We have a wonderful opportunity to draw closer to the Lord in four spectacular liturgies that we are about to celebrate in consecutive weeks. I have said before that Advent and Lent can be like retreats for us if we make an effort. I see these four upcoming liturgies the same way. They are a chance for us to better know who God is and how much he loves us.

The first is the Ascension (May 29), when Jesus returns to the Father in heaven after the Resurrection. As many of us remember, we used to celebrate Ascension Thursday 40 days after Easter, but most dioceses have moved it to the seventh Sunday of Easter. This has a greater impact on us all as more people now participate in the Ascension liturgy.

My favorite part of the Ascension is the Lord’s words to his apostles before he goes back to his Father: Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age. (Matthew 28: 19-20)

Those words are also meant for us today. This is the call each of us is given at baptism, and this great celebration is an opportunity to think about how we can take the word of God we have experienced and bring it to family, friends, and neighbors who long for the gifts and guidance that our Catholic faith provides us.

The following week is Pentecost, one of my very favorite feasts, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Church. We made Pentecost a big celebration when I was at Our Lady of Mercy. We rented a large tent, and for one Sunday of the year, we changed the Mass schedule to hold two particularly big Eucharists, celebrating with as many of us gathered as possible to enjoy the beautiful music and liturgy. We then enjoyed fellowship with breakfast after the early Mass and a picnic after the second Mass.

Pentecost celebrates not only the early Church but also us today receiving the very Spirit of God and the gifts the Spirit gives us: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord. Many of our young people recently received the sacrament of Confirmation, which “confirms” and strengthens in us those very same gifts that we initially received at Baptism. Let us think about those gifts and incorporate them into our lives with the guidance of God through his Spirit.

I believe we live in the age of the Spirit. The Father created, Jesus saved, and the Lord then sent his Spirit. In the two thousand years since we have lived in that Spirit of God. I encourage all of us to also think about whether we pray enough to the Holy Spirit.

My sense is that many of us do not pray as much to the Spirit as we do the Father and the Son and that we can more consciously rely on the Spirit’s guidance as we do our best every day to be the people God wants us to be. At this time of year, I also pray that graduates of all ages seek the Spirit’s guidance in their next chapters and throughout their lives.

The next week we celebrate the Holy Spirit again but this time in union with the Father and the Son on Trinity Sunday. Quite honestly, the Trinity is a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend, but we should still reflect upon this mystery through the image of God who is Father, God who is Son, and God who is Spirit.

There are various analogies to try to help us understand how the one true God is made up of three different persons. One of the most famous is St. Patrick’s reported use of the shamrock – one plant with three clover leaves. These analogies are helpful, but they cannot do justice to the fact that our God has revealed himself in three persons.

The Trinity did not come about as a theological concept but out of the experience of the early Church. The Church believed that the Father created them, and through the Resurrection, it also came to believe that Jesus was truly the Son of God sent to save us. Then, as we see at Pentecost, the early Church experienced profound faith, courage and boldness as the Spirit touched their hearts and lives. Through that courage, ten of the first twelve apostles are believed to have died as martyrs. This same Spirit is present for each one of us today.

We conclude this series of powerhouse liturgies with the great feast of Corpus Christi, which is Latin for “the Body of Christ.” Let us not treat this as just another Sunday but rather as a sacred time to think about Jesus becoming present to us by giving us his very being – his body, blood, soul, and divinity.

It is a miracle that we can physically receive the Creator of the universe into our bodies to become more like Jesus and live the fullness of our faith. Some parishes have processions with the Blessed Sacrament; some walk through neighborhoods to celebrate this great feast. Many countries around the world have huge processions. Here at home, we can at least slow down enough to realize that we probably take the great gift of Eucharist for granted, and to try to be more present to what is truly happening each time we receive the Lord.

These four great feasts celebrate some of the most important parts of our faith and our salvation, which makes these coming weeks an opportunity for us to draw closer to the Lord. They may bring an end to the Easter season, but they can also be a new beginning in our faith journey as we allow God’s almighty presence to guide everything we do.

(Msgr. John Enzler, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, writes the “Faith in Action” column for the archdiocese’s Catholic Standard and Spanish-language El Pregonero newspapers and websites.)