The Gifts of Grace of the Holy Spirit

A Sermon on the Day of Holy Pentecost

We sing praise to the consubstantial Trinity—the Father and the Son together with the Holy Spirit: for this is what all the Prophets preached, and the Apostles together with the Martyrs

We are celebrating one of the greatest events in the world and in the Christian Church—an event as wondrous as it is saving and full of every joy for the whole Christian world; namely, we are celebrating the descent upon the apostles of the Holy Spirit, God, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, sent down by the Son of God Jesus Christ, who ascended into heaven, from God the Father. — He (Christ) said to His disciples before His sufferings: I am going to the One Who sent Me… But because I have said this to you, your heart is filled with sorrow. But I tell you the truth: it is better for you that I go; for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you[1].

The all-sovereign and life-giving Spirit of God, consubstantial and co-enthroned with the Father and the Son, solemnly and in very truth descended upon the disciples and the women disciples of the Lord, and through them upon the Christian Church, to make over to men the great work of redemption accomplished by the Son of God, to regenerate by the fire of the Holy Spirit the apostles and all who were gathered with them, and to grant them the gift of irresistible courage and strength needed for preaching to all people, and the gift of speaking in all tongues—the gift of divine love, a love that embraces all and never falls away, such love as the Lord Jesus Christ had for men, who laid down His life for them. The Holy Spirit filled the apostles with the gift of wisdom, and with the authority to regenerate men from the old creation into the new through faith in Jesus Christ and by means of preaching and of the Mysteries—baptism, chrismation, and the sacred offering of the Body and Blood of Christ. He gave them also, and their successors the bishops, the authority and the wisdom to bind and to loose the sins of men, to set forth clearly the faith and the teaching of the faith, to write divinely wise Gospels and epistles, to convene Councils for the clarifying of divinely revealed teaching and for the exposure of heresies and schisms, to establish rules of faith and of conduct, to consecrate churches and to ordain men to the sacred degrees, and in general to order aright the newly founded Church of Christ. The Holy Spirit manifested Himself in the world in wondrous divine acts, in all the majesty of His Divinity, as the Creator and Maker of human nature, as the very Self-living Life and Fountain of life for all reasoning creatures, as the Source of wisdom and of strength.

What a great feast the Holy Orthodox Church keeps today throughout all the world!

This day is called the feast of Pentecost, because the Holy Spirit descended, by the will of God the Father and at the intercession of Christ God, on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Christ God from the dead; it is called also the feast of the Holy Trinity, because on this day the Holy Trinity shone forth in manifest glory. The Father, who sent His Holy Spirit upon the Apostles—the Son, who besought the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon His chosen ones and who thereby laid a firm foundation for His Church, which the gates of hell will not overcome[2].

The book of the Acts of the Apostles and the infallible history of the Church show what wondrous, saving effects the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles produced. The Apostles carried the holy Gospel to all the ends of the world as it then was, preaching it to every nation, and they renewed the world by their preaching and their miracles—and with what faith and love, with what self-sacrifice, with what invincible power did they carry the preaching of Christ throughout the whole world! They conquered and brought to Christ the scholars, the philosophers, the rhetoricians, kings and kingdoms—the whole universe; they conquered it by the meekness and the power of their preaching and by countless miracles; with joy they endured torments and death for Christ and His teaching, for the sake of the future immortal life and for the salvation of those who believe. They so prized the truth of Christ’s teaching that, with all their love for people, they stood ready to cut off from the Church anyone who should teach otherwise than they taught by revelation from God: if we, or an angel from heaven, teach you otherwise than we have preached to you, let him be anathema[3], and they were always prepared to die for the truth of the God-revealed teaching. Meanwhile, in our own time, many who call themselves Christians have so fallen from the faith and so brought the Word of God low that they have taken it for a mere human word, as Count Tolstoy and his companions have done, and they dare to twist it according to their own wild understanding and taste, as they would never dare to act toward the word of an earthly king or of any writer—Pushkin or some other—and they teach in a way altogether different from what the holy Gospel teaches.

Further, the wondrous and saving actions of the Holy Spirit were shown forth in the most varied gifts He gave to the faithful: the gift of prophecy, of miracles, of the interpretation of Scripture, the gift of tongues, all manner of healings, and especially in the self-sacrificing love of the faithful for one another—a love that counted all things common, and that dealt out the necessities of life according to the need of each. Further, the mighty actions of the Holy Spirit were shown forth in the single-hearted and single-minded gatherings of the holy Fathers at the Ecumenical and local Councils—Councils at which, as with a shovel, all the weed-like, noxious teachings of the heresies were winnowed away, and there was restored the unity of mind of the faithful, together with the longed-for peace of the whole Church. And to this day the Orthodox Church keeps steadfastly the truths of the teaching of the faith and has not violated a single dogma—to her honor and glory, and for the salvation of her children.

Then, too, the wondrous actions of the Holy Spirit in the Church of God were shown forth in the marvelous wisdom of the holy Fathers—the orators and preachers of the Church, especially in the fourth century: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, and many other churchly orators of the centuries that followed; and especially in the liturgical hymns of our Church and in the countless canons that adorn her services. In them were expressed the greatest spiritual wisdom and boundless compunction, touching to the depths every believing soul.

And what shall we say of the grace-filled works of the Holy Spirit, of the invincible strength and courage of the countless multitude of martyrs, men and women, in their struggles of suffering for the faith, among whom there were also many young children who joyfully accepted every kind of torment and amazed even the most hard-hearted of their tormentors with their courage and endurance? Or what shall we say of the struggles of the venerable men and women who put to death all the passions of flesh and spirit through prayers, vigils, fasting, purity, humility, guilelessness, and patience? In the flesh they became like the angels and burned with fervent love for God, like the Cherubim and Seraphim, and in them Christ rested forever, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Such are the works of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Church of Christ, after His descent upon the Apostles and in the times that followed.

I turn to the present time. Is there now any manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in believers? Without doubt there is, but little. The gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit are manifested even now in Christian love and self-sacrifice for the benefit of one’s neighbor in various charitable institutions; especially did this love show itself during the recent wars, in the devoted care given by physicians and sisters of mercy to the wounded and sick soldiers, and in general in self-sacrificing labors for the good of one’s neighbors, the Tsar, and the Fatherland; in generous aid to those who suffered from fires, floods, famine, and widespread sicknesses; and in general in the manifold self-sacrificing services rendered to God and to one’s neighbors. The gifts of the Spirit of God are manifested even now, too, in the wonderworking power of prayer, in the multitude of healings of all manner of sick people.

This is one side of things. But on the other side—never have unbelief and mockery of the faith and of the Holy Church seized the so-called intelligentsia as they have now; never has rapacity laid its hand so brazenly upon another’s property as now; never has the squandering of an estate acquired by one’s forefathers been so senseless as now; never have marriages been so despised and trampled underfoot as now; never has the integrity of nature, both physical and spiritual, been valued so cheaply as now; never has drunkenness been so strong as in our civilized age.

What can set us right? O Holy Spirit, Heavenly King, breathe repentance with compunction into us who have sinned; come and dwell within us, and cleanse us from every stain, and save, O Good One, our souls. Amen.