COME, HOLY SPIRIT, COME! HOLY BOLDNESS & PICKLES

I had the joy of recently attending the Activated Disciple Seminar with several other Holy Cross parishioners as part of the ongoing Synod Evangelization implementation. The event brought together religious and lay team members from parishes across the archdiocese and included time for prayer, learning, reflecting, and sharing. It served as the culmination of a School of Discipleship and “40-Day Challenge” led by Jeff Cavins. This was an opportunity to dive more deeply and faithfully into scripture, prayer, and evangelistic mission. During the seminar, I was moved to hear the testimonies of people who shared ways in which their intentionality to being more open to the Lord and attentive to the people around them had borne fruit in the last few months. I was inspired by the presentations about the Holy Spirit given by Dr. Mary Healy, professor of Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. As we celebrate Pentecost this week, I would like to share two of my takeaways from her message.

1) As Christians, we are each called to go out and be His witnesses in the world in a particular way. But we cannot do it on our own - by relying on our own human strength, skill, education, or good intentions - or, on the flip side, think that the call doesn’t apply to us because of our human limitations and shortcomings. Not even the Apostles, who walked with Jesus and received the best “training” in the world, could spread the Good News of the Gospel on their own. And they certainly struggled with the gamut of human fear, doubt, impatience, and pride. Thanks be to God, Jesus did not leave the Apostles to figure it all out alone after His Ascension! In Acts 1, Luke writes of Christ, “He enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the ‘promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit…and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth.’” The Apostles became activated disciples only when they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and were filled with holy boldness to proclaim Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, even when it cost them their lives. Jesus wants YOU and ME to be activated disciples too, and that same Spirit is offered to us now and is essential to bearing witness to Christ and fulfilling our Christian mission.

2) The word “baptism” in the common Greek of the ancient world meant to “immerse” or to “plunge”. In fact, 200 years before Christ, a Greek physician, Nicander of Colophon, used the word in a very ordinary way: to explain how to make pickles! He describes the process of taking a cucumber, dunking it in boiling water, and then “baptizing” it in vinegar. It's not enough for that cucumber to just take a quick dunk in the vinegar – it would just remain a nice little cucumber with a light coating of vinegar. No, that cucumber needs to be immersed and remain there in order for it to be fundamentally changed into a pickle. We’re invited to take a similar approach to the sacraments and life in the Spirit. It’s not enough for us to receive a one-time, brief dunking into the Holy Spirit and then forget about Him or hold Him conveniently at arm’s length – He wants us to remain in Him and be fundamentally changed, indeed, “pickled”, all the way through!

I confess that I too often fixate on my own strength or weakness and fail to be an open vessel for the Holy Spirit to fill and work through me, so I am grateful to Dr. Mary Healy for re-centering my mind and heart. This Pentecost, may we all renew our receptiveness to being “pickled” in the Holy Spirit and pray, Come, Holy Spirit, Come!

~Laura Anderson