Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Glorious Mysteries: The Descent of the Holy Ghost
I.—Thou gavest them Thy good Spirit to teach them.—2 Esdras ix.
And they, adoring, went back into Jerusalem with great joy. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus and Simon Zelotes, and Jude the brother of James. All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.
And they were always in the Temple, praising and blessing God.
And when the days of Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. And they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak (Luke 24; Acts 1).
Hear the sound of the mighty wind as it fills the Cenacle where the disciples are assembled.
See the tongues of fire on the heads of all; the peace of each radiant face. The Comforter has come!
Feel the joy of each heart as it communes in silence with Him who has more than satisfied its every need.
II.—If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him!—Luke xi.
How hopeless, seemingly, was the prospect before the Eleven as they came slowly down from Olivet after witnessing the Ascension of their Divine Master! What Presence could compensate for His absence, or what power fit them for the work in front of them? But the Resurrection had done its work. It had taught them implicit reliance on their Master’s word. He had promised them a Comforter able to take His place and to prepare them for the work they had to do. This was enough. They went up into the Cenacle and began their preparation for Him who was to be sent.
See them in that Upper Chamber hallowed by so many mysteries; where they had heard the first Mass said by Christ Himself, and been ordained priests to do in commemoration of Him what He had done; where they had received the power to forgive sins, and the commission to teach all nations. Gathered round Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as the Scripture is careful to tell us, and Peter, now Vicar of Christ, they begin the first novena, and enter on the first Christian retreat. The details St. Luke gives us enable us to see them in their solitude and follow them in their work of preparation.
They “were all together in one place... an upper room,” far from the distractions of the world. They “were always” (i.e., very frequently) “in the Temple, praising and blessing God.” “Persevering with one mind in prayer,” under the headship of Peter, and “with Mary the Mother of Jesus.” By union of mind and heart, prayer in common, submission to authority, the motherly protection of Mary—thus did the first disciples prepare for the coming of the Holy Ghost. We must imitate them if we want Him to visit us.
We notice that the chief part of their preparation is prayer. And this, although the Holy Spirit has been promised. The promises of God are conditional. They suppose that we do our part.
See them together in their retreat. Now in silent prayer. Now listening to Peter’s words. Now one by one at Mary’s side getting a word of instruction or of counsel. And now, as the various hours of prayer come round, betaking themselves to the Temple for its services.
Watch our Lady on her return from Olivet retiring to a quiet corner of the Upper Room to be alone with God. What marvellous meditations hers will be. Her heart is filled with overwhelming joy in the Ascension. For she knows whence her Son is ascending, and whither. “If you loved Me you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father,” He said to His disciples. In proportion to her love was her gladness. She knew that of all the sons of men none had ever been or would ever be more truly an exile on earth than her Divine Child. None could feel that exile so keenly. With all His condescension to us, His willing companionship with us, His adoption of our ways, His interest in our labours and trials, He was alone. No one could rightly appreciate Him. No one could approach Him in sanctity, in hatred of sin, in weariness of soul at the wickedness and waywardness of men. No other could look out over the world from His level; measure with His standards; fathom the depths of His love; understand the aching of His Heart; respond with anything like adequateness to His affection and His desires. She herself, with all her nearness to Him and sympathy with Him, which as His Virgin Mother was her unshared privilege, remained at an infinite distance from Him. The Father alone could understand the Sacred Human Heart of His Son. Oh how glad she was—because she loved Him so purely—that He should go to the Father!
For her own sake, too, and for ours, she rejoiced. Because in ascending to heaven, her Son has gone before to show the way. Because He has taken the first fruits of His Redemption with Him into His Kingdom. Because we have now a Mediator ever living to make intercession for us before the throne of God.
She rejoiced, because the Ascension shows the value of pain and sacrifice endured for God’s glory. With what joy she now recalls the hardships suffered with her Divine Son in Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth; the disgrace that came upon her as His Mother during the Passion,—along the way to Calvary, at the foot of the Cross. She sees that to have been the companion of Christ in suffering is a higher dignity, a happier lot than any glory earth can give, that Heaven itself has nothing higher in which to glory. “Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth,” is the mutual congratulation which the Blessed never tire of repeating to one another. It is a memory whose joy is ever fresh.
She prepared herself, then, for fresh labours and troubles. A new path opened out before her as she came down from Olivet, a path marked all along by sacrifice, like her road hitherto. How dull life must have looked to her when He was gone! Yet Mary’s brave heart lived on and was content to live, even though absent from her Son, even though her heart was with her Treasure, so it was God’s Will and for His greater glory. If a saint was ready to forego the immediate possession of God in heaven for the privilege of still doing Him some service on earth, how much more generously would Mary’s heart accept the work allotted her of cherishing the orphan disciples, and helping them to spread far and wide the fruit of Christ’s Redemption.
III.—“These were all persevering in prayer.”—Acts i. And it came to pass that as He was in a certain place praying, when He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him: “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples” (Luke 11). It was the sight of His prayer that woke within the hearts of the Twelve the desire to pray, and to be taught how to pray. Long before, in the solitude of the holy Home at Nazareth, His first disciple had learned of Him this science to be desired above all others. What must prayer have been by His side, inspired by Him, aided by Him, with Him as her model and as the object of her prayer, with Him to hear and to grant! By Him, with Him, in Him, were all her petitions put up to the throne of God.
What reverence she learned of Him, what filial confidence, what fervour! See her face as she says the Our Father. Watch her at prayer in the Temple and in the Cenacle during this novena of preparation for the coming of the Holy Ghost. How does she pray? With exterior modesty, kneeling, her hands joined; with application of mind, with faith, with the certainty of obtaining. The humble persistence of the Canaanite woman won from our Lord the praise: “O woman, great is thy faith!” What was Mary’s faith, what the fulness of hope, the humility, the perseverance with which she prayed! What, therefore, will have been the fruit of her prayer!
The Apostles and disciples strengthened their supplications by union with hers. They prayed with an intimate sense of their need; with an ardent desire of receiving the promised Comforter; with confidence that their prayer would be heard in God’s good time. They prayed for gifts worthy of God; for all that was requisite to carry out His designs. If for temporal things, with freedom of heart, laying their needs trustfully before their Father in Heaven, casting their care on Him, relying on His Providence, knowing that He who is infinitely wise and good would give them all that was fitting, conforming themselves in all things spiritual and temporal to His good pleasure.
What is my daily prayer like? Does it in any respect resemble that of Mary and the disciples?
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. Pray for me that my prayer may become more like thine. Get me light to see the needs of my soul that I may know what to pray for. Remind me in time of temptation to turn at once to prayer. Teach me to convert anxieties, plans, everything into prayer. Help me to pray always with the reverence which is the fruit of faith. And with the trust of a child; commending to my Father who is in heaven all that concerns me and those who are dear to me; leaving to Him the time and the manner of His answer. Get me a trust that long delays do not dishearten, nor disappointments disturb. Get me perseverance in prayer to the end.
IV.—“Persevering with one mind.”—Acts 1.
Now at last the disciples realised that their strength must be in union. Now they understood their Master’s prayer for them: “that they may be one” (John 17). The Scripture emphasises this. “All were together... with the women, and with the Mother of Jesus and with His brethren. Peter rising up in the midst of the brethren, said (now the number of persons together was about one hundred and twenty): Men, brethren,” etc. Henceforth we hear of no bickerings among the Twelve. Peter as Head directs, even in so momentous a matter as the election of an apostle. The rest acquiesce with unquestioning loyalty. “Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood, with honour preventing one another” (Rom. 12). Each has his special claim to consideration—Andrew, the first chosen, “James, and Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars” (Galat. 2), John, the Beloved, “James, the brother of the Lord” (Galat. 1).
