Good afternoon from Mary of the Angels…

As you can see we are all ready for Pentecost thanks to Toni and Rayne who prepared the altar. As you can see we are all in God’s training class!!

Anyway as I was reflecting today on Pentecost what hit me was the word ‘cost’ in Pente’cost’.

What is the cost of being filled with the Holy Spirit? What is the cost of following Jesus?

In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells us

Are you still as keen now in receiving the Holy Spirit?!!

Don’t worry if the answer is no because without the Holy Spirit that’s normal!

You see it’s the Holy Spirit who shows us in our hearts why it’s worth it, why if push came to shove that it’d be worth dying for Jesus.

Without the Holy Spirit our faith is a human sort of a faith, something important but certainly not something worth dying or getting into trouble for!

And this is why when and if you give your life to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit many will think that you are a lunatic and a fanatic because they will not understand.

The Spirit will open our eyes to spiritual realities, to spiritual healing, to the reality of sin and to some this is a terrible insult and will persecute us. Sadly some and even a lot of our opposition will come from Christians who are not filled with the Spirit and somehow oppose many of the supernatural charisms and prompting of the Spirit.

And so today as we pray for a great infusion of the Holy Spirit, now more than ever we need to pray for the gifts of strength and Holy Boldness to stand strong in the conviction and love of the Spirit even when we are insulted, hated and persecuted by those around us.

Let us unite our hearts to the heard of Jesus and be convinced that whatever the cost of Pentecost may be, the reward will be far greater as we look to heaven where we will spend an eternity in glory with Jesus.

Come Holy Spirit, make us burn with love for Jesus no matter what the cost.

Michael