Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost

WE should speak about Him without whom no one can speak rightly, about Him who gives speech and gives the power to speak copiously. And indeed, it is impossible to speak rightly without Him. Nor should one marvel at what is said: "Who can know the sense [sensum]" of the truth of God "unless he shall send His Spirit from the Most High?" (Wis. 9:17). Without a feeling [sensu] for the truth, no one speaks what is true. In like manner, the Holy Spirit makes all the saints speak copiously, and for this reason Gregory says: "Those whom He fills, He makes wise." The same thing is manifest today [on Pentecost], when "the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in various tongues" (Acts 2:4). Therefore, even though we are mute, we shall ask that He who gives abundant speech shall give me words to speak.

"Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created." Today Holy Mother Church solemnly celebrates the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles—a sending which the Prophet besought, when moved by the Spirit of prophecy he said: "Send forth Thy spirit and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth."

—Excerpt from Sermon and Collation of St. Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Pentecost.

● Read the complete sermon here.

"The New Law is chiefly the grace itself of the Holy Spirit"

"NOW that which is preponderant in the law of the New Testament, and whereon all its efficacy is based, is the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is given through faith in Christ. Consequently the New Law is chiefly the grace itself of the Holy Spirit, which is given to those who believe in Christ."

~St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 106, Art. 1.