We are in the glow of the Pentecost season. Often referred to as the birthing of the first Christian communities and the emergence of church, we need also reflect on the impact of this Spirit in our world today. While the Spirit if often depicted as the pacifier (I will breathe on you the Spirit) and the unifier (at once they could hear each other speaking in their own dialect), attention needs to be paid to the Spirit as the disrupter. Even in its earliest emergence, the church community had to live with complexities and differing interpretations of who qualified to be a member of its community. The very first council, the Council of Jerusalem was confronted with inclusion – would it be open enough to accept the gentile believer without having to comply with the prescripts of Judaism. In its deliberations that early community experienced the Spirit as disrupter and unifier as it came to accept an expansive call to mission in welcoming the gentile believer.

The recently deceased eminent theologian Walter Brueggemann reflected on the disruptive Spirit as one who unsettles the status quo and our accustomed way of living.

Many of us benefit from the marginality of the poor, and we do not want it to change. In the real commitments of our lives, we are deeply in conflict with this New Reign (of God)…

But the new Sovereign comes on the wind – by the Spirit (Isaiah 112 Matthew 311). That means she cannot be stopped and will not be resisted. This same Spirit works through us, among us, and at times even against us. The Spirit in these days would indeed work against our hopelessness to let us hope once again.

The more youthful and vibrant Pope Leo XIV has clearly pointed the way of his pontificate, constantly referring to peace as the unifier of global tensions. Speaking recently with Apostolic Nuncios and other papal representatives deployed throughout the world, Pope Leo noted that Peter told the lame man to look at him, indicating that his ministry sought to build relationships, just as papal representatives seek to do with states and international organisations.

“Always be Peter's gaze!” he said. “Be men capable of building relationships where it is most difficult.”

Indeed, Pope Leo is situating his papacy in Vatican II’s proclamation of The Church in the Modern world (Lumen Gentium) – a church that must be a light of the nations.

Recently I enjoyed being with a group of younger adults who had gathered for a weekend to draft a response to the United Nations Periodic Review for Australia. This process involves a periodic review of each country having its human rights situation reviewed every four to five years. Amongst this group was a leader from an organisation involved in global advocacy and training and a senior Religious Sister who has devoted her life to justice, peace and advocacy. To experience the interactions occurring within the group and to witness their collaborative efforts to work together on this project was inspiring. Indeed, a community was emerging from amongst this group gathered around a common cause, enabled by wise elders. Here was the Spirit alive and expressed so vividly by the presence of a Josephite Sister who was so at home with young people. Such special moments capture the significance of Religious life today where there are those occasions where Religious across our country engage in the things that matter.

In such moments people experience the Spirit’s energising force both as unifier and disrupter. The importance of the consecrated religious in our world today is expressed in moments of interaction and connection with people who have a passion for justice and advocacy. Fired by the Spirit a space is created for people to come together around a cause where people have become marginalised. It is in such places that we find our Religious sisters and brothers listening, advocating and responding with open hearts to those suffering. This oftentimes leads to disrupting the current thinking and systems that are preventing a just response. May our Religious sisters and brothers continue to find in their ministries today ways to be disrupter and unifier.

Br Gerard Brady CFC,

President, Catholic Religious Australia.