Angelus News | June 3, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 11

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
The sacrament of Pentecost
Confirmation has been called a “sacrament in search
of a theology,” and a canonized saint has referred
to the Holy Spirit as “the Great Unknown.” Can it
be that both our doctrine and our devotion are so impoverished
that we know neither the gift nor the giver?
If we neglect the Holy Spirit and forget our confirmation,
we are missing out on the very reason for our redemption.
God became man not merely to save us from something
(our sins), but to save us for something (to live as children
of God). To be saved means nothing less than to share
God’s nature.
And so we do because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus
told his apostles that the Spirit would “take what is mine
and declare it to you” (John 6:14). It is the Spirit, then,
who gives us our life in the Blessed Trinity. For it is the
Spirit who gives us the life of the Son.
To send the Spirit was Jesus’ stated purpose. He told his
apostles: “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do
not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if
I go, I will send him to you . . . When the Spirit of truth
comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (Jn 16:7, 13).
True to his promise, Jesus appeared to his apostles and
“breathed on them, and said to them,
“Pentecostés,” by Juan
Bautista Maino, 1581-
1649, Spanish.
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‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ ” (John
20:22). Then, at the first Christian
Pentecost, came a universal outpouring
of the Holy Spirit upon the
Church (Acts 2). This event had been
foreshadowed in many Old Testament
prophecies about the age of the
Messiah (Isaiah 44:3, 59:21; Ezekiel 11:19, 36:25ff–27; l
John 2:28). Surely the greatness of the gift exceeded all
expectations.
It was the gift not of something, but of Someone. It was
the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It’s clear from the Acts of the Apostles that Pentecost was
an event intended for the entire Church, not just an elite,
and not just for a day. It would be extended through time
— institutionalized — by the sacraments. The gift of the
Spirit came with baptism but was somehow completed by
another rite.
“Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria
had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and
John, who came down and prayed for them that they might
receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of
them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they
received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14–17).
This Pentecost we should examine ourselves on our devotion
to the Holy Spirit and our appreciation for the day we
were confirmed. If we are confirmed, then the Holy Spirit
dwells within us. We are his temples (1 Corinthians 6:19).
We don’t have to go far to get to know him.
40 • ANGELUS • June 3, 2022