"There are Three who give testimony in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these Three are one."-----1 JOHN 5, 7
Whitsunday or the Solemnity of Pentecost is a Double of the First Class Feast with a Privileged Octave of the First Order and the Station at St. Peter. Our Lord Jesus Christ, being seated on the right hand of the Father, sent, as He had promised, the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, who, after His Ascension, continued in prayer at Jerusalem, in company with the Blessed Virgin, awaiting the performance of His promise. Let us pray in like manner with the Church: "Come,O Holy Ghost , fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.
On this day our Lord Jesus Christ, Risen from the grave and seated at the right hand of the Father, communicates His own divine Life to the members of His Mystical Body through the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. So the Church having attained its full development, now first appears before the world.
"I believe in the Holy Ghost," thus sounds for every Christian who wishes to be saved the eighth article of the Apostles' Creed. In fact, as faith in God the Father and the Son fills the whole world, so, too, faith in the Holy Ghost. And as the world is full of the omnipotence of the Father and full of the Redemption through the Son, and consequently gives testimony of the Father and the Son, so also it is filled with the Providence of the Holy Ghost, and gives glory to the Holy Ghost by a like testimony.
The omnipotence of the Father as Creator of Heaven and earth called the world into existence out of nothing; but the world was still void and empty. It was the work of the Holy Ghost to adjust it and communicate to it wonderful beauty, motion, life, fertility and the multiplicity of its creatures. Hence Holy Scripture says: "The Spirit of God moved over the waters," which still covered the whole earth.
In like manner, Our Divine Savior accomplished the work of Redemption, announced truths, and gained again grace for the world; but it was the work of the Holy Ghost to adjust as it were this Redemption, to apply it to men by forming the kingdom of grace and truth, the Holy Church, and to communicate to her marvelous beauty, fruitfulness, and perpetuity, in order that in her and through her the Redemption might become the common property of all men until the end of time. For this reason, the Holy Ghost came down on Pentecost at Jerusalem, in order to begin His Divine activity for the salvation of the world. This was in accordance with the promise of Our Divine Savior to His Apostles: "I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete, in order that He may remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth." I will, therefore, speak to you today of the Holy Ghost, of His name, of His activity, and of His government of His Church.
The Holy Ghost is the Third Divine Person, as every Christian believes and knows. And every one who is Baptized or receives any of the other Sacraments, receives them in the name and with the invocation of the Holy Ghost. As we have been taught by Our Divine Savior to call the First Person Father, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, Who has adopted us as His Children; and as we for this reason call the Second Person the Son, as Jesus called Himself, so, too, do we call the Third Person, according to the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost.
True the Holy Triune God is the purest, most perfect Spirit; the Angels are also pure spirits and have no bodies; and our own souls are immortal spirits; nevertheless we call the Third Person by the particular name, Holy Spirit, because He gives to us and to the whole world that supernatural, that higher spiritual life of grace. The Apostle St. John writes: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" . This birth to a higher spiritual and supernatural life, as the fundamental condition of eternal happiness, takes place through the Holy Spirit in Baptism, as Our Divine Savior Himself teaches: "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of God"
Oremus / Let us pray
O God, Who on this day didst teach the hearts of Thy faithful by the light of the Holy Ghost: grant unto us, by the same Spirit, to be wise in what is right, and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God , forever and ever. Amen.
