Lent-Eastertide Journey Completes with Pentecost: A Pastoral Psychological Perspective

Veni, sancte spiritus!  Veni creator spiritus! Come Holy Spirit!

We awaits the coming of the Holy Spirit. We wait for the Holy Spirit to be poured upon us! We prepare for Pentecost to conclude the 50 days of Eastertide.

Eastertide is the post-resurrection spiritual journey for us to cultivate and renew our object relation to Jesus, through prayer and reflection of his Word. In fact, given the continuity between Lent and Eastertide, in terms of the nature of our spiritual journey, Pentecost is the finale of the Lent-Eastertide spiritual journey from Ash Wednesday, passing the Paschal Triduum into the post-resurrection Eastertide toward Pentecost – so that we can stand on our feet to bear witness of the Lord, whom we are so intimate.

Through this blog article, I want to reflect our spiritual journey toward Pentecost juxtaposing the flow of the Eastertide Gospel readings to a path of object relationship development in psychology.

So, let’s begin the review with this question:

What did Lent prepared us for?     Of course, Easter!

So, we spent 40 days from Ash Wednesday, purifying our hearts, cleansing our sins, letting our sinfulness and defilement die, projecting on Jesus, the Lamb of God, who died on the Cross.  That was Lent. Then, on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, by the power of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father.  Our new life with clean heart also sprung upon letting our old sinful life die. That was how the 50 days of Eastertide began, as Lent gave its way to Easter.

Then, what has Eastertide prepared us for?  Ascension and Pentecost!

For the first 40 days of Eastertide, we have gotten much closer to Christ, the risen Lord.

As he did to the disciples walking to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), Jesus has helped us better understand his teaching through the Gospel readings throughout Eastertide (John 20:1-9 (Easter Sunday); John 20:19-31 (2^nd Sunday of Easter – Divine Mercy Sunday); Luke 24:35-48 (3^rd Sunday of Easter); John 10:11-18 (4^th Sunday of Easter – Good Shepherd Sunday); John 15:1-8 (5^th Sunday of Easter); John 15:9-17 (6^th Sunday of Easter); Mark 16:15-20 (Ascension – Ascension Sunday in place of the 7^th Sunday of Easter); John 17:11b-19 (7^th Sunday of Easter)) .  For the first three Sundays, Jesus assured us that he is risen and comforted us. Then, for the rest of Sundays during Eastertide, until Ascension, Jesus explained his object relations with the Father and with us.  Jesus described his object relation with the Father as a secure attachment. Then, Jesus describes his object relation with us in the same pattern as his with the Father – a secure attachment. For this, he used a metaphor of a shepherd and sheep. He also used another metaphor of the vine and its securely attached branches. For the shepherd-sheep relational metaphor, the Father is the one who commissioned the shepherd and provided sheep. For the vine-branches metaphor, the Father is the vine grower.

Upon describing his object relations with the Father and us, Jesus goes on to explain the essential quality of the relationship that put the Father, him (the Son), and us.  He tells that it is agape – as in his mandatum novum (John 13:34).  During the Last Supper, Jesus first demonstrated what he means by loving each other as he has loved through his washing of the disciples’ feet (John 13).

Jesus reiterated the new commandment to love one another as he has loved to tell us what it means to be the branches attached to him the true vine.  It is what makes our relationship to each other harmonious. And, Jesus further challenges us to take this loving each other command to the level of sacrificing our own lives for each other, as he, the Good Shepherd lays his own life for his sheep.

With this, Jesus feels that we are ready to handle his departure – until his return (parousia)  at the end of time.  He thinks that now our attachment with Jesus is secure enough to let Jesus return to the Father to be seated at the right hand of Him. In an analogy of developmental psychologies of Jean Piaget, now our spiritual growth is mature enough to recognize Jesus’ constant close presence, even though he is no longer physically present.  So, using Piaget’s term,  I call that now we are at the point of spiritual object permanence. Of course, as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth describe what secure attachment between a mother and her child enables, it is our secure attachment with Jesus enabling us to know that his physical absence in our sight does not mean abandoning.  To put it in Erik Erikson’s term, our secure attachment with Jesus means a firm trust between us. And, the secure attachment, characterized with mutual trust, enables us to attain spiritual object permanence, upon his Ascension.

In fact, for the 4^th Sunday (Good Shepherd Sunday), 5^th Sunday, and 6^th Sunday, the Gospel readings  are aimed for us to ensure that we cultivate healthy object relation with the risen Christ, characterized with our spiritual maturity founded upon secure attachment to Christ and based trust. Because of this foundation,  by the end of the 6^th week of Eastertide, Jesus feels confident about our spiritual maturity to demonstrate our spiritual object permanence to accept his Ascension, without suffering from traumatic grief.

When Jesus died on the Cross, we suffered from traumatic grief, compounded with our guilt and remorse for our sins, which killed him. Our grief was so severe, in part, due to a lack of our spiritual maturity and not developing health object relation with Jesus upon trust-based secure attachment.  However, this time, we have grown in faith and matured in spirit, as we have cultivated healthy object relation with Christ, based on trust-filled secure attachment, upon his resurrection.

