A preacher can speak well on the topic of the Holy Spirit and the Gifts. But the New Testament is eschatological. The preacher is supposed to explain how Pentecost should prepare souls for the second coming of Christ. In the New Testament we are all supposed to be prepared, not so much for death, as for the second coming of Christ. That is Catholic spirituality. We do not await death. We await the Second Coming of Christ ‘with joyful hope.’
The apostles were the first members of the Catholic Church (aside from Mary, etc..). There were three stages in the development of this apostolic church. The first stage of this Church would begin when the apostles left all things to follow Christ. The second stage is when it developed to maturity during the passion of Christ. And the third stage is when it became perfect on Pentecost day. Pentecost was the grand finale in the development of the budding ‘Apostolic church.’
In the first stage the disciples received the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity making them members of the Church (it is faith that brings us into the Church. The Holy Spirit perfects our membership in the Church.) The other people following Christ, like the five thousand during the multiplication of the bread, were unable to enter the Church due to their inability to repent and reach faith. They remained outside the Church.
These virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity come with the state of grace following their life of Repentance. But at this initial state their virtues were weak and could easily be lost with the slightest storm.
The second stage is when their Faith, Hope and Charity begun to grow and mature. They begun to understand the deeper messages of Christ, especially the deeper meaning of the parables that was not given to those without Faith. But at this time some were beginning to lose Faith in Christ due to His hard sayings. Judas was one such person due to avarice.
The third stage begun at the Last supper when, as St. Thomas of Aquinas mentioned, Judas was expelled from the Apostolic Church without him knowing it. It was the time for the purification of the apostolic Church. Christ described this as when the Tares were being removed from the wheat field. And the Apostolic Church proceeded to greater perfection at the Crucifixion and Easter. The theological virtues of those who made up the Apostolic Church at this time were fully perfected on Pentecost day.
Here we see the Apostolic Church with the Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity perfected by the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, a perfect picture of the Apostolic Church and the way the global Catholic Church should look like TODAY. Just as every one in the room was perfect on Pentecost Day, every one in the Catholic Church should be perfect today.
As the Church after Pentecost begun to go to all nations to recruit new members she should follow the same three stages in her development. But this time in a world-wide manner.
After Pentecost the apostles begun to preach and gather members in the same way Christ did. And as the hearers repented and had their sins remitted they entered into the realm of Faith thus entering the Catholic Church. Of course, the apostles could not stop unbelievers from physically entering though spiritually they remained outside the church. The so-called ‘crowd’ really remained outside the Church.
There were also those who believed at the beginning but who would later on lose their faith. But as long as they had Faith they were inside the Church. This was the first stage in the world wide Church as she imitated the first pattern of the Apostolic Church.
Then the Church grew up to the second stage. This is when those with Faith begun to mature in their theological virtues, while those who lost their Faith were removed from the Church. With Arius, Pelagius and eventually Martin Luther etc.. we see the Church in her second stage made up of those with Faith together with those who had Faith but who eventually lost it. With regard to the latter the angels would remove them from the Church. So they will be outside. Like Judas most of them would not know they were expelled. The History of the Church is witness to this apostasy and heresy. This continuous mixture of tares and wheat has occurred rather too long in the Church that like the apostles we tend to ask ‘when will you remove the tares?’ That the Church might reach the third stage the Tares had to be removed for the Church to grow to the perfection of her theological virtues.
Though the so-called four marks of the Church are present in the Church in her three stages, these marks will appear progressively more perfect as she progresses to the third stage. More perfect in the spiritual sense and, therefore, more difficult to recognize.
The third stage in the development of the Church is difficult to visualize. Christ described them as ‘doing greater things than this.’ Catholic souls today will be doing things greater than what the early Church was doing!!!….even what the apostles did? Well, that was what Christ said. Though He did not mean more spectacular deeds in the natural or physical level. He meant in the spiritual level, in the level of the soul which are usually invisible in nature. This is what makes it difficult to detect. This will be in the contemplative and mystical spheres.
On Pentecost, the theological virtues of the apostles were perfected but they did not have enough time to perfect it further because having accomplished their mission they were martyred. The apostles had three years for the Holy Spirit to perfect their virtues. The Catholic Church have more than 2000 years. So we expect the Spirit to have done a better job today. So Christ’s statement “they will do greater things.”
Apparently after 2000 years the Church should have reached this third stage when the 4 visible signs of the Church takes a deeper and more profound character and would be more difficult to detect even to the eyes of the so-called ‘Catholics.’ The late Pope John Paul II had cried looking for the ‘Oneness’ of the Catholic Church the mark of the church in which the other three depends. Has anyone ever try looking for the 4 visible signs of the Church even in religious order? How about just her ‘Oneness’ from where the three proceeds.
Today the world-wide Catholic Church should look exactly like the small community in that room at Pentecost. Or as St. Augustine wrote commenting on the Gospel of John: they should have the theological virtues perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit pictured by the 153 fishes caught after Easter in Lake Tiberias. This is truly a work of the Holy Spirit, a Pentecost occurring within the Catholic Church.
But this is not the picture we see today. Pope Benedict in his “Caritas in veritate” bewailed that we are still in the arduous mission of evangelizing the world. What??? We still have to preach “Repent and believe” to the world! And the Holy Father adds that the reason is man’s inability to enter unto himself. What??? He is commenting about the Prodigal Son. The world not only has no faith but has not repented!!!! Then he further adds that this was due to the fact that man today has not focused his mind on God…this is like saying that man is unable to make an act of faith as defined in the Catechism.
This is the problem and the analysis of the problem. The problem is that man has no faith and, therefore, outside the Church. And the reason is because he has not focused that faculty of the soul called mind on God and the things of God as St. Paul says. That the Church today should be made up of Catholics whose virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity had been perfected by the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit just like on Pentecost day. What is the Holy Father further saying? That we must all have perfect Faith, Hope and Charity. He used the words ‘perfect spirituality’ or ‘ we must be ‘contemplatives.’ What he is not saying is: that the Church should look like this right now, just like the apostolic boat in lake Tiberias after Easter…. and that most Catholics do not know it but they are outside the Catholic Church. The Holy Father is left with only one question: where is that boat? Wherever it is, the Pope is vehemently urging us in most of his addresses to just get in that boat, which his thesis on St. Bonaventure is telling him is approaching the shore where Christ is waiting. When it hits the shore it will be too late for many of us.