Spirit Matters: The Holy Spirit: Someone you should know

This past week, I was driving to Peoria and noticed the license plate on a vehicle I was behind read “PNEUMA.”

Pneuma is a Greek reference to the Holy Spirit. It refers to breath, wind or spirit, and appears in the New Testament around 385 times.

In a similar way, more than 20 years ago, I was driving the back roads to Peoria when I saw a license plate that read “PRANA.”

Prana is Sanskrit for breath, a life-giving force.

Both instances jarred me out of my everyday reality into an ineffably dazzling moment of feeling a genuine spiritual encounter with the divine.

For all the ways modern communication has turned into a “tower of Babel” of sorts, there are still some concepts that seem to be universally understood.

In religious and philosophical circles, the Holy Spirit is one such example.

No matter what you name it, the Holy Spirit is that force which breathes life into our world, and into all living beings. The Holy Spirit, when we allow it, can transform our lives in ways we never imagined possible, and move us to do things we never thought we could.

On June 8 this year, the universal church will celebrate Pentecost, the feast that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire on the apostles and women in the Upper Room. Pentecost is traditionally celebrated 50 days after Easter, and represents the birth of the church and the introduction of the third person of the Christian trinity as its guiding force.

The Holy Spirit is always present everywhere, but often we are so preoccupied with daily life, we don’t recognize how it infuses all of creation. It takes the eyes of faith to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our everyday lives.

And even then, it sometimes takes moments like my encounters with those two license plates, more than 20 years apart, to remind us of this reality.

Last week, when Pope Leo XIV was elected the 267th person to hold the Chair of St. Peter, the Holy Spirit moved in a gentle, yet firm, and altogether undeniable way.

For the first few days after his election, I felt an unmitigated hope I have not felt at least in the last 10 years.

I loved Pope Francis, and I personally believe he held that office at the exact time in history he was supposed to. He was a warm beacon of light during so much worldwide turmoil, confusion and fear. He reminded us of the importance of living with joy and trust in the compassionate mercy of God. He behaved like Jesus would behave. By all of this, he gave us the hope we needed each day, just like God gave the Israelites manna in the desert.

And now, Pope Leo is picking up where Pope Francis left off. From the moment he stepped onto the balcony in St. Peter’s Square, as the first pope from North America, and the United States specifically, it felt to me like the Holy Spirit had just made his checkmate move.

Going into the Conclave, there was much worldwide uncertainty about who would fill Francis’s role. After the Conclave, many cardinals publicly spoke of how natural the vote evolved, as though Cardinal Robert Prevost was the obvious candidate. Within 24 hours of beginning, the College of Cardinals had overwhelmingly selected Pope Leo as the next Vicar of Christ.

The Holy Spirit has surely spoken, with an exclamation point.

We are slowly getting to know who Pope Leo is, but by all accounts, he is steady, grounded, intelligent, reasoned, faith-filled, and willing to speak truth to power. His missionary experience in Peru and his experience in Rome gives him an understanding of the needs of the worldwide church on multiple levels.

I have faith that we are in good hands. Pope Leo XIV is a prayerful man, and will surely lean heavily on the Holy Spirit while making decisions.

But we all have a big role to play too.

Pope Leo needs our prayers, day and night. He carries a heavy weight on his shoulders, one no living human being can possibly imagine.

Our prayers can and will help give him the strength to lead the church at this precarious moment in time, to the renewed peace for which we have all been longing and thirsting.

Come, Holy Spirit, renew the face of the Earth.

SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column by Jerrilyn Zavada Novak that examines experiences common to the human spirit. Contact her at jzblue33@yahoo.com.