This is the last Sunday of the Easter season! Its Mass is vivid and exciting.

Suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.

Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. (First Reading)

Wouldn’t you have loved to be there? How thrilling!

Even more delightful, look at the wording. The noise was not an actual wind but something "like" a wind. And these were not tongues of fire, but tongues “as of fire” (i.e., “as if they were made of fire”). These were marvels that could not be described “as is.” So the writer uses metaphors.

Imagine it this way:

there was this sound that came from the sky, something that sounded like, uh, oh, let’s see, uh, wind! That’s it. It wasn’t wind but that is the closest I can get. And then stuff that looked sort of like chunks of fire, or maybe like tongues made out of fire. Only it wasn’t really fire. Or tongues either. Oh, I can’t describe it.

It was a presence that is very real but too deep for words. So “as if” becomes a way to help us sense it. We call this procedure “metaphor,” or just “comparison.”

But why don’t we get to prophesy and talk in tongues as the apostles did?* St. Paul handles this question beautifully in the Second Reading, but the answer is also found by recalling who the Holy Spirit is, as we have been doing in previous weeks. The most essential thing we can say is that the Holy Spirit is completely and truly God. The third person of the Holy Trinity comes to dwell within us. No wonder it is hard to describe!

As time went by, the bestowal of the Spirit became less dramatic but just as real. Look, for instance, at Acts 19:1-8, in which St. Paul came upon a dozen or so disciples who had never even heard of the Holy Spirit! He baptized them, and, as he “laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.” It was the sacrament of Baptism! Today, when we receive baptism and other sacraments, we are receiving the Holy Spirit! But quietly and in ritual form. Christ and his Father come to dwell within us.

Alright, then why do we not act as someone who has God within us? Well, like anything planted so deep, the Spirit's presence must have time to make its way into our actions, our words, our deeds. Whenever we find patches of charity or joy in ourselves, or patience and kindness, or the ability to endure hardship and injuries; when we are tempted toward mildness and modesty, then we can believe that the Holy Spirit is at work within us.

It is not as if heavy winds and tongues of fire were raging, as in former days. But it is the same Spirit of Jesus and of the Father—the one we celebrate today.