[Hi, Church fans! Like I said, until Microsoft simplifies their video editing software, I’ll just be posting texts. Leave it to corporate bobbleheads in Seattle, that bastion of common sense, to fix something beyond usable interface. Perhaps someday they will see the error of their ways and repent of the evil they have done. Here’s the column.]
The Irish, like every great and noble people, have many proverbs and sayings. One of my favorites is, “May the love of God warm your heart like a great fire, so that a friend may come and warm himself there.”
I think this is a very helpful image when we try to understand the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and in the world. The Holy Spirit is seen manifested in many ways in sacred scripture. In the New Testament, the Spirit is seen descending upon Jesus at his baptism as a dove would swoop down to its perch. At Pentecost, the Spirit is perceived as a noise like a driving wind and as tongues of fire which came and rested upon each of the apostles and the Blessed Mother. Artists often depict this as a tongue of flame above their heads, but I tend to think it rested more around their hearts. It seems to make more sense to me, especially when I think of the two apostles on the road to Emmaus who said, “Were not our hearts burning within us…?”
The Holy Spirit has many titles: Advocate, Counselor, Paraclete. But it all boils down to the fact that the Holy Spirit is the power of the love of the Triune God radiating out through the Church and into the world. The Holy Spirit has been revealed to us as the love of God between the Father and the Son. The very essence of God is to be, and more specifically to be in relationship. The beautiful thing is that like any powerful, loving relationship, others spring from that relationship and are in turn invited to share in the warmth of that relationship. The most obvious example of this in the world is a husband and wife. It’s no mistake the expression of their covenantal love for one another is so powerful that nine months later, they have to give it a name! In a similar way, the Holy Spirit is that coeternal relationship between the Father and the Son. It is the power of that love that sang the world and all of us into being, sustains us in love, and sanctifies us in love by inviting us ever deeper into that holy communion with God and one another. The Holy Spirit is the power of the love of God alive in the world. May the fire of that love set our hearts ablaze so that others may come and warm themselves there.