Jesus promised His Apostles:
When the Helper comes, Whom I
shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the
Father, He will bear witness about Me.
How was the Spirit to bear witness about Jesus with regard
to the Apostles?
He, the Spirit of truth, will
guide you into all the truth; He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is
Mine and declare it to you.
Notice, People of God, how careful Jesus was to confirm the
oneness of divine witness: the Spirit of Truth would not speak of Himself but,
taking from what the Father has, He would glorify Jesus:
He will not speak on His own
authority, but whatever He hears He will speak He will glorify Me, because He
will take from what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine.
The Spirit leading Mother Church would therefore inspire
the Apostles to recall and proclaim all and only what Jesus had taught them in
word and deed, and whatever the Father would reveal. In the Church of Christ, since the Holy
Spirit of Truth Himself does not speak on His own authority, most certainly,
private individuals cannot do so. The
authentic teaching of Mother Church on faith and morals is divine, both in its
authority, and ultimately in its origin, being the sublime truth about God’s intimate
nature, and His divine will for the fulfilment of human life on earth, and for mankind’s
eternal destiny. That means, it is a
teaching and source of grace to be received most gratefully as an incomparable
pearl of great price, to be treasured more than life itself.
How does the Spirit move the faithful in the Church?
Since He guides the Apostles into ALL TRUTH,
correspondingly, He guides those who are faithful in Mother Church to appreciate God’s truth, and trustfully guide
their steps along ways prescribed by its wisdom, and through delight in its beauty
by the lovingly spiritual aspirations of their hearts and minds. This He does by informing our obedient lives in such a way that we gradually
develop an affinity with God’s revelation, and an ability to rejoice ever more and
more in its beauty and draw ever greater strength from its truth. It was of such guidance of the Church by the
Spirit that St. Paul spoke in the second reading:
I say: Walk by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under
the law.
Here, these words of Jesus Himself come to mind (Matthew
11:29-12:1):
Take My yoke upon you and learn
from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light;
St. Paul, was personally chosen and sent by the Risen
Lord Jesus to suffer and serve as Doctor
of the Nations and Apostle of the Gentiles, yet he is commonly regarded as
being harsh, unfeeling, and indeed, even exclusive, as exemplified by what they
consider to be his teaching in our second reading today: no one can belong to
Christ Jesus unless he crucifies all self-indulgent passions and desires … a
teaching which many say leads them to reject Christianity.
However, in most cases, that pseudo-reason is more truly to
be regarded as an excuse attempting to justify their rejection, not of what is
impossible, but of whatever they fear they would find too restrictive and less
pleasurable. For St. Paul does not use those exclusive words ‘you
cannot belong to Christ Jesus’, and no modern bible attributes such words to
Him; in fact, he actually says:
Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
And he follows that immediately with the words:
If we live by the
Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
We should, therefore, understand Paul in this way:
Those who belong to Christ Jesus,
(those) who live by the Spirit and walk in step with the Spirit, have crucified
the flesh.
There, all of us are afforded hope, since it is by our living
and walking in the Spirit, Paul says, that the Spirit will crucify for us
‘the flesh with its passions and desires’.
Of course, we have to co-operate with the Spirit by following His lead,
but that is a far different prospect from having to set about -- off one’s own
bat so to speak -- crucifying our human flesh.
For the fact is that, of ourselves, we cannot crucify our flesh in any saving way, as St. Paul himself
tells us:
Things done according to the precepts
and teachings of men have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made
religion, and asceticism, and severity to the body, but
(such practices) are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians
2:22-23)
The great fault of lapsing, faint-hearted, Catholics and Christians
today, the great mistake of the voluble critics of Mother Church’s moral
teaching today, is the fact that they ignore, indeed they know nothing about, the
presence -- the active presence and
power -- of the Holy Spirit of Truth and Love in the lives of Jesus’ true
disciples and faithful children of Mother Church today. We, of ourselves, can do nothing that leads
to salvation. Jesus, the Risen and Ascended
Lord, sends the Spirit from the Father precisely to enable us to do what He commands in order that we might
be gradually raised up, in Him, and ultimately take our place, in Him and with Him, before
the Father.
This is exemplified for us by the Apostles who had received
a commission and a command from the risen Jesus to proclaim His Good News to
the whole world, for they first went back to their fishing, awaiting Jesus’
promised Gift of Power from on High.
They only set out on their mission of evangelisation after they
had received that Gift of God, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of holiness and
power, on His very first outpouring upon the Church, as we heard in the first
reading. The Apostles themselves could
do nothing – of themselves -- until He, the Gift of God, came into their lives, enabling them to live in the
power and holiness of the Risen Lord Jesus for the glorification of His name: He
will glorify Me through you.
People of God, we should -- on this wonderful day of
celebration and hope -- beg the Holy Spirit to come down upon us; we should
whole-heartedly beseech Jesus to send His most Holy Spirit from heaven into our
lives ever more and more, for He alone is our sure strength and our true joy in
this shallow world of worldly promises become lies and disillusionment, of earthly
beauty become emptiness and dismay.
First of all, we need to learn from the Spirit how to love
Jesus aright; for, only by trying to follow Him and not yielding to our own ‘wantings’ and fears, will we be enabled --
by the Spirit -- both to obey His commands with a measure of joy, and walk in
His ways with due perseverance. In that way, we will gradually find Jesus more
and more truly lovable, because of our growing conformity, likeness, to Him;
and thus, appreciating Him more, we will be able to hear more clearly His
Spirit speaking intimately in our hearts and guiding us along ways that are increasingly
personal to our relationship with Jesus.
We will, of course never be led to desert the common way of His commandments-intended-for-all,
but we will have the great delight of finding ourselves growing in personal intimacy with the Lord and heart-felt responsiveness to His Spirit. Indeed, we will gradually become aware of the
presence of the Father Himself in our lives, for Jesus did indeed promise that
supreme delight and joy as St. John (14:23) tells us:
Jesus said, "If anyone loves
Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him
and make Our home with him.
People of God, this day is the birthday of the Church, it is the day which commemorates and renews the birth of heavenly hope in our hearts and of ‘practical’ power in our lives: for the Spirit offers us all a goal and an eternal destiny of glory and joy as children of God in the Body of Christ, our very own Lord and Saviour, for the ultimate glory of Him Who is the Father, Lord of heaven and earth (Luke 10:21).
