“And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them” (Catholic edition RSV, Acts 2:2.3)

So was God’s irresistible spiritual power let loose on the world.  The living Spirit of God was given of whom Our Lord had told his disciples, ”…he dwells with you, and will be in you” (Catholic edition RSV, John 14:17), and the effect was immediate and startling.  From that moment they were different men.

Peter – rash, violent and unstable – now lived up to the nickname which Our Blessed Lord had given him and he became as strong and reliable as a rock.  And the same was true of the other Apostles: their own failings and shortcomings were replaced by the personal qualities of Our Lord himself.  For with the gift of the Holy Spirit, Our Lord came to them in all his risen power as he had promised them, “I go away, and I will come to you” (Catholic edition RSV, John 14:28).

The contrast between what they had been and what they became is plain enough to us as we read first the Gospels and then the Acts of the Apostles.  But to those who actually knew them at the time, they must have seemed almost unrecognisable.  And the same transformation of character was effected in their converts.  It was in reference to this observed fact that St Paul said, “…if any one is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (Catholic edition RSV, 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Thus the indwelling of the Holy Spirit not only transformed the characters of the Apostles but their whole outlook as well.

Even as late as Ascension Day the minds of the Apostles had still been preoccupied with national politics into which they intended to fit their religion.  They asked Our Lord whether he was at that time going to restore the Kingdom to Israel; that is, would the Jewish nation now become an independent monarchy again.

But with the gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, all that preoccupation was a thing of the past; the Apostles set out with a very different purpose – to establish the sovereign rule of Our Blessed Lord himself over the hearts and minds of men and women, boys and girls, of all nations.  From now on they regarded themselves as belonging totally to Our Lord, and being responsible to him all and every day, from the time they woke up in the morning to the time they went to sleep at night.

They were utterly dedicated to Our Blessed Lord, for the Holy Spirit like a mighty wind had swept out of their hearts everything that was shoddy and unworthy, and like a flaming fire had filled them with an irresistible enthusiasm for God.  And that is exactly what he is trying to do in you and me – to replace our enthusiasm for ourselves with enthusiasm for Our Blessed Lord.

First of all, the soul must be opened to the full impact of the Holy Spirit so that he may, like a great gust of fresh air, expel from it the polluted, lower atmosphere which so insidiously stifles one’s personal relationship with God.  Indeed, one can be so acclimatised to this atmosphere as not to realise it is there; and even when one does, there is the temptation to resist the Holy Spirit’s disturbing influence.  For what God is bent on is to effect a complete spiritual upheaval, to turn our souls inside out until all trace of enthusiasm for our own interests and unworthy attachments has disappeared.

To throw our souls open to the Holy Spirit means bidding farewell to fondness for money; farewell to the bearing of grudges and the harbouring of resentment; farewell to bad thoughts and desires; in fact farewell to all that spiritual smog which is an offence to God and suffocates the soul.  And when we have allowed the cleansing breeze of the Holy Spirit to sweep all that away, then there must burst into flame the fire of love and enthusiasm for God.

And we must be careful that it really is for God.  It is possible, for example, to be filled with enthusiasm for the Church as an organisation to which one belongs and which one may help to run, and yet leave God out of it altogether.  It is the temptation to treat the Church as a purely human association with purely human aims and objectives – something that exists primarily to cater for the interests of its members.

But that is not what the Church of God is.  The Church is the Body of Christ, the extension of his own Person in the world.  It is the people of God, united indissolubly with himself.  God is, and therefore must consciously be regarded as being, the be all of the Church and its end all, so that in everything God may be honoured.

And what is true of the Church as a whole must be true also of its individual members.  For the Christian religion is not a matter of leading a respectable life with an interest in Church affairs.  It is a living personal relationship with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ and within his Church.

So once people allow God, through the inward working of his Holy Spirit, to get a grip on their souls, they become different – and obviously different.  No longer do their spiritual lives with God tag along behind – easy-going, comfortable, and ineffective.  Their souls are now filled with fire, with love and with enthusiasm for God which is a reflection of the love which is burning for ever in the Sacred Heart of God’s own Son.

Let each of us ask ourself now what enthusiasm for God we find within our own heart.  Is it glowing strongly?  Fan it to a blaze.  Is it but a glimmer?  Stir it into life and warmth.  Did it die out long ago?  Then plead with God to rekindle it until it is a consuming fire.