During this Easter season, as we prepare for the great celebration of Pentecost, we want to look at how the Holy Spirit has worked and is continuing to work in the Church. Since the very first Pentecost, the Spirit has been bringing the joy and power of the gospel to life for God’s people. In every age, he has surprised his people with gifts, power, and hope. He has always been faithful to draw God’s people closer to the Father and shower them with the love of Christ.
Throughout the Book of Acts, the message that persists is very simple: whenever the Holy Spirit fell, people’s lives were changed. We see this in the apostles who, together with the Virgin Mary, gathered in the upper room on Pentecost. We see the same thing happen in the cities of Samaria, Antioch, and Ephesus. We even see it in people as far from Christ as Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted the Church. In all these events and so many more we see the Spirit coming in power and igniting a fire that swept the ancient w
But we were spared a total aridity because we knew someone who, without our realizing it, was filtering the Holy Spirit to us. It was Mary. Somehow in this woman we were given some inkling of who or what the Holy Spirit is.
Devotion to the Lady in Blue
My father had come back from Lourdes at the end of his service in the First World War with a deep devotion to this “lovely lady dressed in blue.” And that devotion was anchored firmly by what happened to his first son, Frank, at the age of two. In my grandparents’ farmhouse, a kettle of water was boiling in the open fireplace when Frank, in an unnoticed moment of curiosity, reached and tipped the kettle over on himself, severely scalding his little leg. So severe was the burn that it demanded a skin graft. One of the ranch hands offered to undergo the operation to provide the skin. But our Aunt Margaret, before putting Frank to bed the night before the operation, sprinkled some Lourdes water on the wound and prayed devoutly tha
May the eyes of [your] hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way. (Ephesians 1:17-23)
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