Last week’s reading, Acts; 7, 55: “Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
If the Holy Spirit wants us to, we learn from this passage that The Holy Spirit gave Stephen the ability to see directly into Heaven. Some form of energy was able to span that gulf between earth and Heaven and transmit what appeared in Stephen’s mind as visual images.
This is why Catholic Fundamentalism postulates that an appropriate name for The Holy Spirit in our times is The Holy Wireless Connector. Stephen, we have on the best possible authority, was actually connected with Heaven. He was able to download what he saw, and tell those around him what he was seeing. The fact that they really didn’t want to hear it did not stop him from telling them about what he was, at that moment, able to see, thanks to The Holy Wireless Connector.
The Holy Wireless Connector connected Heaven, probably toning down the pick-up sensitivity of that end of the connection so as not to blow out Stephen’s mind on the receiving end. And, He strengthened Stephen’s mind to absorb the incoming energy while still letting him put into words what was appearing in his mind. All in all, it was a very delicate operation.
Today’s reading may be seen as a continuation of the one above:
“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”
In this reading, The Holy Wireless Connector is not letting them see directly into Heaven, as He did with Stephen in last week’s reading. He is letting the believers become aware of His presence in the sounds of the gale-like roar and the sight of the tongues of fire. They are actually able to sense, and describe His presence, just as Stephen, in the preceding reading, was able to actually see into Heaven.
One may assume that such awarenesses are transmitted on other wavelengths and frequencies than those we generally utilize. It appears that The Holy Wireless Connector can actually open up parts of our minds, authorizing and allowing us to make new and different downloads.
As Stephen was similarly connected with Heaven in last week’s reading, so these disciples are connected with men of faith from all over the world. From the huge area settled by Abraham’s children that stretched between Rome, Arabia, Parthia, and nearly to India, all were joined together. This commonality of faith had an odd recurrence in Kipling:
“O East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, ’tile Earth and sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat
“But there is neither East nor West, border nor breed nor birth when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.”
Mr. Kipling replaced the universality of truth-seekers with the kinship of the merely courageous, but kept some of the meaning.
