On The Holy Spirit

Perhaps the most accessible truth of the Christian faith to discuss intelligently is the Holy Spirit.  Let’s begin with the words themselves.  The words “Holy Spirit” or “Spirit of God,” or “the Spirit,” are symbols in our English language for the Hebrew ruach (breath; spirit), and the Greek word pneuma (breath, spirit).  The connection between breath and spirit is still found in English words.  Consider, for examples, “inspire” and “expire.”  To “inspire” literally means “to breathe [life] into” someone, or to help bring the Spirit of God into another’s mind or heart.  The word “expire” means both “to breath out,” and “to breath one’s last,” that is, “to give up the ghost,” to give up the spirit, to die.  Where there is life, where there is breath, there is the creative Spirit of God. “The Spirit gives life,” life eternally.

What do discerning Christians mean when they speak of “the Holy Spirit?” They are not talking dogmatically, although there is the dogma of the Holy Trinity in the background, which we respect. When Christians speak of “the Holy Spirit” or “the Spirit,” they typically mean an experience of the presence of God in their soul or mind. The Spirit is the direct presence of the world-transcendent God, the One who brings all things into being. In the New Testament documents, the “Spirit” is used especially by three authors:  the Apostle Paul; the evangelist Luke; and the evangelist John.  (“Holy Spirit” or equivalents occur throughout the New Testament to a lesser degree.)  As I have often explained, in the usage of New Testament authors, when they wish to communicate the experience of God as personal, they symbolize the experiences as “Christ,” or “Christ Jesus,” or “the Risen One,” and so on.  When they write about their experiences of God as impersonal—as that which enlivens, enlightens, or cleanses, heals, teaches, guides, forgives, comforts, gives peace, and so on—they usually use the term “holy Spirit,” or equivalent.  But we know from the Gospel accounts that while the LORD was embodied as Jesus, He is often credited as the source of enlightenment, healing, peace, forgiveness and so on. After Christ’s death and Resurrection appearances, the impersonal experiences of God are credited to “the holy Spirit.”So the distinction is approximate, not complete: Christ is personal—“I love you,” “I have chosen you,” and the Spirit is impersonal:  “I was lifted up in the Spirit,” “it is the Spirit who gives life,” and so on.  As for “the Father,” the symbol reminds the believer that there is always far more reality to the depth of divinity than anyone could ever experience, no matter how life-changing the conversion or manifestation of “the Spirit,” or of “the Risen Christ.”  God remains ever beyond human grasp and comprehension. Self-enclosed experiences are gnostic, not Christian.

What is the Holy Spirit?  That is the question that slipped from my lips during a discussion with one of the greatest philosophers of the past century, whom I was questioning as I worked on my doctorate on “The Experiential Foundation of Christian Political Philosophy.” To my question “What is the Holy Spirit?,” the philosopher answered with a question that penetrated my heart:  “What do you think is moving you to ask your questions?”  As a member of a doctrinal Christian church, I had been told that asking questions showed “doubt,” or “a lack of faith.” On the contrary: to ask spiritual questions, life questions, real questions, is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart and mind of a human being; not to question shows a lack of faith. What a relief to hear this insight, which served to release me from doctrinal imprisonment.  The hallmarks of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, self-control, and so on; and if one encounters an open mind, someone searching for truth about God and human being, then one is meeting a foremost activity of the Holy Spirit:  asking the right questions.

When young people ask us questions that are genuine questions, and not mere quibbling or game-playing, do we realize that they are moved by the Holy Spirit?  Or when you say to God, “Do you love me?,” do you wonder, “Am I asking this question of God, or is God asking it of me?  Or both at once?”  If you ask God in prayer, “LORD, what would you have me do?,” you are motivated by the holy Spirit.  If you think you have God figured out, or that the Bible or the Church has “all the answers,” and you refuse to question and to search, then you are thwarting the liberating action of the Holy Spirit in your life. Are you living by the Spirit, or by the flesh—that is, by trusting in God’s presence, or by your own fleeting desires?  The Spirit ever draws one beyond the bounds of a self-contained, self-centered existence into “the freedom of the children of God,” into ever expanding horizons.  Life without self-imposed boundaries is the realm of the Holy Spirit. To enter into it is to enter into “heaven,” the Kingdom of God, eternal happiness.  Amen!

