Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, describes Pentecost. This is where the apostles were gathered together when they experienced a strong wind. Then they saw tongues of fire that separated and came to rest over each apostle’s head. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” After this many devout people from Jerusalem “from every nation under heaven.” They were astounded to hear the apostles speaking in each of their own languages. In John’s Gospel Jesus appeared to his disciples and showed them his wounds. Then he breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.

You may have noticed that when I read Scripture I’m particularly interested in chronology, that is, what order did events happen and what was the timeline between events. Unfortunately the authors of much of Scripture didn’t share my interest and it can be hard to figure out when particular events happened.

We recently celebrated Jesus’ Ascension to heaven and that event began the Acts of the Apostles. When Jesus spoke his final words to his followers he promised that the Holy Spirit will come but also warned them that the Spirit will come at a time of the Father’s deciding. So how long was it between the Ascension and Pentecost? We don’t know. Granted we normally think of Ascension as 40 days after Easter and Pentecost 10 days after that, but that’s more tradition than Scripture.

But in a sense, the number doesn’t mean as much as the fact that there was a span of time between these events. There is a term called “liminal space” that describes the time between events. We think of liminal space as a time of waiting and transitioning even when it appears nothing is happening.

When we think about these events we can sometimes gloss over how incredible they were. Jews at the time who didn’t accept that Jesus was the Messiah expected his followers to eventually disband. They expected that while that group may have stayed together for a little while, they would eventually descend into infighting and eventual disbanding. They would be lost to history.

But that didn’t happen. Not only did they stay together but they began to build a Church. Between Easter and Ascension they gathered primarily in the hopes that Jesus would appear, and several times he did. And his primary goal was to convince his followers that he did indeed rise from the dead, body and soul. He made a point of showing them his wounds as proof. Additionally, during this time it became clear that this community would thrive and Peter was the natural leader.

And to progress, Jesus needed to leave and allow them to grow. To use a modern example they needed to take the training wheels off the bike. But once Jesus left them they may have had a community but they didn’t have all the tools they needed. They likely would have disbanded.

But Pentecost gave them the final tools they needed. I find it interesting that the sign of the Holy Spirit was not only tongues of fire, but fluency in other languages. We don’t often think about this but in Scripture different languages hearken back to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. As the story goes the people spoke one language and wished to build a tower to the sky. God then had them speak different languages to prevent the construction of the tower.

Now, with Jesus’ resurrection, ascension into Heaven, and empowered with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they are now ready to speak with one tongue. Now I’d like to tell you that this continued and all people can fully understand each other, but alas it hasn’t (yet). On the other hand it is perhaps the work of the Holy Spirit that we continue to strive to understand each other and cooperate. I live in the United States, about 30 miles from Mexico. We have Spanish speaking television channels and radio stations. We also have billboards in Spanish who don’t believe this should be allowed. Several of my fellow San Diegans think this shouldn’t be allowed because they don’t know what is being said. My suggestion is that they learn Spanish.

When we think about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit many of us hearken back to our Confirmation preparation and remember we were taught that those gifts were wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord (and if it’s any consolation I had to look them up too).

We can look at these gifts and see how they apply to our lives today. Additionally I think these gifts allow us to do what Jesus promised we could do: forgive sins. This was hard for the Jews of the time because they believed that only God could forgive sins. And many Catholics today believe that the ability to forgive sins lies exclusively with the priest in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) but that is simply not true. We can all forgive sins. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit allow us a place of increased integrity.

When someone hurts us and asks for forgiveness we aren’t telling them that what they did wasn’t sinful nor are we attempting to forget it ever happened. We are using our gifts of understanding, counsel and piety to repair our relationship and move forward.

When that happens we recognize the liminal space, that there was a period before reconciliation when both parties prepared for that moment. It wasn’t necessarily a period of action but a period of preparing, of waiting, of anticipating, and allowing ourselves to prepare for the event that makes us stronger.

And that’s why, after 2000 years, we’re still talking about Easter/Ascension/Pentecost. We are far from a group that fell into infighting, chaos, and extinction.

liminal space
lots happened between Easter and Pentecost
Jews expected JC’s followers would disperse and disappear
gift of the HS allows us to forgive, or not