As I was writing for
a church bulletin about this coming Sunday – Pentecost, it just occurred to me
that Pentecost is like the mightiest sperm out of more than 40 millions hitting
an egg!
No, I did not write this for the bulletin. But, I thought
this is relevant and rather helpful to understand the theology of Pentecost as
we prepare for this important feast this coming Sunday – on the 50th
day from Easter Sunday.
Actually, I had this
image of sperm hitting an egg during my Christology class at Loyola University
Chicago, taught by Dr. Bob Ludwig. In
order to explain the divine-human relation to better understand Christ, Dr.
Ludwig drew something on the chalkboard.
He drew a circle to indicate the humans on earth. Then, he proceeded to
draw an arrow toward this circle to tell a divine intervention. While everyone in the class was watching this,
I raised my hand and shamelessly said, “Dr. Ludwig, it looks like a sperm
hitting an egg!”. I never forget the
face of Dr. Ludwig in response to my comment…and his chalk being dropped. The class was filled with silence. Then, to save the class from embarrassment, I
explained that the way God intervene the humans is like how a sperm hit an egg
because as a fertilized egg immediately begins rapid cell-divisions while being
one body, the one Church also evolves as the Holy Spirit is with her. Well, Dr. Ludwig awarded me with an A on this
class. So, this sperm-egg metaphor has some theological value. Thus, I shall bring this up now to explain Pentecost.
Pentecost, with no doubt, is a great divine intervention to
the humans – pouring the animating Holy Spirit to invigorate the humans in
faith. This conjures up an image of God
pumping His breath of life (Ruah) into Adam’s nostrils in order to animate him
(Genesis 2:7) because the Apostles did not have enough power and courage to
turn their community (gathering) into the Church and embark on their mission
until they were hit by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. From this,
it is not so difficult to draw up an image of the most powerful sperm
out of millions reaching out to an egg to fertilize, to mobilize into an
growing human baby to be born.
Pentecost is often considered to be the birth of the Church
on earth – the Church as One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as declared in
the Nicene Creed. This is an image drawn
from Acts 2:1-11 (First reading for Pentecost daytime Mass) as the twelve
Apostles (by this time, Matthias had replaced Judas to restore the 12-member
format of the original Apostolic community) was mobilized by the Holy Spirit to
speak many tongues. This response to the Holy Spirit makes an interesting
contrast to the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), which is God’s punishment to human
ego, which tends to drive the humans rebel against God. While God scattered people in confusion with
many different tongues in response to building the Tower of Babel after the
Great Flood. Psychologically, the tower they built is considered to be a
manifestation of human ego, which inflates enough to suffer from “God complex”.
According to Paul (Romans 8:8-17), one effect of receiving
the Holy Spirit is to make us humble as it sets us free from the bounds of the
flesh. This is my psychoanalytical take
on Paul’s explanation of the Holy Spirit’s effect as I interpret the flesh to
bear a symbolic meaning of the human ego.
Thus, the Holy Spirit empowers us to overcome various psychological
problems caused by human ego as the Spirit enables us to transcend the
limitation of the human flesh. Now, this
aspect of the Holy Spirit echoes Buddhist teaching of overcoming suffering by
conquering the ego in our efforts to find our true self without ego.
The Holy Spirit – what a gift of love that the Father send –
not only to give a new life but also to overcome the ego! The sperm that a father sends to a mother’s
egg not only to make the egg grow into a baby to be born and grow beyond but
also to eventually develop healthy self-concept not so concerned about self.
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