet the Pentecostal powerful manifestation wouldn’t have happened without that modest one described by St John in his gospel. Between those two events the Apostles were growing in their faith. We can see that when after Jesus’ Ascension they gather together to pray – there’s no fear in them anymore. At Pentecost their mission, seeded on the Sunday of the Resurrection, has commenced.
We all have been baptised; most of us have received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Those two events were similar to the one described in the gospel: ‘as the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ What have you done with that gift? Have you developed it to the point where you can be sent on a mission to proclaim the Kingdom of God? Too many Christians have locked the doors of their hearts, out of fear or out of conformity. Too many of us stand idly, ready to moan, ready to complain, waiting for someone else to roll up their sleeves. But there is no one else. Today we have to repeat with faith that prayer of St John Paul II: ‘Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. This earth!’