May 19, 2013: Feast of Pentecost
Have you ever seen persons filled with the Holy Spirit? What do they look like? My earliest encounter with what I perceived as people filled with Holy Spirit was when I was in middle school. I went with a friend to the Assembly of God church he attended. In the main worship space, a rock band was playing and the congregation was participating with their hands in the air in praise. In another room, was a group of men praying fervently over a man in a language I had never heard or understood. For a Catholic boy, it was quite unfamiliar worship style. As an adult Catholic, I encountered a very similar style of worship in a movement called Catholic Charismatic Renewal. After being acquainted with the movement, I received what’s called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was then that I received the gift of praying in a strange prayer language. More important gifts were the manifestation of Jesus’ love for me and a hunger for the Word of God. I remember feeling exuberant for many months after the Baptism of the Spirit. Someone described my experience not so much as another baptism but as a stirring of what’s already received.
We Catholics receive the Holy Spirit through Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. In Baptism we receive the Holy Spirit and become God’s children and members of the body of Christ. In Confirmation we receive a new fullness of the Spirit and are empowered to serve the Church and bear witness to Jesus. Often we do not allow the Spirit we have received to be as active in us as He wants to be. To use an analogy, imagine a cold glass of milk. We all know how good and refreshing milk is.
Now imagine chocolate syrup poured into that glass of milk--it goes to the bottom of the glass until it is stirred. But when it is stirred up, it permeates the milk and transforms it into something new. That’s how it is with the Spirit. We can learn how to "stir up" the Spirit--and how to receive more of Him--from Jesus in the Gospels: "If anyone thirst, let him come to Me, let him drink who believes in Me. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of His heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now He said this about the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive" (John 7:37-39)
Do you experience in your life the gift and power of the Holy Spirit? I’m not asking you if you worship with your hands up, whether you speak in tongues or prophesy. Through the years, I have learned that the greatest manifestation of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is not so much the visible gifts of the Holy Spirit such as speaking in tongues and prophesying. St. Paul offered his thoughts, as recorded 1 Corinthians, about the most important manifestation of the Holy Spirit. He wrote, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Many times couples choose that passage for their wedding mass because they believe it’s referring to a couple’s love for each other. However, a more accurate meaning of this passage is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in how we love. Patience, kindness, gentleness, and humility are the greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit. I used to envy those who have the gift of tongues, gift of prophesy, and gift of healing, but no longer. After seeing Mother Teresa and how she loved, I knew I wanted the Holy Spirit’s gift of patience, kindness, gentleness, humility, and compassion.
Do you thirst for God and for the abundant life he offers through the gift of his Spirit? The Lord Jesus offers each one of us the gift and power of his Holy Spirit. He wants to make our faith strong, give us hope that endures, and a love that never grows cold. He never refuses to give his Spirit to those who ask with expectant faith. Jesus instructed his disciples to ask confidently for the gift of the Spirit: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Do you desire the Holy Spirit to stir you to greater love for Jesus and for neighbors? Then, can we sing together a short hymn to the Holy Spirit to ask him to be more active in our lives?
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us;Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. Melt us, mold us, fill us, use us. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us.
