John 20:19-23
Listen to Saint Basil the Great:
“From the Spirit comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding
of the mysteries of the faith, insight into the hidden meaning of
Scripture, and other special gifts. Through the Spirit we become
citizens of heaven, we enter into eternal happiness, and abide in
God. Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God, indeed, we
attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations – we become
God.”
Jesus promised this Spirit to His
Church and his people; the early Christians relied on the Spirit to
guide them. We are told by Saint Paul that the Spirit gives each of
us a gift for the building up of the Church. Every time we receive
a Sacrament we partake of Jesus' spirit, especially in Baptism and
Confirmation. It would seem that the Spirit would be obvious to each
of us. And yet, when we think about the Spirit, sometimes we have in
our minds the image of people speaking in tongues – Holy Rollers,
perhaps – and being Catholics, we tend to resist that kind of
spirituality. And so with all those wondrous promises about the
Spirit, we kind of blunder through life not even aware that the
Spirit is constantly giving Himself to us.
I don't think you have to be a mystic
or a monk to experience the Spirit. You and I, are, after all,
beings who experience everything through our senses. We have the
five physical senses and the four mental senses – the ability to
know, memory, emotion and imagination. Even if we have mystical
experiences, they need to be translated into sensory information if
we are to experience them at all. And that's where I think we
become confused. Have you ever had an impulse to do something,
something unusual, outside of your normal pattern, which if done
might have resulted in something good? That's one way the Spirit
works. Have you ever had a moment when someone popped into your
mind, someone you hadn't thought about in years? That's another way
the Spirit works. Have you ever had a moment when you felt like you
were part of something much bigger than yourself? Maybe on top of a
mountain, or sitting beside a seashore, or holding a newborn infant?
That's the Spirit; one of his gifts is joy, and Jesus wants our joy
to be complete. Jesus told us that the Spirit would teach us
everything and remind us of all that He taught his apostles.
Sometimes when you are in prayer or reading scripture, an insight
will come, or a prompting. That's the Holy Spirit. He doesn't
reveal our whole future to us, but he is always working in the
present moment.
Now, you say, doesn't modern
psychology tell us about the unconscious? Don't certain sensory
stimuli trigger the recall of memories that were buried deep in our
brains? We all know that we do things and fail to do things for
reasons which aren't always clear to us. And just as we have
impulses to do good things, we also have them to do evil things. And
sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. Is the Spirit whispering
in one ear and the devil in the other? Not really. Jesus told us
that his followers would have power over Satan, and he could not harm
us where it really counts. I think we get an inkling of what's going
on when we read the story of Adam and Eve. We blame the serpent for
the sin of our first parents, but all he did was suggest to Eve that
in forbidding them to eat of a particular fruit, God was keeping them
from becoming like Him. When Eve looked at the fruit, it says that
she saw that it really looked delicious; she listened to her own
voice rather than God's.
There are no coincidences for a
Christian. And Jesus gives us the Spirit so that we can tell good
from evil. And the Spirit is always interacting with us – always.
Our task is to recognize the Spirit and become more sensitive to His
presence.
Pick up any Life of a Saint and you
will see where that sensitivity gets you. There are many examples,
but Mother Angelica comes to mind. At a very early age she began
listening to the Spirit, and more important, acting on what she
believed the Spirit was telling her to do. With great confidence,
she would step out; and if she was on the wrong track it would
become apparent quickly, Because the Spirit protects us from error.
Likewise, if she was on the right track, the Spirit would confirm
that. And as time went on she learned to tell the difference between
the voice of the Spirit and her own wishful thinking. The biggest
problem we have is that most of the time we don't act on the impulses
given to us by the Spirit, so we don't learn to tell the difference
between His voice and the voices of others or of ourselves. But it's
within your reach and mine to be on intimate terms with this third
person of the Blessed Trinity.
When I was young a common belief was
that we human beings only used about five percent of our brains. It
turns out that that isn't really true; But I think we could say
something like that about many Christians; we have this wonderful
gift from God, the Holy Spirit, who is a person, who interacts with
us, whose mission is to make us saints, who wants to give us joy, who
has given each of us gifts to give each other.
So on this Feast of Pentecost, think
about these things. Jesus promised to give you and I the Spirit He
told us what the Spirit could do in us and through us and for us.
The early Christians and the Saints all showed us that the Spirit is
active in the lives of his people – even up to today. And there
isn't any reason you and I can't have what Jesus promised. So pray
that the Spirit help you hear Him better; and then do what the great
Saints did, what the First Christians did, and look for the Spirit in
your daily lives, and when you think you hear Him, act on what He is
telling you; and count on the promise that he will show you if you
are wrong and confirm your action if you are right. And always
remember that when you experience joy, the Spirit is there.
