168. Seventh Saturday of Easter

Meditations no. 214 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The life of grace: the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our soul.

Today is the eve of Pentecost, and the solemn liturgy recalls the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Church in a visible manner, in order to open the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven to all.

Our Father invites us to remember the passage in the third chapter of St John, verses 1 to 10, when our Lord says to Nicodemus: Nisi quis renatus fuerit denuo non potest videre regnum Dei; unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God or have any part of it. Nicodemus answers: Quomodo potest homo nasci, cum sit senex?; how can a man be born when he is already old? I am not going to repeat the whole passage now. Nicodemus was not an unlearned man. Jesus asks him: Tu es magister in Israel et haec ignoras? And the Master also says: Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto non potest introire in regnum Dei; you are a teacher in Israel and you do not know these things? Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And elsewhere he says: Sic est omnis qui natus est ex spiritu, so it is with him who is born of the Spirit.

In the early Church, the eve of Pentecost was the day when those catechumens who had not been able to receive baptism during the Easter Vigil were finally baptized. The Lord has opened to all humanity, without exception, the possibility of a new life, of being reborn in the Spirit, of beginning to live as conquerors who can exclaim: If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not give us all things with him? … For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. What a beautiful hymn of certainty, of plenitude, of godliness, one which our poor human clay could never dream of intoning.

The root of all supernatural effectiveness, for interior life and apostolic activity, lies in God’s action in the soul, in that renewal which the Lord promised: “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive, With the grace conferred by the sacraments, we receive the Holy Spirit, who in giving us a new heart, makes us a new creature with new effectiveness: namely, the possibility of reaching sanctity and helping others attain it as well.

We need to cooperate with his sanctifying action.

The sanctifying action of God is attributed to the Holy Spirit in a special way, just as the Creation is attributed to God the Father and the Redemption to God the Son. It is the Holy Spirit who infuses the grace in us which allows us to share in God’s life. As St Peter writes: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may … become partakers of the divine nature. The Holy Spirit prepares our souls for the fullest participation in God’s life through the exercise of the supernatural virtues and the operation of his gifts. The virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit do not simply make it possible for us to act as true children of God: they specially facilitate it.

The Holy Spirit’s action requires our intelligent, free cooperation, since God does not force our will, but moves it in such a way that we remain free at all times. For this reason, Christian tradition has summarized the attitude we should adopt toward the Holy Spirit in just one idea: docility. That means we should be aware of the work of the Holy Spirit all around us, and in our own selves we should recognize the gifts he distributes, the movements and institutions he inspires, the affections and decisions he provokes in our hearts. The Holy Spirit carries out in the world the works of God. He is, as we read in a liturgical hymn, the giver of grace, the light of our hearts, the soul’s guest, our rest in work, our consolation in sorrow. Without his help there is nothing innocent or valuable in man, since he is the one who cleanses the soiled, heals what is sick, sets on fire what is cold, straightens what is bent and guides men toward the safe harbour of salvation and eternal joy.

But our faith in the Holy Spirit must be complete. It is not a vague belief in his presence in the world, but a grateful acceptance of the signs and realities into which he has poured forth his power in a special way. When the Spirit of truth comes, our Lord tells us, he will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit sent by Christ to carry out in us the work of holiness that our Lord merited for us on earth.

And so, there cannot be faith in the Holy Spirit if there is not faith in Christ, in his sacraments, in his Church. A man cannot act in accordance with his Christian faith, cannot truly believe in the Holy Spirit, unless he loves the Church and trusts her. He cannot be a coherent Christian if he limits himself to pointing out the deficiencies and limitations of some who represent the Church, judging her from the outside, as though he were not her son.

We are instruments.

He that loves has the Holy Spirit within himself, says St Augustine, and having him, merits to receive him more abundantly, and having him more abundantly, therefore loves him with more intensity. The disciples had within themselves the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord had promised, and without whom they could not call him Lord; but they did not yet possess him with the fullness our Lord had promised. They had him and did not have him, because as yet they did not have him with the fullness with which they should have had him.

Something similar happens in our life. We need to grow, to prepare to receive the Holy Spirit more fully and abundantly. Our Father has written: The Holy Spirit - God with you - is giving a supernatural tone to all your thoughts, desires, and actions.

When we realize how badly we need God’s help, our desires to be filled with the Holy Spirit will increase. We are his instruments. When God wishes to carry out an enterprise, he uses totally inadequate means so that all may see that the work is his. Hence you and I, who know well the weary weight of our own pettiness, should say to God: “Although I see my own wretchedness, I realize that in your hands I become a divine instrument.” I have never doubted that whatever I may have done over the course of my life in the service of the Holy Church, was not done by me: our Lord did it, though making use of me: No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven.

For our part, poor and little as we are, it would be madness not to seek in the Holy Spirit the strength we need to serve the Church, normally by way of little things, which are great and heroic in the eyes of God. It would be the equivalent of denying God the little he asks of us: namely, to be instruments. Our contribution to this loving cooperation is the least important part, but God has chosen to need it because of his love for human beings, his children.

And so we can apply to ourselves the question asked by the Apostle: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? And we can understand it as an invitation to talk with God in a more personal and direct manner. For some, unfortunately, the Paraclete is the Great Stranger, the Great Unknown. He is merely a name that is mentioned, but not Someone, not one of the three Persons in the one God, with whom we can talk and whose life we can live.

We have to treat him simply and trustingly, as we are taught by the Church in her liturgy. Then we will come to know our Lord better, and at the same time, we will realize more fully the great favour that has been granted us when we became Christians. We will see all the greatness and truth of the divinization to which I referred before, which is a sharing in God’s own life.

Our Blessed Lady, our Mother, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, will teach us how to relate to the Paraclete.