The Great In Between

Dear Friends,

I call this this week “the great in-between”. The Ascension of Jesus is past. We, the Church, await  Pentecost, with all it will mean and however it will happen in us. Together, we cling to Jesus’ promise: “… it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”(John 16.7)

This week, I invite you to think about/remember when the Holy Spirit has moved you, moved in you. For example the times you:

• were in the right place at the right time,
• asked the right question,
• spoke and had no idea you thought what you voiced.
• had the sense that some course of action was appropriate, indeed compelling for you and you didn’t have verifiable data to back you up
• had the hunch that, in your interactions with others, sometimes one plus one added up to more than two?
• found yourself changing or changed in the direction of a broader vision and couldn’t figure out what prompted it?
• felt confirmed in your conviction?
• wondered where your courage came from?

In all these moments, and more, the Holy Spirit has overshadowed you.
 

There is an  intensity in the formal prayer of the Church this week. Let there be an echoing intensity in us.

But suppose there can’t be? Suppose we can’t muster up enthusiasm for this sort of realization? Don’t worry, for as Paul reminds us in Romans 8.26: “the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, for when we do not know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

This week, choose a mantra (a line) to pray over and over again. It may be

• Living Flame, burn in me.
• Fountain of life-giving Water, well up in me.
• Breath in me, O Breath of God.

Whatever it is, say it often, pray deeply to welcome anew the Ever-Renewing Spirit of God.
~Sister Joan Sobala