Water and Fire

I have one burning desire -- to see my own church re-evangelized with the water of the Word of God and the fire of the Holy Spirit.  I am like Moses in Pharoah's household, watching his own people toil every day under the hot sun, lashed by the whips of their Egyptian slave-masters, and not knowing what to do about it.  I know that Moses had to spend 40 years in the desert, tempering his natural impulses to "set his people free" before he was a fit instrument, humble enough to be used by God at last.

I see good people, lovely people, lovable people who go to church every Sunday, but I wonder if they "know" God, if they "love" God, or if they just "go to church." 

As a child, I learned from the Baltimore catechism that "God made us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life and to be happy forever with Him in the next."  It took me 35 years to begin to understand what that really meant.  I do believe that all the people around me every Sunday are serving God; I see the love they have for their families, the sacrifices they are making every day for their children and their elderly parents.  And I know in my heart that they will indeed "be happy with Him in heaven."  So what's the problem?

If my own experience is typical, I have to believe that many "good Catholics" who go to church every Sunday are still thirsting for something they do not know.  I was "trying" to be a good person, but I still did not know Jesus Christ and "the power of His resurrection," in the words of Scripture.  And I really did not "know" God enough to "love" Him.  I just wanted to do the right thing, because that was the way I was raised. 

With the annointing (water and fire) of the Holy Spirit, a whole new world opened up to me, beginning with the desire to read Scripture.  For the first time in my life, I began to experience being led by the Spirit and "hearing" the interior Voice of God in my life.  I began "wrestling with God" in prayer and learning to know Him intimately.  It was sooooo different from just 'trying to be good!"  Indeed, for the first time in my life, I was beginning to learn where goodness comes from, and it certainly was not from within me!  I was beginning to see who I really was: a sinner, something I could never have admitted before.  "Being good" was not good enough!  It was only the beginning. 

Those who have studied scripture tell us that the reason Moses could not cross the Jourdan River into the Promised Land is that the law can bring us only to the brink of the eternal life, but it takes Joshua/ Jesus to lead us across the River into the land where we can dwell in safety and peace.  And indeed, John says in his Gospel, The law came through Moses, but grace and truth through Jesus Christ...From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another. 

Jesus told the woman at the well, "...whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  This is what I yearn for my church to experience -- living water that satisfies every thirst!  I want people to know the Bible in a way that gives peace, assurance, truth, and a true knowledge of who God is!  And that true knowledge of God brings us at last to the true love of God. 

I want my whole church to experience the promise Jesus made to His Apostles as He ascended into heaven:  Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the Gift my Father promised...for John baptized with water, but...you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus said, "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what would I but that it be kindled!"  More and more, I desire that both fire and water be rained down from above on the Catholic church, in a new Pentecost!  I want to see rivers of living water flowing throughout the church, and I want to see the whole church on fire with the living Spirit of God in their midst!

Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday!  May God rain down on us His Gifts of water (of the Word) and of fire (of the Spirit)!