I have for many years meditated on the meaning of Pentecost with a beautiful text by Karl Rahner. Here it is, in English translation, and — since the German language uses grammatical gender [i.e. does not associate a gender with seemingly gender-specific pronouns] — I have rendered this passage in the feminine for the Spirit.<\/p>\n
\u2026 we have Your Holy Spirit.
\nShe is the fulfillment of all the bottomless depths of our existence.
\nShe is the life in us through which we have already overcome death.
\nShe is the unbounded happiness,
\nwhich has dried up the very last streams of our tears,
\neven when their floodwaters had risen over all the lowlands of our experience. She is God dwelling in us,
\nthe holiness of our heart, its secret rejoicing, its strength,
\nwhich is always wonderfully there,
\neven when our own strength fails and we are at our wits\u2019 end.
\nShe is in us, giving us faith and inward knowledge, although we are blind fools. For she is all-knowing and she is ours.
\nShe is the hope in us,
\nwhich does not founder in any of the shipwrecks of our own despair.
\nShe is the love in us, which loves us and which makes us love,
\ngenerously, exultantly in spite of our cold, small and narrow hearts.
\nShe is the laughter which sounds softly behind our tears.
\nShe is the confidence which bears us up,
\nthe freedom, the winged happiness of our souls.
\nWe are greater than we know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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