Unifying qualifiers like “one” and “the same” saturate Paul’s description of the Holy Spirit, as well as the results of His work upon the Church. The Lord is sharing the internal unity of His Trinitarian nature with believing souls, who can only come to faith through the unique influence of God’s Third Person: “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” The preceding half verse (excised from the Lectionary) stands in jarring contrast to that beautiful profession of belief, claiming that no one who speaks by God’s spirit would call Jesus accursed.
John’s first epistle reflects comparable phrasing, demonstrating how widely shared this material likely was, which could well have constituted the earliest credal articulation of Christianity. The declaration seems basic to us, rendered overcommon in all our codified prayers (“Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord”), but it necessitated the activity of the Spirit of Almighty God Himself for someone to pronounce it. John further speaks of testing spirits, and being aware of the ever-present antichrist’s spirit and false prophets who are agents of division and deceit. He juxtaposes their machinations at length with a description of the Church, the Christian community unified by love, which is the very nature of God.
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Other portions of Paul’s letter omitted here specify the various charisms the Spirit bestows, including discernment of spirits and other related gifts that serve to coalesce the Church from all its disparate components into a single harmonious whole: “all the parts of the body, though many, are one body.” This happens through the Sacramental life practiced by our spiritual ancestors by command of Christ from the first day of the nascent Church’s life, starting with Pentecost: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” as Paul would later write. Later in this speech we hear Peter delivering after the descent of the Holy Spirit, roughly 3,000 people became believers through the saving waters of rebirth. They included representatives from far-flung lands, “from every nation under heaven” encompassing “both Jews and converts to Judaism.” Here again, the unity of the original apostolic assembly is emphasized, as “they were all in one place together,” and their congruity in turn gets imparted to the masses.
Soon their differentiation would be rendered null when “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues.” The yet-unconverted crowd “were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement.” The linguistic concord they enjoyed symbolized their spiritual unanimity.
The Gospel, however, transports us to the apostles’ locked room on Easter night, when the Lord makes one of His multiple appearances that busy Resurrection day but anticipating the fullness of His revelation at Pentecost. “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” This was a preemptive distribution of grace, the gentle but powerful air from within the New Adam foreshadowing 50 days later when “suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.”
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Indeed, the Spirit had always been present, from the beginning of creation flitting upon the surface of the waters, because the living universe could not exist without His sharing that lifebreath with them to hold them in being, ever since filling the lungs of our first parent. The Psalmist affirms: “How manifold are your works, O Lord! The earth is full of your creatures… If you take away their breath, they perish and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” Salvation is a spiritual life and death matter, for “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” There’s no dry middle ground.
When Our Lord visits His trusted representatives, although He just “showed them his hands and his side,” the painful reminders of His Passion’s horrors three days prior, “The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” That’s an appropriate reaction to the shock of His Resurrection, but perhaps short-lived. Christ immediately promises unity with Him even in suffering, announcing, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” A spiritual revitalization through the Spirit’s action is still underway in the age of the Church; the harmony amid God’s animated handiwork that Christ repeatedly describes as “peace” when He “came and stood in their midst,” where He remains yet today by His Holy Spirit.