The Cenacle, the building on Mt. Zion which houses the “Upper Room” where Jesus and his disciples held the Last Supper will once again be open for Catholic worship, it has been announced by spokesmen for the Vatican, the Israeli government and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.
Editor’s note: This is also the site of the descent of the Holy Spirit, on Pentecost.
Anti-Christian graffiti has begun to appear on the walls of the Franciscan church in Jerusalem abutting the Cenacle, the site of the Last Supper. The messages sent by obscene slogans and demands for “Christians Out” have been reinforced by urination on the front door of the church. The vandalism is believed to be the work of Jewish extremists, who have been provoked by sensationalized newspaper accounts of the negotiations between the Holy See and the Israeli government toward completion of a juridical accord. Some reports have claimed that the Vatican wants to claim sovereignty over Mount Zion.
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Our understanding of the Holy Spirit is limited by our finite human minds and by the revelation of God, but our faith teaches clearly that the Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Holy Trinity, that He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that He accomplishes His (God’s) will anywhere and at any time, with power and authority that is so awesome, no one and no thing can withstand it.
The early Hebrews understood that God “spoke” all things into existence, as if the Holy Spirit proceeded from the “mouth” of God, accomplishing whatever His supernatural intellect would conceive. It should be no surprise then, that our first earthly biblical encounter with the Spirit’s power speaks of a mighty wind, “The Breath of God” which formed the young Earth and, among other things, gave life to Adam’s human form.
In the Old Testament Book of Exodus we are treated to a magnificent display of God’s power in the form of a “Pillar of Cloud” by day and a “Pillar of Fire” by night, which was said to “never fail” leading the Israelites out of Egypt, protecting and nurturing the Holy Nation all the way to the Promised Land.
While this “Glory Cloud” figures most prominently and is most clearly and explicitly described during the forty-year period the Israelites spent “Moseying around” (my characterization) in the desert, it is by no means the only time God made use of this extraordinary, supernatural phenomenon to manifest His power and glory in our temporal existence.
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