On The "Ascension Of Christ"

 Is Jesus Christ present or absent?  If present, in what way(s) is Christ present?  If absent, where is he?  Where has Christ gone?  Does he live “up in the sky with the angels,” or somewhere in the abyss of space, on a strange planet?  These questions are those of a child or of a fundamentalist, not of someone mature in Christ.  But the question, “How is Christ present, while being absent in body?” is indeed a good and fruitful question.  “Seek and you will find.”

 The oldest Christian documents (the letters of the Apostle Paul, the Gospels, other NT epistles) do not ask these questions directly or as boldly.  Rather, they begin with real experiences, and express their experiences of God in Christ in the symbolic language of the New Testament.  There is no way to speak of non-physical, non-existent reality except in symbols; and one without experience of their truth may misunderstand the symbolic meaning or consider them to be “meaningless.”  In fact, the symbolic language of spiritual experience is precise within its own kind, and is highly meaningful, as generations of the faithful will attest based on their own faith and love in Christ Jesus.

Here are some typical symbolic formulations about the murdered and living Christ:  “This Jesus whom you crucified is not here [in the tomb]; He is risen.”  “Jesus Christ is Lord of the dead and of the living.” Or in words attributed to the Resurrected,  “Behold, I AM  with you always, even to the end of the age.”  The expressions of faith in Christ as risen from the dead, as God’s means of ruling over human beings (hence, called “Lord” or Ruler), and as present with his disciples are abundantly found in the earliest Christian writings, long before doctrines had been formulated and fixed, as in the Nicene Creed (321).  “For me to live is Christ; to die is gain.” 

The fundamental experience of the risen Christ is always paradoxical:  for Christ is both absent and present at the same time.  He is absent physically, so that one cannot see a body or hear his voice with one’s ears; but He is present in spirit in the depths of the believer, who has opened himself up to the presence of the living God.  The presence of the Risen Christ is variously symbolized as the “I AM with you,” as “Christ is in you,” or in the more impersonal symbol of “the Spirit of Christ is in you.”  In other words, although Jesus is not physically present, He is very much spiritually present and active in the hearts and minds of the faithful who open their hearts to the LORD’s presence.  Indeed, this opening of the mind and heart to Christ is what is meant by “conversion,” by “coming to faith.”  Faith is not a belief about Jesus, but fundamentally a loving surrender right now to His presence.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens the door [of the heart], I will come in and commune with him, and he with me.”  The faithful also understand Christ to be sacramentally present in the proclaimed word and in the Eucharist.  “Take and eat; this is my body, which is for you; do this in memory of Me.”

These are the issues at stake in the symbolization of Christ’s “Ascension:”  not only is Christ risen and alive, but He is active as the presence of the living God who liberates, sanctifies, guides, heals, challenges, rules over those who obey Him.  Do not look for a body floating around in space, or for the “Son of God” living on a planet somewhere.  These childish beliefs serve to keep God away, to live an autonomous life without the indwelling God.  Rather, listen for the “still small voice” of the One who communes, heart to heart, with a trusting and loving human being.  It is really that simple.  Visual arts portray Jesus as a body disappearing behind clouds, but visual arts must use the physical to disclose the spiritual.  Music is less hindered by physical representation.  In the music of Schütz or J. S. Bach, for example, one encounters the risen and glorified Christ directly in sound, without being masked by clouds.  In their glorious compositions, they directly communicate Jesus Christ.  “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”  And Christ most surely does enter into the mind that is still seeking, who knows it does not know, and longs for a deeper communion. The Risen Christ does indeed come to “the poor in spirit,” to those who question, seek, stay awake, are attentive, listen.  Or Christ can ask, “Have I been with you for so long, and yet you do now know me?” 

