Today’s gospel associates the Holy Spirit with a river of living water.

At the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1: 2, the image of the Holy Spirit hovering over the primeval waters sets the scene for God’s creative work. Physically, what is described is wind blowing over the expanse of water. The words Spirit, breath and wind all mean a flow of air and in the Acts of the Apostles, the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost is pictured as a mighty rush of wind. It is a universal human experience that strong wind is memorable: it uproots trees, sinks ships, and can blow away everything by its force. It is an apt description of the irresistible power of the Holy Spirit.

We bless water by breathing upon it, giving a visible form to the transfiguring work of the Holy Spirit, then by plunging the Saviour’s Cross into it. Purified and sanctified, holy water will in turn purify and sanctify everything each one of us will bless with it.

In our own lives, we first encounter the living waters of the Holy Spirit in baptism, at which the priest prays that the waters of baptism will manifest God himself. Water, the basis of our physical life, is blessed to become our gateway into eternal life. We are plunged three times right under the water, so that the forces of sin and death are drowned and we can emerge clothed with Christ’s own life. Witnessing a baptism makes one aware of the dramatic nature of human life; it is not a trivial event.

In our parish, we celebrate baptisms at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, because it is natural to experience together the Holy Spirit’s two ways of uniting us with Christ, through sanctification of water and offering back to God of all the created universe, thine own of thine own we offer unto thee, on behalf of all and for all. In return, God transfigures his perishable creation into his imperishable kingdom by making the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ.

Pentecost is the founding of the Church by the descent of the Holy Spirit, and we partake of the living waters of the Holy Spirit through the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. We do not receive those living waters as isolated individuals. We need to join others to receive God’s grace within the shared life of a community. We become Christians by joining the Church and we maintain our Christian identity by living together the liturgical seasons, which channel the living waters of the Holy Spirit. Our spiritual life and our being part of the cosmos purified by the living waters of the Holy Spirit happen together.

It is not accidental that today’s feast is marked by our turning the church building into a meadow and a wood. Bringing the world of nature into the church is not an optional extra. It is good to keep reminding ourselves of our essential need to combine nature and grace at home as well as in church.

Holy water purifies and sanctifies the places where we live and work and socialise. We turn to God by living in places which have been purified and sanctified by the living waters of the Holy Spirit. We are not meant to relate to God only in parts of our living space, but it would be folly to suppress special holy areas on the pretext that God is everywhere. All places are sanctified by special holy places, just as all times are sanctified by special holy times.

The river, the sea, the wind, the trees, the fields and the mountains are meant to be experienced as biblical and liturgical. Liturgical life is created by the alternating nights and days, by counting weeks and following the seasons. This is what we proclaim today, in order to remember it every day. Our faith is intimately woven into our time, our space, our bodies, our social life. Religion is not what people do mentally and alone in seclusion.

Today is memorable as the one Sunday in the year when we kneel in church. By this penitential gesture we show our determination to eliminate pride and arrogance which are an impenetrable wall between God and us.

May the living waters of the Holy Spirit provide us with the spiritual energy to welcome God into our every space and time. Amen.

Given by Father Yves