On Sunday we our celebration of Easter culminates with the great feast of Pentecost. The story is familiar but its implications are immense. We are not just celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit to the first Apostles but to the whole of the Church down through the ages. We too have received the same gift of the Spirit and it is through this gift that we can be bold in preaching the gospel in our own day.
Whether we see the story from the point of view of Luke who places the giving of the Spirit fifty days after Easter, or from the point of view of John who has the Spirit given on the first Easter Sunday evening, the contrast between the Apostles before and after the gift couldn't be clearer. Before they are timid, frightened men. After they are so confident of their message that they will not be stopped by anyone from preaching it.
If the Church in our own day seems less confident and more hesitant then it's not because we have less of the Spirit than those first Apostles, simply that we are less open to the Spirit's workings. Churches need to pray for the wisdom of the Spirit to make difficult decisions about the future, then to discern what the Spirit is saying to the churches, and then to act upon it.