The Promise

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In the Liturgy this weekend the emphasis changes from looking at the Resurrection and focusing on what is to happen after the Ascension we see the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit the Advocate. In a few weeks’ time we will see the power of the Holy Spirit and how it transforms peoples’ lives.
A few weeks ago a parishioner cam and asked me why the Church never seems to promote or talk about the Holy Spirit. “After all” he said “it hardly ever appears in the Mass.” Although one can be quite dismissive of this statement at first it is true that the Church sometimes has looked upon the Holy Spirit as there but never really spoken about.  I gently reminded him and asked him to look out for the action of the Holy Spirit during the Mass. After Mass he admitted that in fact it is there quite a lot more than he had first thought.  From the opening dialogue to the epiclesis through to the dismissal the Holy Spirit flows through our liturgy.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit is quite difficult to get our heads around. We can know the Father and have an image in our heads. Sometimes this is a man with a big white beard. We can have an image of Jesus and know him in the Scriptures.
 
The word Spirit in the Bible is ruaḥ. This is a feminine word. When we look through the scriptures it has always been there. The Spirit hovered over the water for example in the story of creation.  I like to think of the Holy Spirit as the creative love of God. Jesus promise is that he will never leave us that he will send an Advocate the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit dwells within us given to us at our baptism and confirmed in us at confirmation. It gives us the courage to proclaim God’s love to others.
Now there is a very simple test we can do to see the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. Have you ever for example been in a situation when someone is talking to you and you have no idea what to say? Then some words are formed and we think where did that came from? This is the Holy Spirit working within us. It is this dynamic Holy Spirit that helps us all through our lives. So the Lord’s promise to always be with us is a reality. It is always with us at work in the world today.

But we must allow ourselves to be “worked by the Spirit” and be sculpted into the image of God. The Catachesism of the Catholic Church says:
 “Through the Power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s passion by dying to sin and in his resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself” (CCC1987)
It seems to me that this is the essence of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. We become part takers in the divine life and strive our best to die to sin and rise to new life. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit we are slowly transformed to be like Christ. In the scriptures we see this that we are sanctified by the Spirit (2 Peter 1:4)


I wonder how many of our people really believe in this. The gift of the Holy Spirit given to them as their baptism and confirmation. If as we saw at the beginning of this reflection a parishioner could not see it in liturgy how much more difficult will it be for people to see the Holy Spirit at work within themselves especially as we increasingly become aware that there is a lack of knowledge.  Also as I have become aware there is also no easy answers.

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