As our Easter celebrations are coming to an end, I am turning my mind to Pentecost and all the many weeks that follow this day on which the church received the gift of the Holy Spirit. In reading the Book of Acts and the account of that first Pentecost, I am reminded of the boldness that was given to the disciples through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Those men and women who worked alongside Jesus as he healed across the Galilee so clearly understood at Pentecost that this power to heal all the brokenness in this world was now theirs through the Holy Spirit. Not only did they boldly engage all the brokenness of the world but they also seemed to have been given a courageous vision as well-a vision to see the possibility of God’s healing power everywhere in the world.
So this Pentecost I am going to ask God to open me to the power of the Holy Spirit as God renews that Spirit within me. I am asking that God give me the Spirit of a bold vision of God’s healing in the world. I am asking that God make me a bold healer. For Pentecost and all the weeks after, until Advent, I am asking God to banish cynicism, despair, hopelessness and apathy from within me that I might be able to see the restoring hand of God in the darkest places. And this is my Pentecost prayer for you as well.
–The Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE
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