Pentecost: Receiving the Holy Spirit and Living the Faith

by Fr. John Granato  |  06/08/2025  |  Words from Fr. John

My Dear Friends,

Today we celebrate the great feast day of Pentecost, the commemoration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the beginning of the Church. During the Easter season we focus, of course, on the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ. It is true that Jesus speaks of the Spirit throughout the Easter season in our Scriptures, but it is only today that we have a specific day in our liturgical calendar devoted to the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

St. Paul reminds us throughout his letters that it is the Holy Spirit that allows us to call Jesus, Lord. We also receive the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Holy Spirit. He is the Person who sanctifies us and bonds us in love to the Father and Son because he himself is Love. Our bodies become a Temple of the Spirit when we are baptized and he resides in us and finds his dwelling place within us as long as we are not in mortal sin. Next week, we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity; the Father does not get a day to himself, for every Mass is a prayer to the Father, through his son, in the Holy Spirit.

When they pray, there are some people who use the words, Holy Ghost. Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost mean the same thing. In the King James Version of the Bible, Holy Ghost is used. In the Douay-Reims translation from the Latin into the English, there are also references to Holy Ghost, but this translation also uses Holy Spirit. They are interchangeable. Throughout the last century, most Catholics (theologians, clergy, laity) moved away from Ghost and used Spirit more often. Using the word Ghost conjures up images of ghosts and haunted houses.

Today, though, the word Spirit also conjures up negative connotations, such as “I am spiritual, not religious,” and the Spirit of the age or Spirit of Vatican II. When it comes to prayer, though, it is not wrong either way to say Spirit or Ghost; both are legitimate translations of spiritus and are used in our Catholic prayer books written or translated into English for centuries. On this Pentecost Sunday, we turn to the Holy Spirit, and we ask for the pouring out of life-giving water, who is the Holy Spirit, so that we may be anointed and sanctified and so that we may evangelize our families, friends, workplaces and our culture to the beauty and joy of following Jesus Christ.

Come, Holy Spirit, come!! Renew the face of the Earth!

God bless!