As I look around my own church, I see many Catholics who certainly have the Spirit of God dwelling in them, leading them to intense and fervent prayer, prompting them to good works and cheerful giving, and attendance at weekly Mass. I am most thankful to have grown up in the culture of Catholicism -- the culture and practice of daily and weekly Masses, of daily prayer (turning to God on a habitual level), of frequent thought, of small sacrifices, of the lives of the saints, etc. The indwelling Spirit is undeniably cultivated by the Catholic culture, as anyone who has been raised in the city of New Orleans can testify. We may joke about Catholic culture and "who's yo mama?" but if anyone asks where we grew up, we will automatically respond with the church parish: St. Catherine of Siena, St. Leo the Great, etc.
As those who grew up in Jewish culture were raised in the synagogue and with all the rituals of Passover, circumcision, and the Sabbeth, so too the lives of New Orleans Catholics centered around St. Louis Cathedral, the observances of Lent and Good Friday, and perhaps the family rosary. We were bred to cultivate and respect the indwelling Spirit of God through outward observance.
What we did not grasp, for the most part, as Catholics, is that the indwelling Spirit is the pre-requisite to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit -- i.e., the experience of Pentecost. We were not taught to expect a Pentecost experience in our own lives. We were taught to expect a ministry of some sort in terms of a vocation, a 'call' to the married life, the religious life, or the single life. The missing link, so to speak, in our education was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for that ministry.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit from birth is for the building up of the person of God; the purpose of the indwelling Spirit is to build up within us the character of Jesus Christ--His own peace, love, patience, long-suffering, joy, goodness -- all the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Without those fruits of the Spirit, any "ministry" we have to others will be fruitless, as St. Paul tells us in I Cor. 13:
If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am but a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing....
The indwelling Spirit is the fountain of living water which Jesus promised to the woman at the well. It slakes our own thirst for love, for joy, for peace, for goodness and mercy -- and makes us ready to receive and minister to others.
But there is yet more to come. In John, Chapter 7, Jesus goes further and says that those who come to Him for living water, from out of them will flow streams, rivers, of living water also. The outpoured Holy Spirit is for the building up of the church. It is for ministry to others, to slake their thirst for goodness, for peace, for joy, for truth. It builds the body of Christ and overcomes division. It makes us one, so that the burdens of one become the burdens of all the rest.
I believe in many quiet ways, the Spirit has been outpoured through Catholic lives from the beginning --look at the ways all the Saints have built up the church that was crumbling over time. Yet, I also believe that as Catholics, we need to be taught that the indwelling Spirit that builds us up on a personal level will also overflow into the lives of others -- the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, knowledge, understanding, fortitude, reverence, -- plus all the gifts Paul lists in I Cor. 12 and 14. There is a reason the famous chapter on love is inserted right between the two famous chapters on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling and the outpouring are two sides of the same coin, and both are the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
If we have been walking with God from the beginning, we should expect that sooner or later, He will set us as a city on a hill, a light to the nations, and the salt of the earth. He doesn't light a fire in our souls in order to quench it or to put in under a bushel basket. Let us pray for the outpoured Holy Spirit as well as for the indwelling Spirit of God.
Perhaps the Charismatic Renewal should be called The Path to Pentecost.
ReplyDeleteGayle this is one of the best explanations I have ever heard. This is another teaching I would like you to give at prayer group. I wish you would give Fr. Mike a copy of this. You are so right in everything you have written. Amen!!!!!
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