A Deep Tide of Contentment

In the May issue of Give Us This Day, Father Michael Casey writes about the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and His work among us today:

According to the expression much favored in the Eastern Church, the effect of the Spirit's presence in our midst is to divinize human beings so that they become ever more fully "sharers in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).

The first way in which this task is accomplished is to inhibit those tendencies within us that are hostile to the advent of divine grace.  St. Paul give us a list of these "works of the flesh:" impurity, anger, envy, strife, and the rest (Gal. 5:20-21).  Before we become fully responsive to the Spirit's call to holiness, we must allow the Spirit to overcome our resistance so that we can begin to seek what is above, not what is earthly and temporal.

The kingdom of God is goodness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Nothing is so contrary to the presence of the Holy Spirit as sadness.  The Spirit's gift is not a frothy hallelujah gladness but a deep tide of contentment that flows beneath the surface of life....Pentecost invites us to share more fully in the life of the risen and ascended Lord by giving the Holy Spirit greater access to our thoughts, desires, and actions so that we also may be drawn more intensely into a fuller experience of God's love.

I remember in my twenties telling God He could have everything except my mind.  I thought that by surrendering my mind to Him, I would lose it and become like those wandering around not knowing who they were or where they were -- and I had a horror of that.  How stupid I was!  And how afraid of losing control of my own life! 

Looking back now, I realize that I really did not understand anything at all about God or about Jesus' words about those who lose their own lives finding it again, or about the seed falling into the ground in order to produce rich fruit.  First, God is wholly good; He brings things which are His to perfection, not destruction.  The more He "owns" something, the better -- not worse -- it grows.  The greater the divine action on us, the more -- not less -- human we become.

After my surrender to the Holy Spirit (by asking a young 20-year-old girl to pray for me to receive the 'baptism of the Spirit'), the first thing I noticed was a lessening of my habitual frustration, resentment, and anger.  One day, I noticed that my life-long quick anger had almost entirely disappered.  In its place was indeed "a deep tide of contentment," which had begun at the moment of prayer in the hospital and which continued to grow and deepen in the days ahead.  I did not want to let go of this new-found peace, the way I always seemed to let other things go that I had first been enthusiastic about.  So I asked my doctor, who had been the first to pray over me, how to make it continue.

He laughed; "You don't 'have' the Holy Spirit," he told me; "He has you! And He's not letting go, even if you walk away.  He's going to walk with you as far as it takes."  Then the doctor told me that it had been 14 years since he had received the gift of the Holy Spirit in prayer -- and he told me that it just keeps getting better and deeper every year.  I was so reassured by his words that I relaxed, somehow believing that it did not and would not depend on my efforts to continue this gift, that the Spirit Himself would take charge of my life.  That was in 1977.  Today, 35 years later, I am soooo happy to stand up and shout to the world the absolute and undeniable faithfulness of God. 

The Gift of the Holy Spirit is more real and deep to me today than it was then.  Although I have not been the faithful one, although I have sinned again and again and neglected prayer; although I have pursued other interests and ambitions, the Holy Spirit has continued to teach, to instruct, to lead, to purify and to "perfect the things which concern me," as it says in Lamentations 3: 

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness (22-23).

You came near when I called you,

and you said, "do not fear."

O Lord, you have taken up all the causes of my life;

you redeemed my life (57-58).

To the woman at the well, Jesus said, "If only you knew the Gift of God, you would ask, and I would give it to you."  I want to grab everyone I meet and say to them:  If only you knew the Gift of God, you would ask, and it would be given unto you!

(No more entries until next week; I will be traveling.)