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Happy Birthday, Church
On this holy feast day of Pentecost, we have a guest blog post from our friend,
Regina Snyder Heater.
I don’t know about you, but the Holy Spirit was not given much time in my faith formation. The emphasis was on Jesus, and if you read the Creeds and the prayers of the Christian tradition, you’ll see there is precious little devoted to the enigmatic Holy Spirit (there are more mentions of Mary than the Spirit in our Common Prayers listed in the Compendium.) Even during my theological studies, the Spirit was not given much mention. (For example, it was only last year that I learned what a Paraclete is.) It seems we only devote out attention to the Holy Spirit when it’s Pentecost and Confirmation (time to sing Veni, Sanctus Spiritus unless your choir/orchestra is up to O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34, (O eternal fire, o source of love) a glorious cantata by Bach).
There’s even confusion about whether the Spirit is Spirit or a Ghost, a She or a He or an It. Perhaps it’s because the Spirit scares us, with wind and tongues of fire and promises of visions, which our mystical counterparts like Hildegard embraced with abandon, yet are frankly a little scary, at least in my mind. And yet Hildegard really seemed to “get” the Holy Spirit, to the point that it makes me a little sad to think my own inhibitions perhaps get in the way of experiencing all that the Spirit offers to me in Christ.
In John 14, Jesus tell us “the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom Abba God will send in my name, will instruct you in everything and she will remind you of all that I told you.” The Greek word used here, parakletas, means “one called to the side of” which is why this is also translated as Advocate and Counselor. It’s interesting to me that the Holy Spirit is both called and sent. We can call upon the Holy Spirit to assist us in whatever we are facing, so that we might be animated and sanctified, that we might build the Church. If we live in the Spirit – if we live an animated life – we will not only see visions of a world where the Kin-dom of God exists in the present, we will also know the Fruits of the Spirit: love (charity), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness and self-control. Those are things I want in my life, and so I will sing with our friend Hildegard and all Christians on Pentecost:
Come Holy Spirit, creator, come/from your bright heavenly throne/come take possession of our souls/and make them all your own…
Other great contributions from Hildegard about the Holy Spirit:
You are called Comforter,
gift of the highest God,
found of life, fire, love,
and spiritual unction.Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit, bestowing life unto life,
moving in All.
You are the root of all creatures,
washing away all impurity,
scouring guilt,
and anointing wounds.
Thus you are luminous and praiseworthy, Life,
awakening, and re-awakening all that is.
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{ 3 comments }
Regina, I love your reflection on the Spirit! Happy feast of the Pentecost!
Happy feast day! I also believe that the Spirit has been woefully neglected. But that could be changing? Especially with the work of eco and feminist theologians. I find Luke’s account a bit scarey too! In John, Jesus breathes on the disciples and they receive the H.S. Much nicer to be enticed that scared! But maybe we need both!
i find i neglect the holy spirit myself, too, though the idea of god’s breath, or essence, has always calmed me.