This article is part of the Marian Mondays Series, a weekly reflection on the mysteries of the rosary by Jonathan Conrad, owner and founder of The Catholic Woodworker. Subscribe to have these reflections and more sent straight to your inbox every week.
There are a couple of details in Acts right after the Descent of the Holy Spirit that always make me laugh.
Before I get to the funny part, here’s a little background. At the start of Acts 2, the apostles receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit and then go out to preach, speaking in tongues as they do so. The people listening, Jews from all nations of the world, don’t understand what’s happening or how all these Galileans can suddenly speak in their home languages.
Now here’s the part that always gets me: some of the people dismiss them, simply stating that the apostles must be drunk. But Peter steps in to defend them, telling the crowd that the apostles aren’t drunk—it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning after all!
Then Peter calls out to the people in the crowd, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ and eventually converting about 3,000 of them that day.
These details are certainly humorous, but they also point us to the beauty of the mystery. The apostles were so deeply consumed by the Holy Spirit that the people listening didn’t have any way of naming or understanding it. The only way they could think to describe it was by saying the apostles were crazy and drunk when, in reality, they were on fire with the Holy Spirit.
It makes me wonder, do we actually know what it’s like to be filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our own lives? Would we recognize it if we saw it in others? Or would we just write those people off as unhinged or questionable?
Reflecting on the Descent of the Holy Spirit, we’re invited to consider these gifts—wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, piety, and fear of God—and ask ourselves: are we lacking in any of them? Do we ask for the ones we know we need? And do we appreciate the ones we have?
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