Spiritual Sunday

[Eva Libre]

By Pete unseth - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34507581

A mosaic representing Pentecost on the ceiling of the St. Louis Cathedral

Today we celebrate Pentecost, the moment when the disciples experienced the Holy Spirit and realized that they no longer needed the physical presence of Jesus. Each of them had his own inner conduit to God. The Pentecost spirit is captured in a powerful poem by William Blake:

Here’s how Luke (Acts 2:1-6) describes the moment:

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

A Western depiction of the Pentecost, painted by Jean II Restout, 1732.

“Pentecost.”

Unless the eye catch fire

The God will not be seen

Unless the ear catch fire

The God will not be heard

Unless the tongue catch fire

The God will not be named

Unless the heart catch fire

The God will not be loved

Unless the mind catch fire

The God will not be known.

- William Blake

About his poetic visions, Blake wrote,

I rest not from my great task! To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.