Becoming Bold Witnesses An excerpt from Meeting God in the Upper Room: Three Moments to Change Your Life by Peter J. Vaghi
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uch happened in the Upper Room at Jerusalem. Everything that took place in that small room has permanently and positively affected our faith and the life of the Church down through the centuries until this very day. The Church continues to preserve the memory of the Upper Room. Here we focus on the work of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, the predicted “Spirit of truth” who has remained with us, as promised by Jesus, since that day. Until now, the events of the Upper Room have taken place in private. But Pentecost changes everything. We see that, “What had then taken place inside the Upper Room, ‘the doors being shut,’ later, on the day of Pentecost is manifested also outside, in public. The doors of the Upper Room are opened and the Apostles go to the inhabitants and the pilgrims who had gathered in Jerusalem on the occasion of the feast, in order to bear witness to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
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F r a n c i s c a n Spi r i t
On Pentecost, the disciples left the Upper Room, with spiritual toolboxes in hand, and attempted to put into practice what they had experienced and learned in the Upper Room. The Holy Spirit had empowered and changed them to be bold witnesses to the death and rising of Jesus. Even the way they acted and spoke had changed. The Acts of the Apostles recounts what happened from Pentecost forward. In fact, the Acts of the Apostles has been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, so strong is the manifest influence and guidance of the Spirit in the early Church we see developing in the Acts. The disciples felt, over and over again, the full strength of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is the soul of the Church and a lasting treasure in the life of the Church. It is a strength that is available to each of us if we are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives. On Pentecost day, Peter powerfully proclaimed the death and resurrection of Jesus. He preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, and the crowds, also objects of the Spirit’s activity, asked him what they were to do. Without any hesitation: “Peter [said] to them, ‘repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit’” (Acts 2:38). The breaking of bread became a way of life in the early Church for Acts tells us that “every day
