There is a temptation, at Pentecost, to domesticate the Holy Spirit. We speak of Him as Comforter, as Counsellor, as the gentle breath that stirs the soul – and so He is. But the liturgy will not let us rest there for long. He is more dangerous and more dynamic. Wind and fire: these are the signs of His coming. Not a warm draught and a candle flame, which we too often settle for, but the kind of wind that bends trees and the kind of fire that changes the nature of whatever or whoever He touches. The Church has always known, even when she has been reluctant to say so plainly, that the Spirit is, and should be, dangerous. Especially dangerous to our complacency.
9:00 AM
The fire that remakes
The Church’s great mystics understood that the Holy Spirit does not preserve complacency, but breaks open the soul in order to renew it
Gavin Ashenden

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