Occasion: Solemnity of Pentecost: At the Vigil Mass
Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:22-27; John 7:37-39

An eager young man came to Socrates and said, "Teacher, I want very much to be one of your students." He replied, "Come," took the lad over to a barrel full of water, and said, "Look into the water—tell me what you see." The young man looked and said, "I see nothing but water." "Look again!" said Socrates. When he did, the old man thrust the student's face into the water and held him there. Unable to breathe, he struggled hard, but Socrates would not let him up until the last moment. Gasping and angry, the soaked young man demanded, "Why did you do this to me?" Socrates replied, "When you were underneath the water, not sure if you would live to see another day, what did you want more than anything in the world?"

"I wanted to breathe." "Ah!" said Socrates. "When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you wanted to breathe, it is then you shall have it."

We have grown up with images of the Holy Spirit: sometimes a tongue of fire as in the Pentecost story, more often a hovering dove. But there's another way to imagine this gift of the Risen Jesus: the word spirit itself. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word for spirit is identical to the word for wind and breath. Wind, breath, spirit—all the same. So the mighty wind that shook the house where the disciples were gathered can be understood as the irresistible Spirit of God that shakes and drives them out into the streets speaking in new tongues. Even deeper, it is God's own breath of life.

We remember God breathing on the waters in Genesis, as if impregnating them, making them teem with life. God breathes into the mud, and Adam is. Jesus breathes on the disciples after the resurrection, and they are able to carry his message to the ends of the earth. Jesus breathes, and his body, the church, we, are born. But like Socrates' young student, we must desire God as much as we want to keep breathing and meditate on God's spirit not in ephemeral terms of "feelings" but as a matter of life and death.

We come to this festival of the Spirit as the climax of our months-long focus on the Paschal Mystery, an event which, if it means anything, means dying and rising. And we remember not only Jesus' passage; we must also locate in his passage our own dyings and risings.

We come to this festival of the Spirit as the climax of our months-long focus on the Paschal Mystery, an event which, if it means anything, means dying and rising. And we remember not only Jesus' passage; we must also locate in his passage our own dyings and risings.

Who is there who has not died a little in the past year? We've all tasted bitter loss somehow, and it always leaves us breathless, panting, and hollow, our groans echoing through us as if we had become Shakespeare's "bare, ruined choirs." Loss intrudes upon us and changes us, requires us to let go, again, of what we treasure, of what we believed would never die, of what we believed we could not live without. And in those "little deaths," or better, in passing through them to a new kind of life, we share in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, who enables us not merely to survive the loss, but to live again in a new way.

Such moments of passage leave their mark. A veteran returns from war, and while everyone is happy, the vet is different, doesn't say much about the experience, is not the same anymore. After a long hospital stay during which things were touch-and-go, a patient comes home, but there is now a strange quality to the world. Everything is different because you know-in a new way-how fragile and holy life is. The Paschal Mystery changes you: It gives you new freedom, but it requires you to let go of the old.

Remember how Mary Magdalene did not recognize the Risen One at first? It was undoubtedly Jesus, but he was also changed. Jesus says, "Mary, do not cling to me" because she wants to hold on to Jesus, whom she now recognizes as her beloved Teacher. But she has to let go of what is past and see Jesus and herself in a new way. It is the same for us. By our participating in Christ's Passover we allow to die in ourselves whatever can die and must die; we let go of whatever ties us down or keeps us dry as old bones. We trust that when we are out of breath, God breathes into us and we are not merely revived, but born again, a new creation.

When you want God as badly as you want to breathe, then you shall have new life in you.