The Good Shepherd Versus Bad Shepherding

REVISED from April 21, 2018

The ancient Hebrew Scriptures (our “Old Testament”) provide rich symbols for the Reign of God over His people:  God is “the King,” in the sense of the rightful ruler by whom all human rulers are measured, and found wanting; God is “the Holy One of Israel,” the true standard, fulfillment, and joy of His people, who liberates from evil and sin; and God is the Good Shepherd, who guides and nourishes His people, even as He punishes and destroys those who betray and mislead His people.  In chapter 10 of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus applies the symbol of “the Good Shepherd” to Himself, as He works for God, under God, with God, and is in truth the embodiment of God in humanity:  “I AM the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for His sheep.”  Good shepherding is personally costly; otherwise, it is spurious. 

Any one who goes by the name of “pastor” or “shepherd,” working in Christ’s body, and particularly in the churches, must seek to “shepherd My people rightly,” seeking their spiritual well-being, and not “fleecing” them for money or for benefits, as the prophet Ezekiel strongly warns. What is it that keeps a pastor or shepherd from fulfilling God’s will and the divine assignment to “shepherd My people”?  A pastoral letters attributed to the Apostle Paul warns, “the love of money is the root of all evil.”  And we should add to that:  the love of power, the desire to dominate others, utterly betrays genuine pastoral ministry in the Church.  Examples of such betrayals can readily be found in the history of the various churches, and are usually not hard to find—even as “evil loves to hide,” and is often shamelessly covered up by those in high places.  To any priest or minister who has fleeced Christ’s people, rather than diligently sought to build them up in faith, hope, and love, the biblical warnings are strong.  In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus most sternly warns:  “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”  False shepherds, fake pastors, parents or teachers who betray their sacred trust, all stand warned by Jesus Christ Himself.  And this warning to those who work under Christ for the well-being of His people is an essential part of Christ as the Good Shepherd.  For the Good Shepherd shows most of us to have been less than good shepherds, and often as derelict of duties, fleecers, abusers, even destroyers of human beings. 

The Good Shepherd is the just Judge:  “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (II Cor 5:10).   Because the Good Shepherd is the measure of humanity, each of us must ever examine himself or herself in light of Christ.  We must not presume that we will be let off lightly because we were “ordained,” or called “priest” while on earth—or granted the gift to be a parent or teacher.  On the contrary, Christ warns us:  “To whom much is given, much is required” (Luke 12:48).  Woe to me if I have lead anyone in our parishes astray.  It will not go well with me in eternity if I have chosen ill-begotten gain and the lust to dominate others, or to use others for my benefit, rather than continually and faithfully seek the spiritual well-being of those entrusted to my care. 

Jesus as the Good Shepherd remains the model and the measure of the Church.  When we spend ourselves in lovingkindness for others, when we seek the genuine well-being of ourselves and of each other, when we speak the truth regardless of the cost to us personally, when we restrain ourselves from evil and do good, then Christ’s rule as Good Shepherd is effective in and through us.  But when we in the Church deceive people, and lie, and steal from parishioners, or cover up crimes, or neglect the spiritual welfare of those in our care because we are too much “in love with the world,” then we must know and understand with shocking clarity that the “day of the LORD will suddenly overtake us,” and we risk having Christ declare:  “Get away from me, you evil-doer, into the everlasting fire” (cf. Matthew 7:23).  Brothers and sisters, each of us stands warned.  And this warning is part of the role of “shepherding my people rightly.”  Despite churchianity, it is not all sweetness and flowers. 

May the all-good God have mercy on us, and help us genuinely to repent, change our ways, and seek the spiritual and human well-being of one another.  The Good Shepherd demands this action of us.

"What Would Life Be, If Christ Had Not Died For Us?"

Fortunately, we will not have to know what our life would be like if Christ had not died for us—because in fact he did die for us, and lives fully in the reality we call God.  But If we do not entrust ourselves lovingly to the crucified-Resurrected Christ, then the effects of his death for us are greatly diminished.  To the extent that we surrender to Christ and live his love faithfully, then his death for us has great effects.  What would our life be, if we did not live and die with Christ?  We would live empty lives, and perish into nothingness.  That unfortunately appears to be the fate of many in our society today; many have lost living faith in Christ.  “They are in love with the world,” and with themselves. 

