Come Holy Spirit –1
By Msgr. Cantley
Spirit,
since it is a reality we do not see directly, is often relegated to the realm
of the unreal. Yet, it is the most real
of all and often invests the things we see with a dimension that makes us pay
attention to them and respond to them as we otherwise would not. Think, for example of the team losing an
important game and suddenly playing with an energy and aplomb missing till
then. The ‘spirit’ to win brought the
team together as one person to focus all of its talents. You see and experience the spirit of the team
in its actions and its ultimate success.
Likewise, we find someone downcast and describe the person as ‘dispirited’;
or watch an active child whom we judge to be ‘full of spirit’. Examples could
be multiplied, but the point is made, I think, that spirit is real and seen,
generally, in its effects. Jesus makes
the point (Lk.12:55) that we can see the signs of the times, the direction of
the wind, for example from its feel and the effect it has on the blown grass,
how, He asks, do we fail to see the Spirit of God in the effects that are
obvious and attributable only to Him? We
are hypocrites, Jesus judges, when we observe results and refuse the only
assignable cause that explains them.
In his
encyclical Pastores Dabo Vobis (#19),
Pope John Paul II calls attention to the presence of the Holy Spirit in the
ministry and consciousness of Jesus as he begins His mission: “The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me” (Lk.4:18). The Holy
Father reminds us that it is not simply for function – to be the Messiah – that
the Holy Spirit rests on Jesus; rather, the Spirit penetrates every aspect of
Jesus’ being. This makes Jesus God’s
total possession. The lesson for us is
that we too have been penetrated with the Spirit. In Baptism and Confirmation the Spirit
invests every fiber of our being. We
belong, then, totally to God. For most
of us, our baptism was an event we were too young to participate in
actively. But in later life – at every
celebration of baptism we attend and at the Easter Vigil and Liturgies of
Easter, we were afforded the opportunity to re-appropriate the promises of our
own baptism and make personal the acceptance made in our name originally. Confirmation was celebrated at a time when we
were old enough to make the commitment the Sacrament demands – offering
ourselves as the dwelling place and as the instrument the Spirit wishes for the
accomplishment of His purposes. Our vocation, then, is to be as totally God’s
as Jesus was. This is a program too
demanding for our own natural powers, but as the Holy Father reminds us it is
possible because the Holy Spirit makes it so: “…the Spirit of the Son (see
Galatians 4:6), configures us to Christ Jesus and makes us sharers in His life
as Son – that is, sharers in His life of love for the Father and for our
brothers and sisters”.
It is
critically important to notice how the possession of the Holy Spirit
immediately calls forth service. We
cannot be alive without being active.
Stagnant life is no life at all.
Inanimate things merely are; vegetative, animal and rational life is
evident in what it does. The first two
act un-freely by their own inner laws of nature; only the latter, the rational,
invested with spirit, can articulate its likeness to the Creator, doing this by
entering into God’s loving, life-giving and provident embrace of all His work
advancing it toward the goal for which He created it in the first place.
In Dominum et Vivificantem (#67), Pope John
Paul’s encyclical on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Father affirmed that the Holy
Spirit is the Uncreated Gift of God residing in all and each of us, ever active
in our lives. Using a series of verbs,
the Holy Father interprets the Spirit’s interest in us: The Spirit purifies us. Frequently represented as flame, the Spirit
burns away the dross, the baggage of our sins and imperfections. Then the Spirit heals what has been injured by our accumulated infidelities; changes the dryness of our spiritual
aridity into fertile ground for a grace-filled new life; softens our too hard attitude; warms
our coldness; and re-directs our
insecure and faltering steps with a security and direction that leads us to
accomplish what God desires we should accomplish.
All of this
is predicated on the fact that the Spirit is Gift. A gift is bipolar. The Giver, God, is absolute and secure in the
offer; the receivers, ourselves, are the problematic factor in the equation. A gift is not such until it is received,
received on the giving terms of the giver and with gratitude born of our
consciousness that we are undeserving of what is offered. The Holy Spirit of God is the unmerited Gift
of God’s love to be received by us with unconditional love.
Our Holy
Father asked that the year of 1998 be dedicated to the Holy Spirit. Someone
once said of the Spirit that He is the “forgotten Person in the Trinity”. We easily relate to the image of the Father
since we have all had a father and generally very happy images of what
fatherhood means. We relate equally well
to Jesus, God’s Son, since the Gospels have given us such a clear picture of
Him and His teaching/actions among us.
But “Spirit” seems so ethereal as to be beyond the realm of imagination
to fathom.
Perhaps some images will help.
Jeremiah (17: 5-10) and the first Psalm use the contrast of plants
growing in a desert waste. One is
rootless and, buffeted by the hot wind, scorched by the sun, abrasively
pummeled by the blown sand and as a result it withers and dies. The other has deep roots and searches for the
water below the surface of the earth.
Nourished by its watered root system, it remains green, alive and even
fruitful. The above ground observer does
not see the water below the surface, but has to know from the results that it
is there and in plentiful supply to bring this evident life to the plant
despite the arid conditions of its environment.
What the Prophet and the Psalmist are saying is that the pious and the
impious experience the same hostile conditions of suffering, temptation and
evil in the world. One survives with the
enlightened faith and grace the Spirit gives; the other withers and dies for
refusing to reach out to the Spirit life available to it.
The Spirit
is working today in each of us and through the Church. At the Last Supper, Jesus told His disciples
“It is to your advantage that I go away, the Counselor will not come to you;
but if I go I will send Him to you”(Jn.16:7).
Pope John Paul II reminds us “This prediction first came true the
evening of Easter day and during the celebration of Pentecost in
In the
context of His farewell, Jesus also promises His continued presence: “I will not
leave you desolate; I will come to you” (Jn.14:18); and again “I will be with
you always, even to the end of time” (Mt.28:20). It is, the Holy Father reminds us, through
the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is constantly present, that He “Who has
gone away in His visible humanity, comes, is present, and acts in the Church in
such an intimate way as to make it His own Body”.[2]
It is by His
loving obedience to the Father that could not be thwarted even by the horror of
the cross, that Jesus conquered evil and reconciled sinful humanity with
God. "The Church has the mission of
proclaiming this reconciliation and as it were of being its sacrament in the
world”.[3] A ‘sacrament’ is an effective sign of God’s
action in the world. There are many ways
the ‘sign’ brings about its purpose – teaching the human family, addressing its
needs, forgiving its sins. All, though
they differ in some ways, they coalesce to make effectively present the divine
initiative of mercy and the restoration of life to us.
The Holy
Father sees the sacramental nature of the Church through three of its activities:
“…in the first place by her very existence as a reconciled community which
witnesses to and represents in the world the work of Christ.
Secondly: “She is also a sacrament through her service
as the custodian and interpreter of sacred Scripture, which is the Good News of
reconciliation inasmuch as it tells each succeeding generation about God’s
loving plan and shows to each generation the paths of universal reconciliation
in Christ.
“Finally,
she is a sacrament by reason of the seven sacraments which, each in its own way,
‘make the Church’. For since they
commemorate and renew Christ’s paschal Mystery, all the sacraments are a source
of life for the Church, and in the Church’s hands they are a means of
conversion to God and of reconciliation among people”.[4]
Clearly, the
Holy Spirit is that wellspring of divine life in the desert of a godless world that
gives us the grace and strength to be faithful, and to grow despite the
difficulties we may experience in this world.
Devotion to the Holy Spirit ought to be an active part of the prayer
life of all of us.