BORN AGAIN IN THE SPIRIT

 A REFLECTION FOR WHITSUNDAY

There was a reason why our Lady was present with the Apostles that first Pentecost morning.  It was certainly not because she needed to be strengthened and sanctified by the Holy Ghost.  She was already “full of grace.”  She was there to fulfill for the second time the prophecy of the Angel Gabriel: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy One which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”   Once again our Lady would miraculously conceive and bear a Child.  Only this time it would not be the physical body of Christ but his Mystical Body, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

 

Once more the Word of God breathes forth a command.  At Creation he demands that there be light, and the story of man begins in time and space.  At the Annunciation he speaks again, saying “This is my Body” and becoming flesh in the womb of his Mother to continue the story of man and his Redemption.  At the Last Supper he repeats those words “This is my Body,” sharing his divine authority with his priests that they would also “do this in his memory” so that the Word could become flesh in the Holy Eucharist, and man could enjoy the source and presence of salvation abiding with them forever.  Now in the very same room where he performed the first Mass, the Word once more breathes forth his Holy Ghost with the same powerful words “This is my Body,” and the Church has its birth, the Mystical Body dwells amongst us, giving man the power to be a part of that Body by his adherence in faith and his communion in love.

 

On Good Friday, our Lord had looked down from the cross on his Apostle John and had said to him: “Son, behold thy Mother!”  In doing so he made our Lady not only St. John’s Mother but the Mother of the whole Church.  The events of Pentecost were nothing more than the confirmation of our Lady’s role as Mother of Christ’s Mystical Body.   She is Mother of God, and Mother of all God’s creation, but most especially she is the Mother of Holy Church, that Church in which she would continue until the end of time to bring us her Son, our Lord, to be our light and life.  Just as she gave birth to a Son in Bethlehem, “House of Bread”, so she will now bring forth her Son at Holy Mass to be our living Bread.

 

As the Apostles prayed in the nine days between Ascension Day and Pentecost, God the Father looked down on the world he had created, a world in which the “Light of the world” no longer walked and dwelt.  He had known from all eternity that this light could not be extinguished from his people, and had prepared for this time, the moment when his Son would speak from the heavens, “This is my Body,” and the Mystical Body, the Church, would be born. 

 

When the Word of God thus spoke, the Holy Ghost moved once more upon the face of the darkened world, igniting that new spark of light, the light that would be the life of that Mystical Body.  This new spark of light took the form of tongues of fire, not only enlightening but galvanizing the Apostles on whose heads it settled.  The Holy Ghost, who at the moment of creation had illuminated the empty darkness of the world, now brought the same bright radiance to the twelve men chosen to bring to that same world the holy truth of the Gospel and the Blessed Sacrament of Salvation.  Is it any wonder our holy Mass begins with the priest’s invocation to the Holy Ghost, to send forth his light and his truth—Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam!

 

On Pentecost Sunday the world changed forever.  It heard again the great announcement of the herald angels of Christmas night: “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day… a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”  The holy city of Jerusalem, that city of God of which “glorious things are spoken,” is now revealed as the fulfillment of the prophecy that “of Sion it shall be reported, that he was born in her.”  In thirty-three short years we have moved from the Third Joyful Mystery to the Third Glorious, from the physical birth of Christ in Bethlehem, House of Bread, to the mystical birth of Christ in his Church, the true House of Bread.  Our temporal gift of joy has been transformed into an eternal and glorious remedy: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the consummation of the world.”