“In the world you have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16).  All of the suffering, sin, evil that one experiences in life in the world cannot undo the victory that Christ gained for each and for all.  “Sin has no more dominion over us” (Rom 8).  “Death is swallowed up in life” (I Cor 15).  The reign of evil is intensely portrayed in the narratives of Jesus’ passion; Christ suffers horrible ravishes of evil done by his fellow human beings.  To those who seize Jesus to deliver him over to Pilate for death, he declares, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Lk 22).  To us still undergoing the trials of life, Christ says, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world,” and all means everything that evil can do to destroy you eternally.  We die in the body, we live in the Spirit. 

 The Resurrection of Christ is not some external event that happened in time.  Jesus’ suffering and death were indeed in time.  What we know of the Resurrection is not some temporal or external event at all, but what was experienced out of time by certain chosen men and women.  On this point, the Apostle Paul is clear and concise:  “God revealed His Son in me.”  This experience, and others like it in Peter, John, Mary Magdalen, is short-handedly called “the Resurrection of Christ.”  How it happened, or even what happened, or when in measured time, no one knows. What we believe and know is grounded firmly on the apostolic witness of those who experienced Christ alive and as fully one with God after he had been tortured to death.  “Christ is truly arisen, and has appeared to Simon” (Lk 24)  That is what makes an apostle:  one who experienced the Risen Christ in his psyche (consciousness) and who was then sent out to proclaim the Risen One from his or her own experience.  And that is why we call the Church “apostolic.”  Our faith in Christ alive and as fully one with God is grounded firmly and until death on the experience of the Resurrected which the apostles were privileged to have.  “As of one untimely born, Christ appeared also to me,” the Apostle Paul insists to the wavering Christians in Corinth (I Cor 15). 

“Because I live, you also live,” declares Jesus in St. John’s Gospel.  The living Christ inbreathes his life, power, divinity into the heart, mind, soul of the believer.  To have faith in Christ is to open oneself up to the presence of the same God, the unknown One whom Jesus called “the Father,” and to carry that presence into the world through one’s prayer, thoughts, actions, self-giving love unto death.  And then one is sure of this:  “Death is swallowed up in life.” 

Blessed Easter to each and to all, for “Now is Christ Risen from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”  Christ is the revelation of the unknown God.  

Holy Week: The Best The Church Has To Offer

We have been proud of our parishioners at St. Mark’s, St. Mary’s, and Holy Trinity for their high rate and quality of attendance at our Holy Week liturgies in the past six years.  Fortunately, most of our people seem to understand that Holy Week, if properly and prayerfully celebrated, is the best that the Catholic Church has to offer the faithful.  Whereas every Mass centers on the death and Resurrection of Christ, and the presence of God in the faithful by the Holy Spirit, it is during the liturgies of Holy Week that the mystery of Christ is carefully and quite fully presented, from the reading of the entire Passion narrative on Passion (Palm) Sunday, through the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the remembering of the death of Jesus for all of us on Good Friday, and then the announcement of the Resurrection of Christ at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night.  Easter Masses conclude the celebration, and continue for weeks.  For the faithful who attend, they hear the entire Passion narrative from Matthew, Mark, or Luke, and then on Good Friday, the Passion according to St. John.  We listen, we think about what we are hearing, and we give thanks to God for what He has done for us in union with Christ Jesus.  That is the core of Holy Week. 

On Passion / Palm Sunday we attentively listen to the Passion of Christ, this year, according to St. Mark.  The drama of God acting for us in Christ, and humanity suffering in and with Jesus, is told by the Jewish Christian, Mark. The conniving, power-loving rulers of this world have their day, and deliver Jesus over to have the flesh torn off his body (scourging), and then spikes driven through his wrists and feet, until he bleeds to death or suffocates. We see the invisible God in the humanity of Jesus must witness how our Lord is tortured, and how much he bears willingly for each of us and for all. The story is agonizing for those who love Christ—and it is liberating for the faithful. Jesus offers himself on behalf of all—not just “for many”—even for his torturers, and for the Romans and religious leaders who conspired to have him brutally murdered.  For you.  For us. 

