Pentecost:
The disciples were gathered in the Upper Room, and the Virgin Mary was with them. The Risen Lord had told them to remain in the city until they had received the gift of the Spirit from on High. And this was revealed with a “sound” they suddenly heard coming from heaven, like the “rush of a mighty wind” that filled the house they were in (cf. v. 2). Thus, it concerns a real but also symbolic experience. Something that happened but also gives us a symbolic message for our whole life. This experience reveals that the Holy Spirit is like a strong and freely flowing wind; that is, he brings us strength and brings us freedom: a strong and freely flowing wind. He cannot be controlled, stopped, nor measured; nor can his direction be foreseen. He cannot be understood within our human exigencies — we always try to frame things — he does not let himself be framed in our methods and our preconceptions. The Spirit proceeds from God the Father and from his Son Jesus Christ and bursts upon the Church; he bursts upon each one of us, giving life to our minds and our hearts. As the Creed states: he is “the Lord, the giver of life”. He has authority because he is God, and he gives life.
On the day of Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples were still disoriented and fearful. They did not yet have the courage to go out in the open. We too, at times, prefer to remain within the protective walls of our surroundings. But the Lord knows how to reach us and open the doors to our hearts. He sends upon us the Holy Spirit who envelops us and overpowers all our hesitations, tears down our defences, dismantles our false certainties. The Spirit makes us new beings, just as he did on that day with the Apostles: he renews us, new beings. After receiving the Holy Spirit they were no longer as they had been before — he changed them, but they went out and began to preach Jesus… that Jesus is risen, that the Lord is with us, in such a way that each one understood them in his or her own language. Pope Francis