Come Holy Spirit!

Rejoice and be glad! Our Lord has kept His promise to us. He descended into hell and on the third day, rose again from the dead and ascended into Heaven. He has broken the chains of sin and has given a lifeline to His faithful by way of the Holy Spirit.

Imagine, if you can, Our Lord pouring forth His Holy Spirit into us so that we are never alone. The Holy Spirit is Our Lord’s gift of love to us. As Jesus explains in John’s gospel, the Holy Spirit is our Advocate to be with us always. The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, “will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you,” said the Lord [John 14:26].

The question is: do we have room for the Holy Spirit or are our hearts, minds, and souls too cluttered with earthly matters? Of course we are preoccupied with the here and now. We have work to do and responsibilities to meet. There is not much energy or time left for anything else—which is precisely why the Holy Spirit is so important to our lives.

The gifts and fruits that come with the Holy Spirit are what we need to meet our responsibilities and to do our work. Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord steady us as we follow the Holy Spirit in our earthly lives, forming within us the “first fruits of eternal glory”: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity.[1]

However, for the Holy Spirit to live within us and through us, we are called to love Our Lord and keep His Word. Doing so enables us to recognize the Risen Christ in our daily living. Unfortunately, we do not always recognize Christ in the busyness of our lives because we do not take the time to look for Him.

In our distractions, temptations, and weariness, we do not realize that Christ is constantly giving us signs that His love is with us every day. Consider symbols signifying the Holy Spirit—water, fire, cloud, light, the hand, the finger, the dove—things that we may consider as ordinary, Our Lord used to perform the extraordinary.[2] We just have to look around us to see the signs and wonders of God.The Holy Spirit is our guide.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit cleans out our internal clutter and worthless desires so that faith, hope, and love are in the forefront of all our life decisions. “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God” [Matthew 5:8]. Yes, we will see God’s love in our lives perhaps in ways we had not seen before and, in turn, our love for Our Lord will grow stronger each day. Come Holy Spirit Come!

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church; The Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit, 1831-32, pg. 450, United States Catholic Conference, Washington, D.C.

[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church; Symbols of the Holy Spirit, 694-701, pg. 183, United States Catholic Conference, Washington, D.C.