In anticipation of Pentecost this Sunday I wanted to share a reflection on the Holy Spirit from my retreat last week. I spent most of my retreat reflecting on John 16:7:
“But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
For me, this is one of those challenging passages of scripture. Christ is saying that it is better for Him to return to the Father and for us to have the Advocate instead. So I questioned myself, do I believe that? Do I actually think that I would rather have the Holy Spirit as my guide instead of Christ standing before me?
As I prayed over this question, a couple reasons came to my mind why I struggle to accept this verse. The first was that I find the Holy Spirit hard to relate to. Jesus in human, and he is a son; I am both a human and a son, so I can relate. Yes, I don’t fully understand the mystery of Jesus as a man or the Son, but at least I have somewhere to start. Same thing with the Father, I have a father, I know what fathers are. I have somewhere to start in understanding however incompletely, the Father as a father. But with the Holy Spirit, where do I begin, He is spirit. He is called the Advocate and Paraclete, and represented as a dove and tongues of fire, so that is somewhere to start. But still, it is hard for me to start forming an idea how to relate to Him.
The second reason that came to my mind was that if Jesus is here He can do things. But the Holy Spirit on the other hand impels me to work. Now, yes Christ can work miracles at any time. He does not need to be physically in front of me in His humanity to act. However, I kind of have an idea that if He was, then I could just let Him do works like evangelization or works of charity and things like that. Whereas the Holy Spirit does not seem act in that way. He instead empowers us to be agents of God, making His love known to the world. Call me lazy, but it just seems easier to let God do all the work instead of me.
But there is another reason beyond my potential “laziness” to prefer Christ’s presence versus the Holy Spirit, and that is timidity and fear of what the Holy Spirit might ask me to do. Let’s be honest, it is challenging to truly live out the calling of a Christian life. It requires courage to spread the Good News of our risen Lord, especially in today’s world. By having the Holy Spirit instead of Christ here, we must face the world that crucified Christ, and that can be scary.
Naturally, my next question was, what should I do about it? My mind went to Romans 8:22-23
“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
and Romans 8:26-27
“In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.”
With this in mind, the first thing that I started doing was to start calling upon the Holy Spirit. My prayer was for Christ to send the Holy Spirit to me so that He might guide me. Then I thought about the sacrament of confirmation and how it seals us in the Holy Spirit. So I also prayed calling upon the graces of that sacrament. For some people, doing these two kinds of prayer will be helpful enough. But not for me. Knowing myself, I knew that for me to actually start to accept the Holy Spirit as better than Christ standing in front of me, I had to act in some way. Passive prayer for me, would have to result is activity. Pentecost comes to mind, where the disciple, upon the reception of the Holy Spirit immediately started preaching the Good News.
So I have to act, which runs right against my fear of acting as mentioned earlier. As I prayed about how I should act, I was reminded how often I have a small prompting to speak some word to someone or do something for another but do not out of fear or laziness. How often could that have been the Holy Spirit prompting me to make God present to the other? So I came to the conclusion that I must do a better job of boldly acting upon the prompting of the Holy Spirit and being more open to His guidance and presence. Both in prayer and deed.
May this Pentecost be a blessed time for all, and may the Holy Spirit enkindle our hearts ever closer towards to Him that we might more courageously follow His guidance.