We depart from our regular conversation this week to reflect on Pentecost, both in the life of the Church, and in our own individual lives.

(And apologies for the sound quality on this particular video. Although it did suggest the title for this post. God works in mysterious ways.)

Yeah, I kinda wondered what that penguin was doing on the table, too.

But it did nicely demonstrate one of my favorite metaphors for nurturing our relationship with God: “Staying connected to The Power Grid.”

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and Our Blessed Lady in the form of tongues of flame. In His light, they were transformed, and being transformed as individuals, they established the Church.

Human beings are hard-wired for a relationship with God. He knows this, even if we don’t. He gives us all kinds of grace through the sacraments of the Church. He feeds us with His very self. He sends us the Holy Spirit to confirm us in grace. When we walk in His light, His grace draws us ever closer to Him; we become the people He yearns for us to be. And as we become better people, the Church becomes a better Church.

Cut off from His grace…we cut our power cord, tape over our solar panel, and we experience the worst kind of “technical difficulties.”

Want proof? Next time you’re in line at the grocery store, take a good hard look at those tabloid headlines screaming broken marriages, adulteries, addictions…and consider just how much misery would be avoided had those celebrities lived in the light of grace. (And how grateful you are not to be on those covers yourself.) Watch the news, the window onto a world mired in lust, anger, war…a dark, cold, world that denies human dignity at every turn. (If we were a solar-powered penguin…we’d be shutting down, too.)

The Holy Spirit has the power to transform our lives…transform our world. We desperately need such transformation.

But we have to allow Him to enflame our hearts, and our culture, with love for God. Prayer is the key to our hearts. Like the Apostles, we should be praying with the Blessed Mother for God to send us His Holy Spirit. Toward that end…

Just today, a friend gave me a booklet (bearing the imprimatur of Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia) on a Marian devotion, The Flame of Love.

The devotion began in Communist Hungary in the 1960s, when Elizabeth Kindelmann began hearing Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin, desiring her to spread the Flame of Love throughout the whole world for the salvation of souls, and for peace.

One of the simplest ways to participate in this devotion is to pray the Hail Mary, and include the following petition: “Spread the effect of grace of Thy Flame of Love over all of humanity.”

But don’t stop there. Learn more. And invite the Holy Spirit into your life:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love.

V.  Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created.
R.  And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray. O God, Who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

P.S. Happy Feast Day of St. Anthony of Padua! St. Anthony, pray for us!