Pentecost

Papal Preacher delivers the goods:

Proclaiming that the Holy Spirit is Creator means saying that his sphere of action is not restricted to the Church, but extends to the entire creation. No place and no time is without his active presence. He acts in and out of the Bible; he acts before Christ, during the time of Christ, and after Christ, even if he never acts apart from Christ. "All truth, by whomever it is spoken," Thomas Aquinas has written, "comes from the Holy Spirit." The action of the Spirit of Christ outside the Church is not the same as his action in the Church and in the sacraments. Outside he acts by his power; in the Church he acts by his presence, in person.

This is such an important distinction to make for those who would turn ecumenism into religious pluralism. Read Dominus Iesus and learn how Jesus saves.

...it is the Holy Spirit who transforms the creation from chaos into cosmos, who makes it something beautiful, ordered, polished ("cosmos" comes from the same root as "cosmetic" and it means beautiful!), he makes a "world," in the double sense of this word. Science teaches us today that this process went on for billions of years, but the Bible -- with its simple and image-filled language -- wants to tell us that the slow evolution toward life and the present order of the world did not happen by chance, following blind material impulses. It followed, rather, a project that the Creator inserted in it from the beginning.

In a single breath, Fr. Cantalamessa turns the creation/evolution debate on its head and sets the entire discussion concisely into its proper place.

We must believe that, despite appearances, the Holy Spirit is working in the world and makes it progress. How many new discoveries, not only in the study of nature but also in the field of morality and social life! A text of Vatican II says that the Holy Spirit is at work in the evolution of the social order of the world ("Gaudium et Spes," 26). It is not only evil that grows but good does too, with the difference being that evil eliminates itself, ends with itself, while the good accumulates itself, remains.

Hallelujah! Preach it, Father! Good accumulates. What a stellar way to approach the Christian life as we look to Pentecost. May the Holy Spirit descend upon us and remain with us into life everlasting.