How many of us know of ordinary people who overcome their fear and reluctance and do courageous things? Think of the young man who has the courage to go against the pressure he is getting from peers to join in their vandalism. There’s also the young woman who has the courage to go through with a pregnancy, even after her doctor tells her that there is a high risk of a genetic disorder in the fetus. Or, there’s the older man who has the courage to make a painful decision about sending his frail wife to a nursing home. Think of the parents who have the courage to show tough love to their adolescent son who is addicted to dangerous drugs. They all conquer their fears. These people have fortitude, one of the seven traditional gifts of the Holy Spirit. As we celebrate Pentecost, let’s focus on that gift.

Most of us better understand fortitude as courage. I am not thinking of the courage needed for risky sports, but, rather, the courage to overcome obstacles. Saint Cyril of Alexandria, one of the early Church Fathers, says, “With the Holy Spirit within us, it is quite natural for people who had been cowards to become people of great courage.”

Our history as a Church has many examples of ordinary people who became very courageous and brave. The martyrs in the Church are usually ordinary and weak men and women who have the courage to face their persecutors and torturers, to stay in the face of a dangerous situation. Most of us don’t face martyrdom, but we need courage to deal with difficult and stressful situations in our lives, situations that can fill us with anxiety and fear.

Pentecost, meaning the fiftieth day, is a feast that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, fifty days after the Resurrection of Christ. Its origins are in the Feast of Weeks, an old Jewish harvest festival. The Acts of the Apostles recounts the apostles’ experience of a sudden “sound like the rush of a violent wind.”

The gifts they received included the courage to do the things we read about in the book of Acts and in the letters of the New Testament. They endured persecution and injustice. Yet, they persevered. They took to heart Jesus’ reminder to “be not afraid.” Part of the foundation of our faith today is the courage of the women and men in the early Church.

It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to withstand the difficulties that life has handed us – illness, infirmity, being handicapped, imprisonment, unemployment, not being understood by others, standing up for our rights, difficult decisions, and impending death. It means that we have the virtue of standing firm and steady in the face of obstacles. Endurance allows us to refuse to yield to fear and pain.

A prayer that helps many people to face tough situations is the famous serenity prayer from Reinhold Niebuhr. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” To change difficult matters in life requires serious courage. Courage is resistance to and mastery of my fear, not the absence of fear.

In his reflections on his many years in prison, Nelson Mandela says, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, the 19th century Jesuit poet, speaks in God’s Grandeur about how “the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” The poet reminds us of the Holy Spirit’s role in our “bent” lives. Christ came into the world to help with God’s desire to work the salvation of the bent world and our bent and anxious lives.

The gift of courage doesn’t remove my infirmities and difficulties. Rather, it helps me to face them and not be defeated by them. The Spirit helps us to see and understand the past in a more positive light, and the future in a hope-filled way. The Spirit gives us the gift of courage to face that which seemingly can’t be faced and to cope with situations that seem impossible to cope with.

God’s role for us is summed up in a welcoming and comforting image from Psalm 131. “I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.” Today, on Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit bestows on us the gifts we most need. Let us pray that we will be courageous and strong as we face the inevitable obstacles that come along.