Mary, the object of profoundest veneration to all, is an example of submission to the Apostles. With what reverence and affability she treats them. What services she renders them. How she encourages them; solves their doubts with patience and charity; consoles them as a mother; helps them with fervent prayer. See how they bring to her both joys and sorrows, in every necessity having recourse to her, and never without consolation.
Do I, like our Lady, seek occasions of serving and helping others? Am I ready to bear defects? Do I brighten life to those around me; or the contrary? No one left Mary without having gained: could this be said of me? Is my conversation prudent, charitable, careful of the good name of the absent? Do I pray for others, for those especially who are confided to me and for whom I shall have to give an account?
V.—With Mary the Mother of Jesus.—Acts 1.
One petition summed up all Mary’s desires during her preparation for Pentecost: “Thy Kingdom come!” It was the cry of her Son’s Heart from the moment of the Incarnation. It is Its cry still from every Tabernacle, in every Mass, in the breast of every communicant. And will be till we “shall see the Kingdom of God coming in power” (Mark 8).
She prayed for herself, for the disciples, for the whole human family confided to her. For herself. We might have thought that further accessions of grace would be scarcely possible to Mary, who at fourteen, and before the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost at Nazareth, was full of grace. But the last word of the Spirit of God to us in Holy Scripture shows us our mistake: “He that is holy let him be sanctified still” (Apoc. 22). The capacity of the soul is indefinite. There is no point where we can say: Thus far and no farther.
We who find it hard, perhaps, to pray with anything like ardour for purely spiritual gifts, who fail to realise our plainest and most crying needs, can form no picture of the boundless horizons that open out before the soul that grace has lifted far above the things of earth. We have no conception of the grandeurs and beauties which it is given to her to contemplate and to desire. We do not even suspect the existence of the riches for which she is bidden to ask. Thus we cannot bring home to ourselves what “Thy Kingdom come” could mean on the lips of that fair creature of God whom He had possessed so fully from the beginning. Yet we can understand that if she is to be the channel of grace to the Church, the neck uniting the Head to the members, she must be, not only full of grace, but overflowing. As a fountain whence all may draw, she must be running over. As a queen, her riches must superabound that she may dispense on every hand. Therefore this holy one, like the last and lowest in the Kingdom of God, prayed: “Thy Kingdom come.”
It is easier to realise what this prayer would mean when prayed for the Twelve. The evangelisation of the world was before them, and with wistful eyes they were looking towards the mountains whence their help should come. Can we imagine instruments less apt than those which God had provided for His hand. So little conscious of the character of their mission, that their last question before the Ascension was: “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” So narrow, that at the Last Supper they were disputing for precedence. So illiterate and uncouth, that their very name of Galilean was a reproach.
But the foolish things of the world had God chosen that He might confound the wise; and the weak things of the world that he might confound the strong; and things that are not that He might bring to nought things that are. That no flesh should glory in His sight (I. Cor. 1). The whole glory was to redound to that Holy Spirit who was now about to descend upon His chosen to fit them for His designs. It was for this descent that Mary’s prayer went up with such a vehemence of supplication: “Thy Kingdom come!”
And she might add with her Divine Son: “Not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe” (John 17). In the purpose of God, she through whom the Redeemer came is the channel of grace to all the redeemed. With what ardour, then, will she desire for each the coming of that “Kingdom of God which is justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14). We have all of us had our share in our Mother’s prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Let us remind her of this and ask her to pray for the effect of that prayer now.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, that He may come to us and abide with us. We are not ready for His coming, but it belongs to a mother’s homely office to prepare the children for a visit. Help us, thy needy children, as a good mother supplies her little ones from her own stores.
Thou seest, Blessed Mother, how cold and careless we are, how wayward, slothful, selfish. He can and will change us if we dispose ourselves to receive Him. We put ourselves into thy hands. Make us ready for Him. Pray Him who overshadowed thee to descend upon us. Say to Him for each one of us: “Thy Kingdom come!”
