Dominica
Pentecostes
Evening, 14 May 2016 /
Church of St John the Evangelist / Agawam
‘Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give to you;
not as the
world gives do I give it to you’ (Jn 14:27).
The theology and liturgy of the Roman
West tends to place its thematic focus on the relationship between God the
Father and God the Son. It has often been said that the Holy Spirit does not
receive the theological attention that he deserves. Perhaps that emphasis does
exist, and there are many rather fascinating reasons for this, none of which I
will mention now, if for no other reason than this homily certainly needs to be shorter than last week’s.
Suffice it to say, it would not be
accurate to claim that the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity goes
completely unheeded by our tradition; that would be impossible. In recent
decades, at least in the popular experience of the faithful, the Charismatic
Movement has, for some, drawn greater attention to the Holy Spirit. We will
refrain from commenting on that, too. However, I would like to argue that
today’s Mass uses one of the most profound, and certainly beautiful texts about
the Holy Spirit in the entire theological tradition of the West. That text is
used today as our Sequence, the Veni
Sancte Spiritus.
Very well, then. But why? Indeed, we
cannot see God as he is in himself; in our finite, very imperfect
creatureliness, that is too much for us now. But we do know God—especially God
the Holy Spirit—by his names and his effects. Today’s sequence is a lyrical
exposition of the names and effects of the Holy Spirit. It would be wonderful
to comment on the whole text, but we will limit ourselves to the seventh and
eighth stanzas.
After six stanzas of telling forth
the names of the Holy Spirit—he is Father of the poor, Giver of gifts, Light of
hearts; Consoler; Guest of souls—the seventh and eighth stanzas begin to
petition the Holy Spirit for his effects. Here is a more literal translation of
my own of those two stanzas: (7) Cleanse what is filthy, / Water what is gone
dry, / Heal what is wounded. (8) Bend what is rigid, / Warm what is cold, /
Rule over what has gone astray.
Lava quod est sordidum. After his Resurrection, our Lord breathed on the Apostles
in the Upper Room and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you
shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they
are retained.”[1]
The forgiving action of the priest in sacramental Confession is a work of the
Holy Spirit. There, we are definitively cleansed of the guilt of sin. Riga quod est aridum. We drink the
waters of sanctifying grace and we begin to liven and to recover. But even
after we are cleansed of the guilt of sin, its effects and residue remain. Sana quod est saucium. Interior wounds
remain and, as with the body, such wounds do not heal instantly, but require
the medicine of time, in addition the balm of penance, in order to bring about
that healing. The Holy Spirit is also the Divine Physician, who presides over
this process like a solicitous doctor.
But as we know, the Christian life in
which we are engaged is not simply about the elimination of sin, though that is
its foundation and keeps us busy enough. Sanctifying grace restores us to God’s
friendship, but it does not eliminate our imperfections; indeed, “it leaves us
with all the natural and acquired imperfections we had at the moment of our
justification.”[2]
The Holy Spirit presides over this process, too: our gradual growth in
perfection. Flecte quod est rigidum.
Under the influence of his grace—by prayer and the practice of the virtues—he
works out the kinks and inflexibilities of our nature, and makes us docile
before the will of God; in a word, he makes us humble. Fove quod est frigidum. Remember, it was in tongues of flame that
he descended upon Mary and the Apostles. If our own temperament or experience of
life has made us cold, he bestows the warmth of supernatural charity and
mildness in the face of our suffering and the suffering of others. Rege quod est devium. Wisdom. The Spirit
produces his effects on our inmost being. He turns us away from sin to keep our
conversion lasting; he realigns our priorities, teaches us prudence, and keeps
our lives directed toward the most important end: the glorification of God in
all things.
Sometimes radically, but more often
than not silently, seamlessly these are his effects when we are faithful to
grace. Here, we have spoken generally; however, part of the glory and
consolation of the Holy Spirit’s action is that it is so personal. When we beg
him, for instance, to bend what is rigid, he knows more completely than we ever
could what exactly are those unyielding parts of us, and he will unbend us in
exactly the way most suited to our person.
But I have a promise to keep about
brevity. At the end of Mass we will sing together the Veni Creator Spiritus; whether or not we are all disposed to
receiving the indulgence or not is one thing. However, we can, all of us, yield
ourselves to the action of the Holy Spirit. We need not worry at the moment of
telling him the list of our needs; he knows them from eternity.—Best to simply
quiet our hearts and allow him to do the work he proposes. Therein lies the
peace that our Lord says he means to give: “ . . . Do not let your hearts be
troubled or afraid.”[3]
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