PentA23.   Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.   “Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”  The Holy Spirit both enabled them to communicate miraculously and also impelled and ignited them to move the Jewish pilgrims to accept Jesus as the Messiah.  They were on fire with the missionary zeal of the Lord.

John 20:19-23.  Jesus appeared to his disciples, commissioning them to go out and seek others to be believers in him. Then he breathed the Holy Spirit into them to be the life-giving force in them to enable others to live in the holiness of God by forgiving them their sins.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13.  “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  Only the Spirit can breathe into us God’s life so that we can do God’s work.  The Holy Spirit is God living within us from our Baptism and Confirmation who enables us to live the spiritual life in our material bodies.  Without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we cannot live that spiritual life that is infinitely beyond the physical, material life that all the other animals of this world live.

Psalm 104.     “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”  Holy Spirit, fill us with God’s spiritual life.  Jesus said in John 3:4-7:   “None can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’” That birth is the life that the Spirit who dwells within us gives us.