Happy Friday friends,
And a blessed Pentecost for the days to come.
It is a feast I hold dear every year. And as I think about those men on fire, I’m always struck by the inherent dynamic tension of the event.
The disciples begin the day huddled in a locked room, paralyzed by fear. They end it rushing out into the street, animated by the Holy Spirit. What changes in between is their reception of the gift Christ promised at his ascension.
The disciples’ sudden zeal to announce the Gospel is striking because nothing new has been revealed to them, strictly speaking — they had spent 40 days seeing the risen Lord, eating with him, listening to him, watching him disappear into the heavens.
What they do receive in the interim is described in the Acts of the Apostles as “tongues of fire,” an image which carries well the burning intensity of the faith that seizes them, and the consuming urgency to spread it throughout the city and the world.
The tension that strikes me is…