VI.—They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.—Acts ii.
See the assembly of one hundred and twenty on the morning of the fiftieth day, the Day of Pentecost. All are in silent prayer, waiting God’s time, not knowing His hour is at hand. Notice, in the lowly place she has chosen, that handmaid of the Lord whom the Holy Ghost is about to overshadow for the second time.
Hark! a sound from heaven as of a mighty wind coming. Hear it filling the whole house where they are sitting. See the parted tongues, as it were of fire, upon the head of every one of them. See the sudden kindling of every countenance, testifying to the change that has been wrought within. All are filled with the Holy Ghost, according to the capacity and needs of each. He has recalled to their minds all that Christ our Lord had taught them. He has bestowed the gift of communicating to others what they have learned, and of being understood by men of every nation, tribe, and tongue. They have power to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to teach with authority and with force, to convince the intellect and to gain the will of those who hear them.
These gifts are necessary to them as preachers of the Gospel. But there are others more personal and precious. A marvellous change has been worked in themselves. In an instant the Holy Spirit has cleared away the obstacles He found in the soul of each. Like a mighty wind He has swept over them, vivifying, purifying, bracing. Like a consuming fire He has refined in an instant what was “of the earth earthly.” Deeply-rooted prejudices of race, selfishness, intemperate zeal, jealousy, presumption—failings that come out again and again in the Gospel story, are gone, replaced by the charity of God that is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to them. Now they will boldly face the Jewish priests saying: “If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye” (Acts 4). Now they will go “from the presence of the Council rejoicing that they are accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus... and every day will cease not in the Temple and from house to house to teach and preach Christ Jesus.”
Think of the humble gratitude, of the joyful praise that goes up to God from the hearts of all as they find in themselves the fruit of their Master’s promise: “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever.... You shall know Him because He shall abide with you and shall be in you” (John 14). If such were the gifts bestowed by the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, with what a plenitude of grace did He pour Himself forth on Mary in whom He found nothing to repel but all to invite Him. How He delighted in this perfect work; this supreme success from first to last; this beautiful one without spot or wrinkle, who alone among the works of His hands had loved her Creator with her whole heart and soul, with all her mind and with all her strength; this soul among whose “glorious riches” one gem still shone resplendent above all others—the humility that had enabled Him who is mighty to do great things for her!
Holy Mary, Spouse of the Holy Ghost, by the exceeding love with which He came to thee at Pentecost, pray for us, sinners, that to us, too, He may come, to purify, enlighten, heal, and enrich our needy souls.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.—Ephes. iv.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit. If to-day Upon a treacherous path thy feet He stay, Halt, and obey.
If unto nobler tasks, a higher plane He beckon thee, spring forward to attain The proffered gain.
Deem it not light that God Himself should lead Thy laggard steps, and if to better speed He urge, give heed. Commit to Him thy way. Upon Him cast Thy daily care. With Him, thine exile past, Rejoice at last.
VII.—My Spirit shall be in the midst of you, fear not.—Aggeus ii.
(1) O children of Sion, rejoice and be joyful in the Lord your God; because He hath given you a teacher of justice (Joel 2).
(2) Desire of Him to direct thy ways, and that all thy counsel may abide in Him (Tobias 4).
(3) To-day if you shall hear His voice harden not your hearts (Ps. 94).
(4) Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God (Ephes. 4).
(5) Who hath resisted Him and hath had peace? (Job 9).
(6) The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee and thou shalt be changed into another man (I. Kings, 10).
(7) Cast me not away from Thy face, and take not Thy holy Spirit from me (Ps. 50).
(8) Give to Thy servant an understanding heart (III. Kings 3).
(9) Give me wisdom that sitteth by Thy throne (Wisd. 9).
(10) Send her out of Thy holy heaven, and from the throne of Thy Majesty, that she may be with me, and may labour with me, that I may know what is acceptable with Thee (Id.).