Holy Thursday, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, allows us to hear and to see acted out Christ’s own interpretation of his suffering and death.  By the Eucharistic meal and by the Lord washing his disciples’ feet, we see God giving himself to us in Christ. We see what true faithfulness looks like:  not ideologically loaded teaching, not digressions on social problems, but direct speech to your heart: “This is my body, broken for you.” Here Christ interprets for us what he achieves on the cross: he brings us into the covenant God made with the Chosen People through Moses, now deepened and broadened as every human being is included in Christ’s will to give his life for all. On Good Friday no Mass is celebrated in honor of the death of Jesus. Instead, we listen to the reading of St. John’s Passion, we show our gratitude for Christ as we venerate the cross, and we receive the sign and instrument of Christ’s all-inclusive, eternal covenant through holy communion. 

The Easter Vigil is truly the climax of the Church year, the single most significant celebration in the Catholic Church.  We begin in darkness outside, reminding us of the spiritual darkness in the human soul without the light of Christ.  The Easter candle is lit, Jesus is proclaimed as “Christ our Light,” and the faithful process into the church to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ from the dead.  For us.  For all.  Adult converts are received into the Church on this night.  We renew our vows to be faithful to Christ unto death, and receive His promise for each of us to share eternally in His love and life.  What more, or what better, could be offered to us in life?  “Apart from You I want nothing at all; God is my hope and my joy.” 

The Easter celebration continues on Sunday, then through the entire Easter season, and indeed, on every Sunday of the year.  “Christ is Risen from the dead. Alleluia, Alleluia.” That means, “Praise the LORD!”  “O give thanks to the LORD for He is good; for his mercy endures forever.” For you.  For me.  For all.

Our common reading assignment for this Holy Week will be to read slowly, in quiet at home, the Passion narrative in the Gospel of St. John, chapters 18:1-20:31, which includes a brief account of resurrection experiences.  For as we hear at the Easter Vigil, “if Christ had not been raised, what good would life be?” 

Drawn To The Light?

 “For God so loved the world that He gave…”  How often are these words quoted?  Even at football games, banners with “John 3:14” appear in the stadium.  Popular preachers often fall back on these familiar words to communicate to the faithful when they do not know what else to say.  What is often used and over-used is rarely heard any more.  Minds are numbed by mindless repetition, thinking stops, and one may just wallow in the warmth of the familiar—perhaps like a sow in mud.  Others become bored or even antagonistic at the staleness of preachers who fall back on clichés and over-worked quotations—as if they no longer can think for themselves, but parrot supposedly comforting words.  Parrots become tedious in their repetitions, eh?

Long have we noticed that virtually never does anyone quoting John 3:14 continue with the rest of the passage, even though what follows develops what has been said, and grounds the words in real human experience.  Consider how St. John continues:  “… Whoever does not believe in Christ has already been condemned.”  Now we are getting closer to the evangelist’s intention, and now the words are sounding more true to us—who live in a “culture of death” that considers human life so cheap and expendable that we load ourselves up on drugs, and even kill pre-born infants for the sake of “convenience,” or to assert “a right to choose” to kill, if one so wishes.  What gods we make ourselves.

That St. John had in mind spiritual and moral corruption such as we experience daily, consider his words that follow immediately after “God so loved the world….”  “Now is the Judgment:  the Light came into the world, but human beings preferred darkness to light, because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does wicked things hates the light, and does not come into the light, so that his deeds might not be exposed.”  Those who quote John 3:16 so glibly seem blind to these words, which are among the most acute analyses of good and evil we find in the entire New Testament.  Those who do evil hate the light, they resist the truth of God, they prefer their evil deeds to the hard work of personal conversion and actually doing good.  How many Americans want to be told that we have dabbled in evil by ignoring God, by removing the awareness of God from schools, by allowing and even promoting the killing of infants in the womb, by destroying our minds and bodies by drug and alcohol abuse, by distorting minds by hardened and poisonous ideologies?  Resistance to the light of God and God’s truth is far more common in our midst, in our communities, in our society than virtually anyone admits.  In the words of Jesus to his own people:  “How often I would have gathered you up, as a mother hen gathers her chicks, and yet you refused.” 

