Many years ago I was living life to my fullest caring for abandoned children within a community. At times, I stayed with as many as seventeen children; at others, at least seven. My days were filled with waking them up at dawn to send them to school, cooking meals, and doing laundry. To them, I was both father and mother. Yet, despite living such an intense and devoted life, my own soul was gradually withering away. My identity as a priest and a religious seemed to have been pushed aside by the sheer weight of my tasks. Amidst various assignments—vocation director, fundraising for the congregation, and supervising church construction—I worked tirelessly, but a deep, inexplicable emptiness and exhaustion had taken root in the depths of my heart.
The turning point for me was a thirty-day retreat. Within that long journey of silence based on the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, I did not easily feel the presence of God. Then, one night, I was looking at the crucifix in a small chapel. Jesus, hanging precariously under a spotlight, looked just like my own broken self. At that moment, the scripture I was meditating on, “God is love” (1 John 4:16), seeped into my heart. The realization of how much the Lord loves me and that He has always been with me rushed over me all at once. I wept for a long time. Within those tears, for the first time, I experienced the “Lord love” not with my head, but with my entire being.
This experience resembled the disciples waiting for the descent of the Holy Spirit. The disciples in the Acts of the Apostles were also wandering in fear and guilt after the crucifixion. Although they had met the risen Jesus, they still did not know how to live or what to do. However, Jesus told them: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:18)
And finally, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon them. Coming like a strong wind and tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit opened the closed hearts of the disciples. In that instant, they were no longer just “people who knew about Jesus,” but people who experienced the Lord—the one who loves them to the very end—as a living presence. Fear turned into boldness, and wandering transformed into a mission.
Pentecost is not merely an event of miracles. It is an event of realizing that one is loved and rediscovering the meaning of life. Just as the Holy Spirit transformed the disciples, He renews us when we are parched and weary. He allows us to meet the God we only knew intellectually with our whole lives, enables us to love ourselves, and gives us the strength to love others. Finally, He sends us out into the world.
I, too, began to change little by little after that night during the retreat. The circumstances didn’t suddenly shift, but I gained the conviction that the Lord’s love was alive and moving within me. Even now, the Holy Spirit visits the hearts of those who are weary and dry, saying: “You are not alone. I will not leave you as orphans.”
Fr. Daeseon Kim, MSC