Have you ever noticed who is almost always shown in the center of a painting of Pentecost? Yep! It’s Mary. Why?
Well, Pope St. John Paul II says she was key in making it all happen.
“Pentecost is also a fruit of the Blessed Virgin’s incessant prayer,” says the Holy Father, “which is accepted by the Paraclete (i.e. the Holy Spirit) with special favor because it is an expression of her motherly love for the Lord’s disciples.”
So while it was Jesus who promised the coming of the Spirit, it happens – in part anyway – because of Mary’s intercession.
She’s in such intimate union with the Spirit that she’s the conduit of his grace and played a direct role in the outpouring of his power.
She deeply wanted us to share a similar union with the Spirit that she already enjoyed.
In fact, as the Disciples were filled with the Spirit, they were beginning to be transformed into what Mary already was, reservoirs of grace overflowing with the love and power of God.
Yes, they were still suffering from the effects of Original Sin and weren’t perfectly “full of grace” like her, but their epic transformation had begun.
And, of course, this same transformation is meant to take place in each of us, as well.
Pentecost is no climax.
It’s the dawn of the age of Christ’s Church through which we receive something beyond our wildest dreams – the grace to literally become “partakers of the divine nature” of God (2 Peter 1:4).
That’s what the Spirit’s grace does. It divinizes us. It literally makes us like Christ so that we can enter into the family of God along with Our Lady.
So don’t slow down. Don’t ever stop seeking God in prayer and reveling in the beautiful grace provided by the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity.
And even when things seem difficult, realize that Our Lady is always faithful to pray for the Spirit to pour himself out upon you.
She’s powerfully interceding for you to experience an incredible union with Almighty God just like she did for the Disciples two thousand years ago.
Ave Maria and Happy Pentecost!
Matthew
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