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4. PAGE 5—December 23, 1976 Does The Spirit Change Our Lives? “CALLING IN LOVE creates a new outlook on life,” Father capacity to change people is nothing short of miraculous.” (NC AlfrC.l McBride writes. “We all know how fire transforms that Photo by Elizabeth Thoman) which it burns. Love is fire invented the second time. Its f “Come Holy Sj )irit Into Our Hearts...” - ---- - - ^ BY FATHER ALFRED McBRIDE, O.PRAEM. Everyone who falls in love sees things differently. Love changes people’s lives and drives away their fears. The Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas describes it this way: “If I were tickled by the rub of love ... I would not fear the gallows nor the axe, nor the crossed sticks of war. I would not fear the devil in the loin, nor the outspoken grave.” Falling in love creates a new outlook on life. We all know how fire transforms that which it bums. Love is fire invented the second time. Its capacity to change people is nothing short of miraculous. Conversion and the consequent life change is almost invariably caused by love. This is clear from regular human experiences. It is no less true when one has a religious experience of God. How is God experienced as love? Through the dynamic outreach of His Holy Spirit. Read the Acts of the Apostles and see how many people are touched by love, that is, by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Those pages are filled with descriptions of people changed by the mighty “breath of God.” How are such people changed? For one thing they seem to have little difficulty seeing the link between God and people and the world. Reality acquires for them a kind of transparency in which the divine presence is perceived to permeate all relationships that are open. Just as a romantic young lover can dance all night, paint life with rosy colors and burst with enthusiasm, so also those who come to know the Spirit — love from God. Enthusiasm is a key word. It comes from the Greek “en-theos,” the God within. And this, therefore, tends not to be an enthusiasm that wanes after the “first fervor” of the impact of love departs. Unlike those devoted to the contemporary fashion for self realization, those who walk in the Spirit are more interested in the love that links people together. They do not repudiate self fulfillment, but they insist that it be related to interpersonal relationships with people and with God. The Acts of the Apostles is a case study in What is the central doctrine, the fundamental mystery of the Christian religion? The Incarnation of the Son of God? Certainly one could make a strong case for that. But the very mention of the Son of God suggests an even more basic truth — the Trinity — a concept most difficult for the human mind to grasp. How can there be a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal and divine, without there being three Gods? If the Son is “begotten’ of the Father, did the Father exist before Him? If the Father and the Son ‘send’ the Holy Spirit, is He not in some way subordinate to them? The New Testament authors give no indication of concern about such problems. Later Church writers had to come to grips with the implications of the mystery, but it took them centuries to arrive at a consistent formulation which would do justice to the data of revelation and the demands of human reason. With the help of concepts borrowed from Greek philosophy, they spoke of three divine ‘Persons’ in one divine ‘Nature,’ thereby safeguarding both unity and trinity, a basic terminology familiar to us since childhood. If it does nothing else, it helps us give stammering human expression to a mystery which defies such expression. It is doubly strange that the apostolic Church was apparently indifferent to theological speculation on this point. Steeped in the doctrine of the Old Testament, they were confirmed monotheists. For them there was one God, Yahweh, and He was uniquely one. Yet, in a few decades after the Ascension, they could state their belief in the divinity of Christ and the Spirit. In the letter to the Philippians, probably written from Ephesus about 53 A.D., Paul quotes an even earlier liturgical hymn: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not deem/equality with God something to be KNOW YOUR FAITH (All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1976 by N.C. News Service! I- J the change wrought in people by experiencing the Holy Spirit. Once moved by the Spirit they begin to Preach Christ, heal the sick, exorcise evil, discern the truth, love passionately, teach energetically, prophesy and die for love. Their religious experience moves quickly from the event of “Spirit shock” to the types of behavior just mentioned. They touched the Lord at the point of His love. That is what gave them the daring to speak up before princes and kings, to charm an empire into the royal community of Christ, to die courageously for the One they loved and to know they were loved in return. Recall how Romeo tells Juliet the method he used in reaching her despite all obstacles. “With love’s light wings, I did o’er perch these walls. For walls cannot keep love out. And that which love dare do, that will love attempt.” The early Christians had the good grace to let down their guard, their walls, so that the flight of the Spirit into the very marrow of their bones was immensely successful. Changed by the Spirit, they turned the fire of that love on an alienated world which was hungering for just such a fulfillment. In the first sermon of Peter at Pentecost, the chief of the Apostles calls for repentance — change/conversion. His sermon had shaken his listeners. He was not preaching a detached recitation of dry facts, but a personal testimony designed to change the hearts of his listeners. Peter had much more at stake than just presenting a neutral view of Jesus. His own soul knows the glory of God and he is anxious that all the world share in his own vision and joy. Good news in his heart called for a compelling message on his lips. Small wonder that the listeners claimed they were pierced to the heart. Peter’s talk served as a supreme consciousness raiser, driving to the surface the fundamental thirst for the divine that God plants in all human hearts. This is no whiling away the hour with curious discourse. People’s lives are at stake. The course of future history is the gamble of this hour. Thus the central question takes shape. The cry is heard on all sides: “What shall we do?” “Let the Spirit change you.” grasped at./Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave,/being born in the likeness of men . . ./ Because of this, God highly exalted him and bestowed/ upon him the name above every other name,/ So that at Jesus’ name every knee must bned . . ./ and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father:/ JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!” (Phil 2,6-7, 9, 10a, 11). This is just one of innumerable New Testament passages in which faith in the divinity, the Lordship of Christ is clearly professed. Linked with the Father and the Son in several places is the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the most widely known verse is in the conclusion to the Gospel according to Matthew: “ . .. go, therefore, and make disciples of all the/ nations. Baptize them in the name ‘of the Father, and/of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ ” (Mt. 28, 19). As the note in the New American Bible points out, “the baptismal formula reflects the Church’s gradual understanding of God as three Persons.” (Matthew was written between 80 and 90 A.D.) An earlier formula is, perhaps, suggested by Luke’s version of Peter’s Pentecost sermon: “You must reform and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, that your sins may be forgiven; then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2, 38). Notice the linking of Christ and the Holy Spirit. In a letter to the Corinthians (about 56 A.D.), Paul writes: “There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone” (1 Cor. 12:4-6). This last passage illustrates the interests of the biblical authors. Their psychology, culture, mind-set were different from ours. As heirs of Greek culture and philosophy, we think in terms of definitions, distinctions, abstract essences. We want to know just what something is. They were primarily interested in what something or someone did. Questions like these were of paramount importance to them: What has God done for us in our history? What has He accomplished for us in the Christ-event? What does the risen Lord do for us now in our living of the Christian life? What is the activity of the Spirit in the community and in our individual lives? They thought in terms of function rather than of essence. And that, ultimately, is why they left us no “theology” of the Incarnation or the Trinity. Their immediate concern was living a Christian life, and they told us many wonderful things about the impact of the Trinity on our actual Christian existence. Paul has much to say about the tremendous gifts imparted by the Spirit and the very positive influence of the Spirit on our lives. In his letter to the Romans, read chapter 8, verses 11, 14-16, and 26. BY EUGENE S. GEISSLER The time has come, I think, to take the Spirit of God seriously. We have given him lip service in the sign of the cross, at the end of our prayers, and in our traditional expressions of faith, the creeds. Yes, unlike the disciples whom Paul found in Ephesus that did not know there was so much as a Holy Spirit (Acts 19,2), we have known for a long time that there is a Holy Spirit. The apostles took the Holy Spirit seriously because He came upon them and they felt His power in them. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, and for reasons unknown, He is coming upon men and women again in such a way that they are feeling His power within themselves much like it is related in the Acts and much like Paul talks about in his letters to the Corinthians and the Galatians, for instance. The apostles were changed by the coming of the Holy Spirit and so are men changed today by the coming of the Holy Spirit. Men and women are always changing of course. But the real changes in us, the ones that turn toward God are all from the Holy Spirit. Repentence and conversion — that two-fold process of turning away from sin and turning to God — are not accomplished without the help of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who teaches us to say “Abba, Father” (Gal. 4,6). If at long last after an absence of seven years a young man matured finds his way into church to worship God again ... if a sinner drifting with the world finds his way again to the confessional sincerely seeking the forgiving sign of God’s reconciliation ... if after a series of reverses — like those of the prodigal son — a young man or woman who had repudiated the Church leaves behind his/her apostosy and returns to his/her “Father’s house” ... are we to say that any of these are accomplished in any other way than by the Holy Spirit? We can call the force at work by the name of “grace,” but the “amazing grace” at work is the Holy Spirit. Let no one say that it has been accomplished by his own ingenuity, or by his own prayer and fasting, or even by his love and kindness. We can do all these things but if the Spirit does not help us, does not intercede for us (Rom 8, 26-27), the smoke of our sacrifice clings to earth, our offering as that of Cain goes unregarded, and all our words and deeds are proved inadequate. We were led lately, my wife and I, to seek the release of the Holy Spirit in us. We knew we had been baptized and confirmed and been given the Holy Spirit, but something was nevertheless missing. “Come Holy Spirit into our hearts and give us a gift of prayer together,” we asked. Well, ever since we first married (which is a long time now), we had made attempts again and again to have a life of prayer together. We wanted simply to be able to pray together, peacefully, devoutly, and fruitfully. It never quite worked. I don’t know exactly why not. I tend to blame myself because I never could muster and sustain a sufficient interest for it. I would, like the seed sprung up on the hard ground, fall by the wayside. We both knew prayer should be a real part of the Christian’s life and that man and wife should be able to do it together. After all, where two or three are gathered together for prayer in the name of Jesus, it is enough for Jesus to be there. A remarkable promise! It didn’t work until we asked the Holy Spirit in a special way to activate what we already had received in our Baptism and Confirmation. Now every morning at prayer together I marvel at the miracle of change the Holy Spirit has wrought. 90SPEI. vs. THE MYSTERY of the Holy Trinity raises many questions, Father John J. Castelot writes. “How can there be a Father, a Son, a Holy Spirit, all of them equal and divine, without there being three Gods? If the Son is ‘begotten’ of the Father, did the Father exist before Him? If the Father and the Son ‘send’ the Holy Spirit, is He not in some way subordinate to them?” (NC Sketch courtesy the J. S. Paluch Co.) And how well he did. The Trinity BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT