How do you do it? Tell me your secret. You don’t look a day over. Now here’s the real ringer: you look good for your age. Tell me: “What I am supposed to look like for my age?”

Well, in any case those are expressions that older people might hear. They are expressions that younger people might use because they truly mean it, or perhaps they don’t know what else to say.

Hidden in all of those expressions is the unstated statement: “It’s always good to look young, refreshed, vibrant, full of life, perhaps bubbly, filled with vim and vigor.” Just saying all that makes me tired. I guess I’m feeling my age.

Now, before I sound like the beginning of an infomercial, let’s figure out how this applies to today’s Feast of Pentecost. Here, we have the Church. You...we are the Church. How well do we look for being 2,000 years old?
Traditionally, Pentecost is observed as the Church’s birthday. This is the day that God the Holy Spirit took up residence, so to speak, here in our midst. It is God the Holy Spirit who gives life to the Church today. So, just like anyone celebrating a birthday, we have the right to say: “Where has the time gone? Are we any worse for the wear?”

Over the centuries, as an institution, the Church has had its ups and downs. Each generation that experienced the “downs” has probably said it could not get worse. Each generation that experienced the “ups” probably wondered if it could get any better than this.

History shows us that the Church faced persecutions and suffered; history likewise will show that the Church was involved in persecutions. However, history also will demonstrate that the Church preserved the best of human culture, philosophy, wisdom, science and mathematics over the centuries. But history will also show that the Church was not always the best example of the finest of human culture.

Yes, there were, have been, and probably will be high and low moments in the way that the Church has manifested the Holy Spirit. But, before we point any fingers, should we not also look at the history, no matter how long or how brief, of each one of us? Each one of us has had high moments in life when we were living examples of all goodness, not ready to sprout angel’s wings, but really doing quite well. Then, there were perhaps the down years when our faith was weak, when hope was lacking and we loved only ourselves.

Eventually, in those low moments, we realized that the more we relied on ourselves and our own strength, the less we would succeed in virtue. The more we relied on God the Holy Spirit leading us, the more we would succeed. Faith in God leads to hope beyond measure and makes love the turning point of our daily lives. Reliance on ourselves leads only to ourselves. Reliance on the Holy Spirit brings us way beyond ourselves.

But how do we get there? If we keep our eyes closed all the time, we will never appreciate the gift, the sense, of sight. If we never touch anything, we deprive ourselves of that gift. If we hold our noses, we will never enjoy the rich aromas emanating from a kitchen or a warm burning scented candle.

So, too, it is with the Holy Spirit. If we remain closed to the Holy Spirit, we will never experience the richness of God in our lives. If we rely on our own gifts, pretending that we are the authors, we will never experience the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Those gifts do not come from a jewelry store. They come from an openness of the human spirit to the divine Holy Spirit.

So, our prayer today is a simple, but profound one, that the Holy Spirit will fill and enrich our lives and that we can open ourselves up to being enriched by this Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit, and you will renew the face of the earth. Happy Birthday to our Church. May it be a day of spiritual rebirth for each one of us.