Wallowing in our wicked ways, or are we drawn to the light? The evangelist John continues: “Whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be clearly seen as done in God.”  If and when we Americans really learn to do good, and reject our evil ways, then we will “come to the light” of God, and then and only then can we be “a shining city on the hill.”  There is nothing shining about evil, self-deception, or self-destruction.  Goodness and mercy; deeds of justice; protecting human life from the moment of conception to natural death; nourishing our youth with truth, rather than poisoning their minds with mindless pop culture and rigid ideological non-thinking—these are deeds that will shine forth, and show that we are indeed drawn to the Light of God, and coming clean in His eternal presence, faithfully doing His will, and not our own.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son….”  And now you know the rest of the story.

Lent: Time For Renewal Through Spiritual Reading

Lent begins. The Church observes Lent as a time for spiritual renewal.  What does that mean?  Spiritual renewal means that you and I recommit ourselves to seeking God, to obeying God, to doing His will lovingly in our service of one another.  The traditional three foremost means for spiritual renewal during Lent are prayer, fasting, and giving of charity to the needy.  On fasting you either know and understand by now, or choose not to take it seriously.  Almsgiving or charity to neighbor includes not only financial contributions, but looking for ways to help the needy, and offering acts of kindness to all—especially towards those whom we naturally may not like.  They are our brothers and sisters, too.

On prayer, practices include attentively sharing in the Eucharist (Mass); listening to God and speaking heart to heart; praying various devotions (such as the rosary or the stations of the cross); sitting still in the presence of God; and spiritual reading.  This Lent, I have chosen to emphasize the importance of spiritual reading (lectio divina, divine reading) in the everyday lives of the faithful.  Why do spiritual reading?  To nourish your mind; to increase your appreciation for the truth, goodness, and beauty of God; to move you to love God more as the Beginning and End of all things; to increase your faith in God as your Lord and Savior; and to help you to know more truly and to walk more faithfully on the path of life. 

What should you read this Lent to nourish you in God?  First, I am asking all parishioners to read selected chapters from the book of Exodus, the work that for many centuries has been the foremost book for spiritual reading in the Church during Lent.  To these I add some chapters from Deuteronomy.  And with each week I add one or several short Psalms for your prayerful reading.  Remember that the Psalms are the foremost prayerbook of Israel, and of the Church.  Be attentive!  Here are your assigned readings for the 6 weeks of Lent:

            Week 1:  Exodus chapters 1-5; Psalm 90

            Week 2:  Exodus chapters 6-13; Psalm 1

            Week 3:  Exodus chapters 14-20; Psalms 113-115

            Week 4:  Exodus chapters 21-24; and Exodus 32-34; Psalm 136.

            Week 5:  Deuteronomy chapters 4-7; Psalm 105

            Week 6:  Deuteronomy chapters 8-11; Psalm 106

            In addition, for those attending our adult faith class that meets Sundays at Holy Trinity, Centerville, immediately after Mass (and includes a pot-luck meal), I request that each of us choose an additional book to read closely during Lent.  Some recommendations would include:  the Confessions of St.Augustine; the Proslogion of St. Anselm; Introduction to the DevoutLife by St. Francis de Sales; the Story of a Soul by St. Thérèse of Lisieux (St. Theresa, the “Little Flower”).  Each of these 4 books is a masterpiece of the human spirit, each written by a faithful, loving, gifted Catholic saint.  Or, you may find another book which interests you and turns your thoughts and attention towards God.  That is the point of spiritual reading:  to immerse oneself more fully in the Presence of the living God.

                       May this Lent be a season of grace for you.  Make good the gift.