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 serious scandals—such as we are seeing at the moment—help us
to remember that while religion can be a great help, it is absolutely
deadly if it is misused. 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.
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 like stone.
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 and the mass becomes the living
presence of Jesus among us in the Eucharist. With the Holy Spirit
marriage includes the presence of God, present to support, strengthen
and encourage.
The truth is that 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. 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, He 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, but God knows how best to act; and so the Lord 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 God's people are alive again with
faith.
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. And the Lord does teach us constantly 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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