Does the Holy Spirit give us any special powers?

June 8, 2025

Today is the feast of Pentecost - the day on which we celebrate the disciples of Jesus being baptised with the Holy Spirit who was promised to them by Jesus.  This baptism is described in two different ways in today’s readings - the well-known one where tongues of fire descend on the disciples in the upper room (found in the first reading), and the second where the resurrected Jesus suddenly appears in their midst, despite their doors being locked, and then breathes the Holy Spirit upon them (Gospel). Both very dramatic stories - that could even be considered ‘magical’ types of stories. 

This baptism of the Spirit has been a ritual found in Christian communities of all denominations in one way or another since earliest times.  However, perhaps because the early stories of such baptisms of the Spirit were quite ‘miraculous ’ in their narration, we will notice that there is an element of the magical that pervades the different kinds of baptism of the Spirit as they are understood and practised in different Christian denominations. A stark example of this kind of magical understanding of baptism (of water), at least according to me, is found in the incident that took place in the Diocese of Phoenix (2021-2022) when  all baptisms carried out by Fr. Andres Arango from 2013-2021 were officially declared by the Church to be null and void because he used the word ‘We’ instead of ‘I’ when baptising.

As it stands, generally there are four different kinds of understandings of this baptism of the spirit that are found across various Christian denominations: (i) it is part of the initiation into the Christian community (e.g Catholic Church) (ii) it is a regeneration of the Christian who becomes a new person in Jesus (e.g. Reformed Churches); (iii) it is the complete sanctification/salvation of the person (e.g. Methodist Church), and finally (iv) it is the empowerment of the Christian to witness Jesus in specific and powerful (even miraculous)  ways (e.g. the Pentecostal Churches). Sometimes, of course, more than one understanding can be found within one denomination.

 

What is common in all of these understandings is that the Baptism of the Spirit is a ritual/practice that externally reflects an internal change or reality. And therefore, if the internal change/reality does not occur/exist, then the external ritual is completely meaningless.  

 

But what is this internal change or reality that the Holy Spirit is supposed to be bringing about? As I mentioned earlier, very often this Baptism of the Spirit is usually connected with sudden, miraculous or stupendous changes, that are reflected externally too.  Perhaps St. Paul himself realised the difficulty that arises with this focus on ‘miraculous gifts’, for he teaches his readers to remember that “there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:4). He then goes on to list out some of them.  Some of the gifts he lists are certainly gifts that seem extraordinary, like the gift of healing, the gift of speaking in tongues, or the interpretation of tongues, but there are also others which seem quite ‘ordinary’, - like the gift of knowledge, or the gift of wisdom, or the gift of offering service, the gift of administration, and the gift of teaching (1 Cor. 12:8-10 & 28).  Moreover, Paul insists that no one gift is better or higher than the others (1 Cor. 12: 11-26).   What he does insist on, however, is that all these gifts are given for the building up or service of the community/world around us, and not just for ourselves (1 Cor. 12:7)

 

But even if we take the less dramatic gifts (like the gift of teaching, for instance), how many of us can claim to have suddenly received any such gift of the Spirit, like magic, at our Confirmation/Baptism of the Spirit. And even if a person claims that s/he did receive the Holy Spirit in a dramatic manner, the reality is that such an experience does NOT guarantee a sudden/magical or permanent change in their lives. Paul is quite aware that the baptism of the Spirit does not guarantee this as he points out all the un-Christians ways found in the Corinthian Church (1 Cor.ch. 11) - a church where presumably they have already received the gifts of the Holy Spirit (as implied clearly in 1 Cor. Ch. 12)

 

Then how is the Spirit given?  How do we receive this Holy Spirit?  A general statement made is that through such a Baptism of the Spirit we are filled with a special kind of grace.  But what does it mean that we are filled with grace? Always remembering that our talk/language about God’s action on us human  beings is necessarily analogical language, we could imagine that each of us is like a rough diamond, where each of us has potential, has certain gifts, embedded within us, and on whom the divine light of grace is always shining.  However, we ourselves can  only shine/sparkle, if we spend our life journey, working assiduously to scrape out, cut out the ‘negative’ parts, and then continue over our lives to clean, polish etc.  Gradually, or eventually, the time comes when we begin to start reflecting the divine light of grace, like a diamond reflects light. Another analogy is that of the ice-skater who struggles over many years to practice ice-skating, and becomes more and more grace-ful in that - so that when we see the ice-skater at his/her most beautiful best, we see their movements filled with so much grace.

 

In the same manner, as we struggle and make efforts to learn how to use our gifts/charisms for others, we become better and better at that, falling back at times, and then struggling to get up again, until the day comes when we become more and more full of grace in doing what the Spirit has graced us with (though never perfectly so).  So grace is indeed a gift, but it is not a sudden infusion of power or skill or whatever, but a gradual development of a power or skill or gift/charism that we have worked at, built around the ‘seed’ (gifted to each of us) that blossoms in the divine light of grace that is actually always present to us.  

 

This filling us with grace may be initiated by a ritual of baptism of water - though it may not be always be the first step as the story of Cornelius in Acts ch. 10  reminds us. But, normally, through this baptism of water, one joins a community that promises to help each of us to foster the charisms/gifts within us in order to use them as God would have us use them, in order to bring about the kingdom of heaven. Simultaneously with this  baptism, or later, or even before, one may receive the baptism of  the Spirit, as one grows into a more conscious understanding of what the baptism of water really means, and hence usually takes place when one is older. However, both of these are actually not one-off events, but a process by which, with the constant support or encouragement of the Spirit of God, we are baptised/bathed in the Spirit - for baptism is but a bathing, a dip, in the ultimate goodness of God.  

The fact is that we are drowned in an ocean of God’s grace, and God’s Spirit is ALWAYS available to us, even before we were ever baptised.  Our baptisms (of water and/or of the Spirit) are external rituals that only express our own internal hesitant steps in opening ourselves to this grace, this Spirit of God - they are not gateways which need to be unlocked by a specific ritual to allow God’s Spirit to enter our lives.

First Reading: Acts 2: 1-11

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem.  And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

 

Second Reading: First Corinthians 12: 3b-7, 12-13 or Romans 8: 8-17

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord,  and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of powerful deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

 OR

 

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

 So then, brothers and sisters, we are obligated, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh - for if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!”  it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

 

 Gospel: John 20: 19-23 or John 14: 15-16, 23b-26

 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

 OR

 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”  Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”  Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you”.