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May the breath of God breathe in us today! May it carry us outside, for us to meet our contemporaries, in a spirit of confidence and with a will to welcome our fellow-men.
At Pentecost, we celebrate the gift of the Spirit. The word "spirit" is ambiguous because in colloquial language it suggests an immaterial being, a ghost or an apparition.
On the other hand, in both Hebrew and Greek, the biblical term designates, in a very realistic manner, wind, or breath.
Let us allow ourselves to be carried by the breath of God, from Genesis to the book of Acts, from before Creation to the foundation of the Church, from that breath which becomes the Word to the breath which shakes, and presses one to witness.
In the beginning of the Bible, right from the very first verses, we find the breath of God in the initial jumble: "the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (Gen 1.2). The breath of God first appears in the context of the original chaos where the void and darkness mixed: it speaks of power.
Creation is going to get organized around the creative force of the Word, for God's activity, throughout the first chapter of Genesis, consists in speaking and naming. "And God said: 'Let there be light' and there was light. […] God called the light 'Day' and the darkness He called 'Night'" (Gen 1.3-5).
Is this not a magnificent mastery of the divine breath, which generates the Word? God modulates His breath, His vital energy so that it is no longer a hurricane, the violence of which would contribute to the chaos, but rather a strength of life that calls to being.
In speech, is it not indeed the breath which inflects the sounds, or sets the rhythm of the tongue? Words derive their meaning from the rhythm of the speech, from the oscillation between silence and sound, fast and slow, that is, in the modulation of the breath.
Scripture becomes Word when it is carried by the breath. Then, the strength of God no longer manifests itself in the outburst of the natural elements, but in the possibility of unlocking meaning.
That creative word, which speaks the Creation in the first chapter of Genesis, is the beginning and the constant of God's care for the world. It allows the elements in chaos to subsist, and to find their place.
As it is with God, so it is by the breath, which passes through the word, that man can control his internal chaos. It may be that we have here a first image for the breath, the Spirit of God for us: that of the Word which gives meaning to our lives; that of the Word which, in the breath, gives meaning to our internal chaos.
"Suddenly, there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting" (Ac 2.2). The breath of God brings us to Jerusalem, where the disciples are gathered to celebrate the Jewish feast of Pentecost.
Together, they try to meditate, and they reflect on all of these stupendous events which they have experienced during those last fifty days: Jesus, their Lord, He in whom they had placed their every hope, has died; women have come to announce to them that the tomb was empty; the Lord has appeared to them.
What should they make of all of this now that Jesus is no longer there to tell them where to go, what to say, and what to do?
So they are by themselves, to celebrate, just like every year, the Jewish feast of Pentecost… as usual… In the end, nothing has really changed.
But the Spirit rushes into the room where they were together, and it is something like a violent gust of wind which pushes the disciples out of themselves to proclaim the marvels of God.
Inhabited by the Breath of life, they open themselves to the city and make the preaching of the Cross and of the Resurrection the crossroads of the world. Through the Spirit, the Cross becomes a testimony rendered to God, and the resurrection, a homily about life.
May the breath of God breathe in us today! May it carry us outside, for us to meet our contemporaries, in a spirit of confidence and with a will to welcome our fellow-men, so that everyone might hear the Good News in his own language!
May the breath of God be Word, and bring meaning to our life! May it whisper in our ears the gentleness which calls to being!
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