In
1999, in preparation for the second millennium, Pope John Paul II
invited representatives from 54 different groups around the world to
come to Rome. These groups were all started over the last several
decades and were all started by lay people, under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. To give you an example, some of the groups were, the
Focolare movement, Marriage Encounter, Cenacolo, Charismatic Renewal,
Cursillo. All of these different movements within the Church have
been started by lay people and are really about different ways of
living out the Gospel in daily life. These movements have been so
successful that most of them have spread all over the world. For that
meeting in Rome, there were 400,000 people present representing these
54 different movements. This event was a celebration of what God is
doing all over the world.
It
is good to hear about these things every so often, because it would
be easy to get the impression that the Church is dying, or that
religion is on its way out. We won’t hear about this sort of thing
on the TV, or in the papers, but it is happening all around us.
Just
to give you an example closer to home of the power of God’s Spirit
working among us. For many years I worked with a prayer group of
young people in Galway, started by one lay person, a young woman.
From that group there are currently seven people in religious life,
and there are about twenty couples married, but more importantly it
has helped many people come back to their faith and grow in their
faith. Most of the group are now in their 40s/50s but they are people
who are really trying to live out the Gospel in their daily lives. It
was thanks to that group that I came back to my own faith, because I
had also drifted away, and then later I became a priest. That is the
power of God’s Holy Spirit at work, and praise God for it.
God
doesn’t wait until we are ready. God acts when the time is right.
He doesn’t wait for the hierarchy of his Church to decide what to
do. I don’t mean that they are not important, but think of the
times that Peter and Paul came to pray with people and before they
had even started, the Holy Spirit came down on them. 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 the people are
alive with faith again. In the Gospels Jesus says to the Pharisees,
‘The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people
who will produce its fruit’ (Matthew 21:43). God doesn’t wait
until we are ready. God inspires people to act when the time is right
and that’s why new movements and religious orders keep springing
up.
One
time when I was working in a hospital in Ireland, I came into one
area where I was going to visit patients who were newly admitted. One
of the nurses told me that a man had been admitted who had taken an
overdose of poison and was going to die. She said that he probably
wouldn’t be too receptive to me. I decided to visit him anyway and
prayed to God for guidance. When I got to the door of his room, which
was open, I could see a young man by his bedside, who turned out to
be his son. I stood at the door and I just said, ‘I heard what
happened and I’m sorry. Do you regret it?’ The man said that he
did regret it. As soon as he said that, I felt this strong prompting
inside me saying, ‘That is a confession, so don’t ask for one.’
I really felt that was the Spirit speaking to me. I asked the man if
he would like to talk, but he emphatically said that he did not want
to make a confession. I told him that he didn’t have to. I spoke to
him for a few minutes and he told me that on the spur of the moment
he had taken a drink of a weed killer called Paraquot. The doctors
told me that they could do nothing and that this would just burn
through his insides and kill him. He now had to face his family. I
asked him if he would like me to anoint him. Again he said that he
didn’t want to make a confession. I told him that it wasn’t
necessary and that the anointing included the forgiveness of his
sins. And so I anointed him and left. He died a few days later.
Some
weeks later a friend of mine was talking about a man in hospital who
had taken an overdose of poison. He had refused to see two priests,
but eventually he did see a priest, was anointed and died peacefully.
It was the same man, but my friend didn’t realise I was the third
priest. If I had known that he had refused to see two other priests,
I probably would not have gone to him. But the Lord sent me to that
man, he made his peace with God and died reconciled. That was the
power of the Holy Spirit guiding me to him, just as we read of the
Apostles being guided to different people and there are so many
stories I could tell you of similar events.
Do
you know what God’s Spirit is doing in the Church all over the
world over the last few years? He is stripping it down so that it can
become beautiful once again. Because of the scandals, He is removing
all the prestige, power and respectability which we had come to
depend on. We had become too powerful, too prestigious and it was
causing us to wander away from what the Gospel is really about. The
scandals have brought us to our knees and that is not a bad thing.
God is, ironically, forcing us to turn back to depend on his Word and
his Spirit and to get away from what we don’t need. God is
rebuilding his Church because He loves us. When someone is
sick with cancer, you remove the cancer so that the person becomes
well again. When the Spirit’s work is finished the Church will be
beautiful again. The Spirit is removing the cancer of sin and
corruption, so that God’s Church can bear fruit again and God does
this because He loves his Church.
Before
he ascended into heaven Jesus told us that the Father would send us
the ‘Helper’, who would be with us forever, and who would teach
us everything. He knew that we would need help and so He sent us the
best help that we could have, his own Spirit, to guide us and teach
us. And He does teach us constantly, through the example of people He
inspires, through the Word of God, through prayer when we are open to
him, in fact, through many ways we will never even be aware of.
But the Spirit is very gentle and that is why we don’t notice him
sometimes.
Remember
this: in the mass, nothing would happen when the priest prays over
the bread and wine, if the Spirit didn’t come down. Sins would not
be forgiven through the priests if the Spirit didn’t act. Baptism
and Confirmation would mean nothing, marriage and ordination would
mean nothing, if the Holy Spirit didn’t act. We wouldn’t know how
to pray or even feel the desire to pray except that the Spirit
teaches us continually. Our preaching would have no effect if the
Spirit did not anoint the words we speak.
Here
is something that happens to me quite often. I preach a homily that I
feel disappointed with, or that I thought I did not do well.
Afterwards people come up and thank me for such a powerful message.
That is the Holy Spirit.
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. It is also good to remember that the anointing of the
Spirit does not depend on how brilliant, or learned we are. It simply
depends on us being open to the Spirit. If you look at so many of the
characters in the Bible God used, most of them were very
insignificant people. God seems to delight in using ordinary and
indeed ‘useless’ people, according to the world’s thinking.
In
the first book of Samuel, it says that Samuel was sent to Jesse’s
house to anoint God’s chosen instrument, the man who would be the next king.
God tells him He will point out who it is. Samuel comes to Jesse’s
house where there are seven sons. He looks at everyone in the
household, starting with the eldest, but God did not choose any of
them. Having seen all of the sons in the house, Samuel asks if there
is anyone else. They tell him there is just the youngest who is out
minding the sheep. He is the least important, who was not even
considered, but he is the one God anoints and he turns out to be one
of the greatest kings of Israel. That tells us something. We don’t
have to be great for God to use us, just open. The more we root
ourselves in God’s life, through his Word and through the
Eucharist, the more the Lord will use us.
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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