By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON
We all like spectacular fireworks! They are exciting, impressive, and exhilarating. They invoke within us a sense of celebration. Fireworks, however, soon lose their luster and only the experience or memory of the lights in the sky remain in our minds.
Sometimes we place the Holy Spirit in this same category. We often expect the Holy Spirit to act within our lives like spectacular fireworks. It’s true that the Church’s first Pentecost had some spectacular fireworks. The Apostles and other Christians were gathered “in one place together.” Then a thunderous noise like a strong wind, like a tornado, came from the sky. And then flames appeared. Flames of fire just appeared out of nowhere, spontaneously, hovering in the air. And the flames divided up and started floating through the air until they came to rest on each of the people gathered.
But the fireworks didn’t stop there. All of a sudden the Christians started speaking in languages they didn’t even know. A crowd had gathered by now, with visitors from all over the world who were in Jerusalem for the festival. Each one heard the Christians explaining the Gospel in their own language. It was a dramatic, spectacular display.
But we would be wrong to conclude from this that the Holy Spirit’s normal way of acting in our life is through dramatic fireworks. In fact, it’s just the opposite. God’s action in our life is most often gentle and hardly perceptible at first. How does Jesus send the Spirit to His Apostles after His Resurrection? He breathes on them — quietly and subtly. How does St. Paul describe the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church? Like the soul of a body — powerful, essential, but invisible and subtle.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit can be a startling force in our lives, but most often, the Holy Spirit acts quietly as He leads us on the path toward heaven. Think of a symphony orchestra. It’smade up of a hundred different musicians and dozens of instruments. The conductor is the visible focus of everyone’s attention, both the musicians and the audience. And yet, is the conductor the real source of the music? No, the composer’s creation in front of every musician on the music stand holding a few pages marked with black dots — the score, the music. No one in the audiences sees the score, but that score is what brings all those minds together, coordinates everyone’s efforts, and produces a beautiful, inspiring performance.
That’s what the Church is like. The Pope is the conductor, guaranteed by God to stay faithful to the musical score, of faith. We are all musicians, contributing our own unique talents to the symphony of holiness that resounds throughout the world and history. The Holy Spirit is the living musical score, the one who tells us what notes to play, when to play them, how fast to play them, and how loudly or softly to play them. The Holy Spirit is the silent force behind the power of every saint, every Catholic Christian, the source behind every parish community and the Church as a whole.
This same quiet but powerful style of the Holy Spirit is illustrated by the famous Holy Spirit window in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It is an oval window at the farthest end of the gigantic basilica. In the center is a figure of a dove, and around the dove are twelve sections of translucent amber that look like twelve spokes in a wheel. It is the only colored window in the entire building, and it quietly suffuses the immense space with a warm, golden light. Quiet and subtle, yet full of transforming power — that’s how the Holy Spirit likes to work.
There is only one condition attached to this gift, however. To experience God’s transforming presence in our lives, we have to obey His Will out of love: “Whoever loves me will keep my Word,” as Jesus says in the Gospel. All of us here want to obey God’s Will in our lives — some want to do so passionately, others reluctantly, but we all want to — otherwise we wouldn’t be reading The Wanderer.
But how do we know what God’s will is? The Holy Spirit quietly reveals God’s Will to us in two ways. First, he inspires and guides the teaching of the Church. God has inspired the world with the 10 Commandments, the instructions in the Catechism, the examples of the saints, the regular updates from the Pope’s encyclicals — the Holy Spirit wants us to know how a Christian should live, and He gives us the Church to keep us posted. In this way, the Church, under the Pope’s leadership, is like the conductor of a symphony: We have to keep our eyes on him if we want to play our part well. But the Church can only give Commandments and guidelines that apply to everyone. God’s Will, will be interacting in our lives all the time. But some of the time, we are faced with the dilemma of how to follow the Will of God in our lives and accept the opportunities and challenges unique to our own life-circumstances. That’s when the Holy Spirit guides us more personally, through inspirations, through His seven Gifts, through wise advice. In both ways, He is hard at work, quietly but surely, building up our happiness and that of those around us.
Each time we attend Mass, the Holy Spirit renews His commitment to guide us, and this opens the door for us to renew our commitment to follow and obey — not in order to experience spiritual fireworks, but in order to feed the fire of God’s love in our hearts, who’s light and heat we all need so much. During Mass, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are united together to touch our souls. It is the work of the Trinity to help raise up our understanding of the faith. In the Mass we experience the workings of the Trinity in a most tangible way.
The Spirit Of Truth
When our lives seem to be existing in the whirlwind of our current times, the Holy Spirit is always there. We may not see the workings of the Holy Spirit like fireworks in the sky, but be assured He is working behind the scenes of our lives. Each of us needs to renew our reverence for the Holy Spirit and allow Him to play an integral part in our lives. I have included the following prayer to the Holy Spirit to assist us in our devotion to the Holy Spirit.
“O HOLY SPIRIT, Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, Spirit of Truth, of Love and of Holiness, proceeding from the Father and the Son and equal to Them in all things, I adore Thee and love Thee with all my heart. Teach me to know and seek my last end; grant me the holy fear of God; grant me compunction and patience, and suffer me not to fall into sin. Grant me an increase of Faith, Hope and Charity, and bring forth in my soul all the virtues proper to my state of life. Make me a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, and an obedient child of Holy Church. Grant me an efficacious grace to keep the Commandments and to receive the sacraments worthily. Grant me the Four Cardinal Virtues, Thy Seven Gifts, Thy Twelve Fruits. Raise me to perfection in the state of life to which Thou hast called me; and lead me, through a happy death, to life everlasting through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.”
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