So, here we are, we are able to let Jesus depart from us through Ascension, so that he can move on to his eschatological mission as his next call by the Father.  It is reflected in Revelation 19, the Parousia.  This is, in fact, foretold in John 14:1-4, 28.  Jesus makes it clear in these verses of John’s Gospel that his Ascension is to prepare for the end of time and to secure our place in heaven upon the Judgement.

Additionally, Jesus also explains meaning of his Ascension in regard to the Holy Spirit, which completes the object relations of Jesus with us in Trinity.

Basically, Ascension of the risen Christ is an absolutely necessary step for  Parakletos to come to us.

Up to this point, the Holy Spirit was pneuma, which is a neutral term in Greek in the New Testament. Preceding the New Testament time, the Holy Spirit was ruah, which is a feminine Hebrew word, ever present since before God began His creation (Genesis 1:2). Ruah also gave life to Adam, as it came in the form of Creator God’s breath, as ruah is the divine breath of life (Genesis 2:7). At that moment, the prototype of flesh (clay) became the living flesh as the Holy Spirit, ruah, was infused in, animating it. This scene in Genesis is evoked again, on the evening of Jesus’ resurrection, as the risen Lord put his breath (pneuma) upon the disciples, calling his breath as the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-22), as in the Gospel reading for Pentecost Sunday.

In this regard, as what ruah Elohim the (the breath/life/ Spirit of God) did to clay to become animated flesh of Adam in Genesis 2:7 is renewed as the risen Jesus breathes upon his disciples in John 20:22, as a precursor to Pentecost.  With these scriptural connection, now we can see  ruah Elohim, pneuma, and parakletos are essentially the same.  Also, considering these to be on the same spectrum running from the Genesis on to the point of Pentecost, we now understand  how ruah Elohim (the breath of God in the Old Testament) evolves into parakletos (the Holy Spirit, as Advocate, Comforter, and Counselor, as promised by Jesus through Ascension for Pentecost) , though these are the same pneuma tou theo/theopneustos (the breath of God, the God-breathed condition).  Focusing on this consistency of the Holy Spirit, stemming from the very beginning in Genesis is so critically important for us to attain spiritual object permanence upon Ascension and for parakletos to come upon us on Pentecost.

Understanding the consistency of the Holy Spirit is the very essence of our object relation with Jesus, the Son, and the Father. Thus, this is the bottom line of our object relation to the Triune God.  In this, we understand that manifestation of God may transmorphs or even transmogrify but God Godself in His essence as in the ruah-pneuma-parakletos consistency is immutable, as Thomas Aquinas’ argument in Summa Theologica Question 9.

Just before Jesus Ascends, he assures, too, that we are never be left like orphans (John 14:18). Upon his departure from us in flesh, he also promises that we will remain with us in spirit, given the consistence in Jesus’ messages in John 14:16,20, 15:4, and Matthew 28:20. For this, he teaches us that Pentecost, the infusion of the powerful Holy Spirit, ruah-pneuma-parakletos, upon us is a proof of his pre-Ascension promise, which we have come to better understand through the Eastertide Gospel readings.

So, Jesus instructs to be still and wait for the Holy Spirit to come and to be poured upon us. Namely, this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit that fortifies the effects of the Sacrament of Baptism.

Jesus had to Ascend for Pentecost to happen on us as said in these words: “Unless I go away, the Parakletos (Advocate, Counselor, Comforter) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

Now, what does Pentecost equip us  for with the Holy Spirit as the power, as said in Acts 1:8?

Mission!  It’s our mission to build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven!

The Gospel reading for Ascension (Mark 16:15-20), which is also comparable to Matthew 28:16-20, sums up what Ascension prepared us for, which is Pentecost, does.

As Jesus’s physical presence on earth goes away from the world through Ascension,  Pentecost becomes possible to take place  in the world so that we, the believers, receives the power and whatever else necessary to carry on the mission of the Lord – until his eschatological return (parousia) in Revelation 19. The mission is to build the Kingdom of God, the web of agape-filled object relations with one another, reflecting the Father-Son secure attachment (i.e. John 10:30, 38; John 14:10; John 17:21). Its ultimate essence is agape that is strong enough to give our own lives for our love objects, as exemplified by Jesus (John 10:11, 15:13). What makes our agape strong enough to be able to lay our own lives down for each other, our love objects in our object relations in faith, is the Holy Spirit as the power (Acts 1:8) and shepherding of Parakletos (John 14:26).

As the He breathed into the clay to bring life to Adam (Genesis 2:7), and impregnated Mary with God incarnate, Jesus, the Son (Matthew 1:18), as risen Jesus breathed upon the disciples (John 20:22), the Father is about to pour his mighty ruah-pneuma upon us on Pentecost, as our Parakletos to give new birth to the Church, whose fabric is our agape-based object relations. 

So, upon receiving the powerful Holy Spirit poured upon us, we become so energized and loaded with manifold gift of the Holy Spirit. Our response to Pentecost, therefore, is charismatization!

Through charismatization by the Holy Spirit, we have become more mature being in faith, fuller in our agape-based object relation in our Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.