This article was included in the June 2024 edition of the The Paphos Post.

As the worldwide church continues to remember Jesus’ resurrection and His ascension to heaven, we now celebrate the generous gift of God’s Holy Spirit to His church. This is known as Pentecost. It is not a strange mystical experience that happened to a handful of people two thousand years ago – but a world-changing event.

There are three things worth bearing in mind when we think about Pentecost that should encourage us in our journey of faith:

1. The Holy Spirit comes to inspire us: Tired and deflated, we find our faith revitalised and refreshed. Sluggish, we find ourselves empowered with renewed vigour. Hesitant and timid, we find ourselves carried along by a new momentum.

2. The Holy Spirit comes to ignite in us the passion of God: And comes to cleanse and purge whatever is dead and dry in our lives so we find ourselves ablaze with a passion for living and inflamed afresh with God’s love for the world around us.

3. The Holy Spirit comes to illuminate Jesus: Those early disciples might simply have enjoyed a wonderful spiritual refreshing! But they didn’t. They shared their experiences of a life changed by Jesus, as Christians continue to do today.

What would it look like for the Holy Spirit to breath on His church today in the same way as that first Pentecost? Saint Catherine of Sienna has the answer:

Be who God has called you to be and you will set the world on fire.

Just imagine if we had people ‘on fire’ with the Holy Spirit in every sphere of influence to ‘transform, revive and heal society?’ Where people could hear the wonders of God in their own language and in their own context: Culture, Trade, Media, Education and Politics.

1 Corinthians 2:9 (KJV):

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Paul is the Chaplain to the Anglican Church here in Paphos and he is always willing to meet up for a chat over a coffee or a beer. Paul has a website revPACman.com where he posts regularly, and he can also be found on Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter – just search for revPACman!