The Catalyst of Change
Jesus breathed on the apostles and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” Jn 20:19-23
Today is the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles hiding in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews. However, once the tongues of fire touched each of them, they changed into courageous men. It is not the first time the Holy Spirit intervened in human history. In fact from creation of the world He was already there hovering over the chaos. Each time the Spirit was present in history change occurred. When the Son of God was made human and the virgin Mary became mother, the Holy Spirit came. Can we say safely that He is the catalyst of every change?
If they say that the only thing constant in the world is change. And the catalyst of change is the Holy Spirit. We can conclude that the Holy Spirit has been active all the time from eternity even before Pentecost.
In the gospel we hear John’s simple account of the coming of the Holy Spirit. There was no strong gust of wind nor blazing tongues of fire. Jesus simply breathed on His apostles saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven.”
It is not only the apostles who had received the Holy Spirit. All of us baptized and confirmed Christians received our share of God’s Spirit. But as St. Augustine had said: “The God who created you without you cannot save you without you”, the Holy Spirit does not work automatically in our Christian lives. We have our part to play to give the Spirit enough space to effect change in us. And that part is to forgive others’ sins.
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