Anyone Else Sensing a Theme Here?

[A reflection on the Gospel passage for the Mass of the Day of Pentecost, Sunday, June 8, 2025. The readings appointed for today may be found by clicking this link: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/day-of-pentecost-c/ ]

Humans are prone to perceive patterns, even when they are not there. The phenomenon is so pervasive that psychiatrists have given it a name, apophenia. Yet there are times when there is a pattern, particularly when a teacher is trying to drive a point home and cement it into the minds of their pupils. Take, for instance, the Gospel passages from the past few weeks. Three weeks ago we read that Our Lord comforted His followers by telling them that He was leaving to prepare a place for them with the Father, a reference to God and Human entering into full communion with space for everyone who wishes to do so. Two weeks ago the passage referred to the Spirit's work that would begin in them, embedding God in their hearts and them in the heart of God. Last week we heard His prayer that we all would be one just as He and the Father are one, another reference not only to us dwelling in the heart of God and God in us but also each of us dwelling in the heart of the other.

This week is by no means different. This week it comes to pass. This week the wreckage of the barriers that were destroyed at the Resurrection are swept away by the wind of the Holy Spirit. In this passage, Our Lord stresses again that to see Him is to see the Father, and that One was coming who would testify to that truth by dwelling in us as the same Spirit dwells together with the Father and the Son. The old enmity is laid to rest. The peace and love that exists between the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity is now extended to humankind, and what separates human from human is also swept away. The mandate that we each love each other as the Persons of God love makes that real for us, and acceptance of the Gift of the indwelling of the Spirit makes that possible for us. For the Spirit of God does not speak in Classical Hebrew, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin, or Elizabethan English, but in the language of the soul, direct to the heart, with love being the key to understanding.

Because where the Spirit is, there also Jesus resides, and where we find Jesus, we find the Father. So let the wind of the Spirit blow through us and let the barriers between us and God and us and each other fall away, for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.