The Advent of the Holy Spirit

I chose for this meditation the image of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. She is also Our Lady of the Cenacle; her hand are raised in ceaseless prayer and in readiness for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. The Infant Christ held within His Most Pure Mother represents the nascent Church, the Church enclosed within the Immaculate Heart of Mary during the days of retreat in the Cenacle. The holy oblations depicted in this icon remind us that the Church, already in the Cenacle, was nourished and sustained by the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist.

Enclosed in One Place

Beginning with Second Vespers of the Ascension of the Lord, the Church prays intensely, urgently, insistently for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Obedient to the command of Christ, “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father” (Ac 1:4), we remain quiet and still, “enclosed” in one place. We have entered upon a kind of Advent of the Holy Spirit.

Concrete Gestures

This Advent of the Holy Spirit renews us in the desire for silence and separation from the world. The Mother of Jesus and the Apostles sequestered themselves in the Cenacle. They withdrew to a place apart. Each of us is called, according to his state in life, to separation from the world. During these days preceding Pentecost, one must, in some way, find concrete gestures to make the retreat of the Cenacle real. It is useless to speak in vague and idealistic terms of silence and separation from the world, if our actions and choices belie our pious discourse. For one it will be a resolute “No” to the television, to videos, and to an inordinate use of the internet. For another it will be abstinence from reading those things in newspapers and magazines that excite curiosity and leave troubling impressions on the soul. For yet another it will be a more generous application to that costly outward silence that is the price of inward silence.

O Rex Gloriae

We are in the Advent of the Holy Spirit, the Advent of the Cenacle. It is no mere coincidence that the second mode melody of the Ascension Magnificat Antiphon, O Rex Gloriae is the very one used for the Great O Antiphons of Advent. The same climate of irrepressible and joyful expectation pervades the Church. “O King of glory, Thou Lord of Sabaoth, who on this day didst ascend with exceeding triumph far above all heavens: we pray Thee leave us not comfortless, but send on us the Promise of the Father, the Spirit of Truth, alleluia” (Magnificat Antiphon, Second Vespers of the Ascension).

The Springtime Advent

We cried out, last December, during our winter Advent, for the coming of Christ, the first Paraclete, the Advocate who is to us Wisdom, Adonai, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Dayspring from on high, King of Nations, and Emmanuel. “I will pray the Father,” He said, “and He will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; you know Him for he dwells with you, and will be in you” (Jn 14:16 17). In this springtime Advent of the Holy Spirit, made bold by the prayer of the risen and ascended Christ on our behalf, we cry out for the other Paraclete, the Comforter sent by the Father to plead our cause.

Veni!

We cry out for the coming of the Father of the Poor, the Giver of Gifts, the Light of hearts, the best of all Consolers, the soul’s sweet Guest and gentle refreshment (cf., Pentecost Sequence, Veni, Sancte Spiritus). The Veni Creator is repeated every evening at Vespers from Ascension to Pentecost, swelling with intensity as the Fiftieth Day approaches. The whole prayer of the Church during this Advent of the Holy Spirit is, as it were, condensed in a single aspiration rising “out of the depths” (Ps 129:1), “Veni!”