Come Holy Ghost! Come with Thy Seven-fold Gifts! Come to the Aid of Thy Church!

Pentecost Sunday 2023

Happy birthday to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church! And while we’re on it, not because I hate anyone but out of love for my fellow man, I pose a question. If you have not found your way into the One True Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, why not? What are you waiting for? Sure, the place is a trainwreck right now but it’s still the only guarantee of salvation. Remember Peter’s words to Christ: “Lord to whom should we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

The first Pentecost saw the Blessed Mother surrounded by the Apostles sitting together praying. They had prayed for nine days. They anticipated the Spirit but probably had no idea what to expect (save for the Blessed Mother, who had been pondering in her Immaculate Heart all these things for years). The Spirit came upon them and they were emboldened. What flowed from that awe-inspiring event – the tongues of flame and the rushing wind – was a mass baptism. Thousands were converted that day.

Flash forward nineteen hundred years. The Apostles’ successors promised a “new springtime”, a “second Pentecost”. What followed that frightful event was the greatest apostasy in the history of the Church. Priests left the priesthood in droves. Convents and monasteries emptied almost overnight. The faithful were treated to spiritual whiplash as just about every tenet held by Catholics from the very beginning was undermined. Those who remained went uncatechized, malformed, and malnourished.

Some springtime!

Today, many of us spend hours praying our novenas, trusting in Our Lord’s promise that He will never abandon us. It is hard not to identify with the people in that upper room in the moments before the Spirit came upon them.

On Pentecost I often recall the holy martyrs of the Church. Filled with the Spirit, these men, women, and even children willingly spilled their blood out of love for Him Who died for them. Many of these martyrs were subsequently removed from the Roman calendar after the Council, by the way. I wonder why. I think in particular of the Martyrs of Compiegne, France. During the Reign of Terror, these Carmelite sisters were rounded up, stripped of the dignity of their garb, led to the scaffold, and beheaded. One by one, they ascended the steps to their beheading. To the last woman, they had the mystical lyric poem on their lips. Veni Creator Spiritus! The scene was recreated in the film Dialogues des Carmelites.

Come Holy Ghost! Renew in the hearts of Thy people Thy seven-fold gifts. Make us to see that to live for Christ is to die to ourselves and that to die for ourselves is to live in Him forever. Thy Church is in disarray, in terrible eclipse. Make us to love Thy commandments and to burn with zeal for Thy house.

Come Holy Ghost, dwell in us and guide us!