By Fr. Glenn Jones:

One of the beauties that we see up in the Jemez Mountains and in many places around New Mexico is the seed-bearing cotton from alamos (cottonwoods) lazily drifting to the final resting places unknown—evolutionarily hoping to take root like their parents, grow strong and produce their own “kids” to go off into the world in the future. Driven by winds strong or slight, that resting place to which they finally arrive will either be a blessing or bane for its future. Of course, as cottonwoods tend to require a lot of water to grow strong, many of those driftings inevitably end in places hostile to future flourishing. But, as in Jesus’ parable about the sower of seeds, some will end on good ground, and “grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:8)

How like humanity that is … as Jesus meant it to be, of course. Many drift upon the winds of the world … a great many—tragically—landing in hostile places, which are anything but conducive to human flourishing. Oh, they might—as in Jesus’ parable—become financially successful, famous or otherwise notable, but that is not the yield so important. Much more vital is the yield of the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit, which few could criticize: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23).

Now, today (6/8/25), we celebrate Pentecost, the day in which Christians celebrate the coming of God’s Holy Spirit upon the apostles and other disciples after Jesus’ Ascension—the Biblical account given in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2. When that passage speaks of “Pentecost”, it refers to the Jewish Pentecost (“Shavuot”), which commemorates the giving of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Christian Pentecost celebrates the coming of the new eternal law, completing and complementing the intent and desire of the old law through the teaching of Jesus and continuing through the Holy Spirit to the Church and, more widely, to the world.

Of course, many do not (yet!) believe in God or Jesus as Christ or the Holy Spirit—either adhering to other religions or no religion at all. Thus, it is incumbent upon Christians to drift like that cottonwood seed to all corners and to plant the seed of the Word in those places which are conducive to bearing fruit—faithfully hoping that those seeds will eventually come to fruition as they have in many places previously hostile to the Way. And it is those delicious fruits of the Holy Spirit which are able to bring that conversion as they have over the two millennia of Christianity.

“Oh, pshaw! Hogwash!!” says much of the world. “No such thing!” To which comes to my mind, at least, that phrase of Yoda in Star Wars: “So certain are you?”

We humans are largely limited to our sensory perception—touching, seeing, etc. … many dismissing that which cannot be directly sensed. But in that sensory perception, we also discern those things we cannot witness directly. By tracks on a trail we see that a deer has passed; to deny it because we didn’t see it pass would be foolish and self-deceiving. Or, in modern astronomy/physics, we see indications of gravitational waves; we certainly can’t observe them directly, but certainly something is making that indication!

Likewise in history, as mentioned in this column numerous times, we see many indications of the truth of the divine, and of Christ. The very fact that an uneducated poor carpenter from a small village in a Roman vassal state—who died a criminal’s humiliating and torturous death in utter weakness—could become the center of a religion that would eventually reach to all nations of the world, is quite unbelievable otherwise. But it happened. And then His teachings being spread by a bunch of no-name fishermen and workmen who, in a moment (per Acts 2) turn from cowering for their lives to boldly proclaiming those same teachings and testimonies which would lead to their eventual persecutions and deaths is difficult to imagine without some divine impetus spurring them on. For they, having lived with Jesus for years, would have discerned if He were a charlatan, a madman … or truly divine. And then, why go to their own persecution and deaths if He were false? And then the spread of the faith so rapidly throughout their region and throughout the world bespeaks of the truth of it all. This is simply history.

For the skeptic of the spiritual, just for a moment, consider the example of those few remaining isolated tribes in remote regions. Even today often limited by law – exposure of outside modern influence and technology so as to allow those peoples to preserve their own culture. Thus, they remain largely oblivious of the rest of the human world. With such a merely human precedent, why is it so difficult to believe that something similar may occur with us and a spiritual realm—spiritual (of, “beings of other substance” if you prefer) restrained by God (their reigning being) as we are restrained by various laws—not making themselves known so as to let humanity develop largely on its own—“stewing in its own juice”, as it were? And yet He periodically inserting His (and other spiritual entities’) influence, just as a government might assist those tribes if they see them on inevitably-destructive trajectories or starvation.

“Preposterous!” one might respond. “Imbecilic! Dreamings!!” … just as those remote tribes might respond in being told that people, with a device a few inches square, speak to people on the other side of the world. Or land a device on a planet’s moon almost a billion miles away … and communicate with it, no less.

So … am I describing our world or the other-worldly? Do our ideas/beliefs about the spiritual world reflect our world, or does our world reflect that one? Might our concern for others simply be a dim reflection of the spiritual world’s concern for us?

Regardless, would not the world benefit greatly from a greater practice of those fruits of the Holy Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—whether Christian or not? Are these not what we instinctively seek in one another? Well, then … in your driftings on the wind, be so fruitful in whatever you do and in wherever you are. Then, perhaps, be not only recipients of the Spirit’s grace but be joining in the works of the divine Himself.

Editor’s note: Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.