Pentecoste - 2026

With Easter, we arrived at the full revelation of the mystery of our Redemption, that mystery hidden for centuries in God, the Creator of all things. Jesus was the main actor, the Father his constant point of reference, and the Holy Spirit was the divine Person who appeared least in this act of salvation. He appeared to Jesus on the day of his Baptism in the Jordan and said that whatever we asked, the Holy Spirit would give us, thus appearing as the synthesis of all the gifts. Even in the church, this must not have been among the most talked about topics if the Galatians, having already been evangelized, had never heard of Him. The Holy Spirit, more than all the three divine Persons, seems to be the "hidden God." However, Jesus spoke of Him at length in His last discourse. We could say that He was the best catechist of the Holy Spirit, and that says it all. Who is the Holy Spirit? Certainly a "good person," the Settima told me, who had received grace from Him without even finishing the novena. Risking an image, I think of creation as the work of the Father, Jesus, the Son, as the image he had before him when he created, and the Holy Spirit as the life he gave him. As in man, life is everything, but it is only seen in its effects. The Holy Spirit is the life of the universe. We repeat it every day in Mass: "In the power of the Holy Spirit, you give life and sanctify the universe." Another image: we could imagine it as the sound waves that pervade the entire universe. It's extraordinary that there is all the most beautiful music being performed, just waiting to be snatched up by our instruments and heard. The hidden God, let us call Him that, revealed Himself powerfully on the day of Pentecost to give birth to the Church. Until that moment, says Saint Augustine, it had been like that little clay doll that God had kneaded with His hands, into which He breathed His Spirit, and it came to life. It became a mystical Person: the Church of Jesus, who would never die because His soul, given to Him by God, would never abandon it. Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, when the Spirit began to manifest Himself powerfully. The Spirit is in the Church, but the Church is not the owner of the Spirit because "the Holy Spirit fills the universe" and no one knows "where He comes from or where He goes." It is clear that everything good and true in the world is His work, so it is extremely dangerous to consider ourselves the owner of good and truth. Even the Church, when she turns to Him, does so only by invoking His Presence. Honestly, He administers it, directs its direction in the sacraments, but while there are seven sacraments, they are not the only channels through which He reaches us, for He cannot be channeled. He descends upon the world like a tsunami, sweeping everything away, disrupting everything that is not His, and revealing Himself in the most unexpected places and people. God is God and cannot become anyone's property. Continuing the image of sound waves, we can capture them by opening our receptive apparatus, which is silence and prayer, remembering that, as Jesus told us, He does not shout, He does not scream, but He suggests, so silence is essential to perceive His presence and His Word. Personally, I feel the priestly dimension of being a minister of the Holy Spirit, especially when I stretch out my hands and invoke Him to transform that bread into the body of Christ. I recall the image of Elijah invoking the fire that ignites the sacrifice, while for the prophets of Baal there is nothing they could do. I believe that the only prayer that sums them all up is “Come Holy Spirit,” because Jesus assured us that He always comes.