Given at Pentecost, 5th June 2022, at Westminster Cathedral
Today we celebrate the start of the adventure of the Church. It is our birthday, the day we remember how frightened apostles became bold, how the message of our healing and wholeness began to be offered to a needy world. Today, as St Paul tells us, we begin again to learn how to live spiritual lives, a way of living not based solely on profit and loss, on emotional highs and lows. He tells us that the Holy Spirit is to fill our lives and be our true source of energy and goodness. Today we recall the gift of the Holy Spirit who will teach us everything, and guide this great adventure of faith in and through the Church. The Spirit will show us how to use well every gift we have received and will lead us to that fulfilment for which we have been created and for which, instinctively, we long.
This is one of the great feasts of the Church, for it marks the coming home to each one of us of the greatest gift of God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the love between the Father and the Son, coming to be within each one of us, to be our innermost life, a life that will never be withdrawn, a life that will draw us to our heavenly home. This, then, is the feast day of every person, celebrated most fully by those, like us, blessed with the gift of faith, a gift by which we name and praise our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There are many images by which we try to understand the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is our ‘blessed light’, our ‘living power’, ‘sweet unction’ or anointing, the ‘finger of God’s right hand’, so wonderfully portrayed by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, the tongue of flame firing the first apostles as we heard in the Gospel. There are many more. But my favourite is the Holy Spirit as a cleaning, refreshing, life-giving water.
Think, for a minute, of the rain, our main source of water. It comes, sometimes most inconveniently, whether we like it or not. It falls always in the same shape and form, although sometimes gently, sometimes in a great downpour. Yet its effect is so different: falling on a tree it enables it to bear fruit; on a rose it helps produce a beautiful flower; with the help of bees it brings about honey; in the dry lands it brings all forms of life. Yet the rain never changes. It remains the same, yet brings about such a range of effects.
So too with the Holy Spirit. The same gift brings about different gifts in each person, in every one of us. In some, it helps them to be patient; in others it makes them bold and forthright; in others it gives them the gift of bearing pain in a noble manner; it others the Holy Spirit gives the gift of well-chosen words and wisdom. It is the Holy Spirit which brings such variety and fruitfulness into the Garden of the Church, the Garden of humanity. This is why we can rejoice in each other’s gifts, without jealousy or rancour, for every gift is given for the benefit of all. So today thank God for the gifts of the persons around you, in your family and wider circles, and pray that they use well the gifts they have, guided by this Holy Spirit of love.
Today as we thank God for the many gifts that enrich our lives and our communities, we are celebrating one person in particular, Her Majesty the Queen, as she celebrates this wonderful Platinum Jubilee. Her life has been marked by the solemn anointing, the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit, in her baptism, at her confirmation and, of course, when she was crowned Queen. We know that this same Holy Spirit has been her guide and strength, the Spirit poured out from the wounded side of Christ.
In these days, countless words have been written and spoken about the wonder of her life of service, a service which has been given unstintingly and unwaveringly, through thick and thin, with calmness and serenity, an example to us all. Yet what we do not hear in the media are her own words about how her life has been shaped and from where it gains its innermost strength. She has told us time and again, but these are words largely overlooked and therefore easily missed.
For example, in the depth of the lockdown she told us this: ‘The teachings of Christ have served as my inner light, as has the sense of purpose we can find in coming together for worship.’ She spoke of the light which ‘guided the shepherds and wise men to Jesus’, of the example of the Good Samaritan and of the ‘kindness so relevant today’ and prayed that ‘selfless love and, above all, hope guide us in times ahead.’
In 2021 she spoke of the life and person of Jesus as ‘the bedrock of my faith’. Her words, not mine: ‘the bedrock of her faith.’ Earlier, in 2014, she told us quite clearly that ‘Jesus Christ is the inspiration and anchor in my life’, speaking of Jesus as the ‘role model of reconciliation and forgiveness’. She continued: ‘Christ’s example has taught me to seek and respect and value all people, of whatever faith (in God) or none.’
She might now add: And Paddington Bear, too.
We rightly rejoice in her long reign, in her service to our unity as a people, in her example and leadership. But let us not forget these words of witness that she gives. They are a gift of the Holy Spirit for us all. We can take them to heart and indeed make them our own: Jesus, my inner light; Jesus my inspiration and anchor; Jesus the bedrock of my faith. These are ever-deeper reasons why, in this Jubilee, we thank God for Her Majesty and offer to God our fervent prayers for her health and well-being.
Amen.
✠ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
Photo: Mazur/CBCEW.org.uk