There
is a priest friend of mine—one of my classmates actually—who does
a lot of work with the Legion of Mary calling from door to door
speaking to people about faith. He was a Quantity Surveyor
before he became a priest and he is one of the most amazing
organizers I’ve ever met. He often said to me that the
hardest places he found to work in were usually the wealthier areas.
When people felt they had all they needed they were generally not as
open to hearing about God. The poorer areas were usually much
more open to what he had to say. It doesn’t surprise me.
From
all the various crises that are happening at the moment one of the
good things that is coming from them is that they are helping people
to ask a lot of questions and to search for God in a new way.
Economic crisis helps us to realise that we are much more vulnerable
than we might have thought. Religious crisis and even serious
scandal—such as we have seen—can help us to remember
that while religion can be a great help, it is absolutely deadly if
it is misused. The Muslim extremists like ISIS are frightening example of this. Any religion is simply a way to help us live out
what we believe in, but unless it is completely focused on God and
unless God is at the centre, it can become an end in itself and a
very dangerous one at that.
There
is one crucial thing that is needed for faith to be alive and healthy
and that is the gift of God’s Spirit: The Holy Spirit. For me
the best way of explaining it is to compare the Spirit to
electricity. In any building you can have all kinds of useful
and sophisticated equipment, such as computers, microphones, lights,
projectors, MRI and CAT scanners, and so much more. However,
none of these things would be of any use to us if we didn’t have
electricity. They would just sit there completely useless.
The power that goes into them is what transforms them into something
wonderful. In a sense the Holy Spirit is the electricity that
makes us alive. Without God’s Spirit we are dead, the
Scriptures are just words in a book; the mass is just an empty
ritual; marriage is just a legal way of being together. But
with the Holy Spirit our faith suddenly lights up. The
Scriptures become the living word of God; the mass becomes the living
presence of Jesus among us in the Eucharist. With the Holy Spirit
marriage includes the presence of God who is there to support,
strengthen and encourage every couple.
We
are nothing without the gift of God’s Spirit. We would not be
able to believe, or pray nor would we even have the desire to know
God. I could stand at the altar and pray all day long, but
nothing would happen if the Holy Spirit didn’t transform the bread
and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus; the same with confession.
It is the Spirit who forgives people. The priest is just an
instrument; an important instrument, but only an instrument.
What
we see happening in the Church at the moment and over the last 20
years or so is also the work of the Holy Spirit, purifying and
renewing his people. And that is happening because the Lord
loves us and won’t allow his people to be overcome with
disease. All the poison is being taken away and this is painful
but absolutely essential. We will all be much better off
because of this work which God is bringing about. Ironically,
God is forcing us to rely much more on the power of his Word and of
his Spirit, something which we should have been doing all along.
Perhaps one of the most important things to remember is that God’s
work is always beautiful and God will make things beautiful again,
because God is the master craftsman.
The
Lord doesn’t wait until we are ready either. God acts when
the time is right. He doesn’t just wait for the hierarchy of
his Church to decide what to do. The Lord sends his Spirit who
inspires people and moves people to act. That’s not to say
that God doesn’t care about his bishops and priests, of course He
does, but God knows how best to act; and so He sends his Spirit
to inspire and move people to step out in faith and live the Gospel,
and they in turn move others, until soon the people are alive with
faith again.
God
knows very well what we are like and that despite our best efforts we
continually need to be helped back on the right track, no matter what
we are doing. And this is why Jesus told us before he ascended
into heaven, that the Father would send us this ‘Helper’, who
would be with us forever, and who would teach us everything. He
knew well that we would need help and so God sent us the best help
that we could have, his own Spirit, to guide us and teach us.
The Lord constantly teaches through the example of people He
inspires, through the Word of God, through prayer when we are open to
him and in many other ways we will never even be aware of. But
the Spirit is very gentle and that is why we don’t notice him
sometimes.
The
gift of God’s own Spirit is really the greatest thing God can give
us after life itself, because when we have the Holy Spirit we have
everything.
Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your faithful
people,
send forth your Spirit and we will be created,
And you will renew the face of the earth.
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