On Sunday morning, May 24, in the year 33 A.D., 120 people were gathered together in the city of Jerusalem. Their leader had been killed seven weeks earlier, and they were in hiding. They were men and women, mostly humble workers, fishermen and the like, who lived outside the big city, on the fringes of the empire. On this morning, as the prophet Isaiah had written centuries before about their leader, “Who would have thought any more about their destiny?” (Isaiah 53:8)
These people were about to be baptized by the Holy Spirit. They were about to change the world.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul are the two primary characters in Acts, but in many ways the Holy Spirit is the principal character in the story, breathing life into the early Church, sustaining and leading it in the face of seemingly overwhelming obstacles. I’m not sure any other book of the Bible reveals the Holy Spirit to us as much as Acts. To reflect upon Acts is to reflect upon the power of the Holy Spirit, a power the Jesus invites all believers to receive.
Luke tells us in Acts 1 that Jesus Himself gave instructions to the apostles through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus “in bodily form like a dove” after Jesus was baptized (Luke 3:22) at the beginning of His ministry. Following His resurrection, Jesus told His apostles to remain in Jerusalem because they would soon be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Luke describes this slightly differently at the end of his gospel, where Jesus instructs the apostles that He is “sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Receiving the Holy Spirit is an essential part of the ministry of Jesus. If it is an essential part of the ministry of Jesus, it is all more the necessary for His followers to be baptized by the Holy Spirit to follow where the Lord will lead us. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as “the promise of my Father” and “power from on high.”
In his reflections on the Trinity, Saint Augustine identified the Holy Spirit as the eternal love between the Father and the Son:
Love, therefore, which is of God and is God, is specially the Holy Spirit, by whom the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by which love the whole Trinity dwells in us. And therefore most rightly is the Holy Spirit, although He is God, called also the gift of God. And by that gift what else can properly be understood except love, which brings to God, and without which any other gift of God whatsoever does not bring to God? . . .
The eternal love of the Father and the Son is so powerful as to be a distinct person of the Trinity. Through their baptism in the Holy Spirit, the disciples share in the love of the Father and the Son, a love which utterly transforms, filling them with the grace they need “to make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
Notes: Catholic apologist Jimmy Akins explains here why April 3, 33 AD is the most likely date of the crucifixion of Jesus, which would then place Pentecost (50 days later) on May 24, 33 AD.
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
