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Have you heard?
“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They answered him, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
As the gospel was preached to those outside of Jerusalem, and to Gentiles, it became the case that not all who came to believe in Jesus has been fully catechized. They had accepted Jesus but they had not yet heard the fullness of the Gospel message.
We refer to the fullness of the Gospel preaching as the Kerygma, a word rooted to a herald’s proclamation. But as the new believers came to hear about Jesus, they did not always hear the entirety of the kerygma.
So it should not come as a surprise that Saint Paul might find people who, as we hear today, had not even heard of the Holy Spirit. Imagine their joy when they realized there was much more to know and understand about their faith and about God.
This type of situation is not unique to the early Church. In fact, it is still true today. There are those who have not heard the fullness of the gospel, and have not come yet to believe in the kerygma, in some cases because they had not yet received the message in its fullness.
What about you? Is the Holy Spirit familiar to you? Do you seek to discern the presence of the Holy Spirit and the activity of the Holy Spirit in your life?
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