If someone approached you with the following advice, would you perk up your ears and listen?
“I am going to reveal to you the secret of sanctity and happiness. Every day for five minutes control your imagination and close your eyes to the things of sense and your ears to all the noises of the world, in order to enter into yourself. Then, in the sanctity of your baptized soul (which is the temple of the Holy Spirit) speak to that Divine Spirit, saying to Him: ‘Oh, Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul…I adore you. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do…give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your will.’ If you do this, your life will flow along happily, serenely and full of consolation, even in the midst of trials. Grace will be proportioned to the trial, giving you the strength to carry it and you will arrive at the gate of Paradise, laden with merit. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of sanctity.”
Sound too good to be true? Think again. The advisor is Cardinal Mercier, a man who knew all about seeking serenity and consolation during troubled times. Opposing the German invasion of Belgium in 1914, Cardinal Mercier was a key figure in the resistance movement. Despite the killing of 13 priests of his diocese, he remained an outspoken critic of atrocities and persecution at peril to his own life.
Cardinal Mercier was not a monk in an abbey, able to devote hours to quiet contemplation. He was a man struggling in a chaotic, violent era to live the Gospel of Christ. He understood the value of contemplation and the importance of setting aside time, however brief, to do so. Shame on us if in our comfortable lives we are unwilling to do the same. Fr. Mercier’s urging to re-connect with the Holy Spirit within us should be heeded.
How do I find my baptized soul? Like many I have no remembrance of receiving the sacrament. What did it feel like to have the Holy Spirit make His dwelling within me? I entered the church one person and came out another, the seal of God on my very soul. How can I seek to enter His temple within me?
The Holy Spirit Himself makes it possible. At baptism the Third Person of the Trinity purifies us from sin and makes us neophytes, “new creatures,” able to partake of divine nature, a co-heir with Christ, and an abode of the Holy Spirit. The sanctifying grace of baptism enables us to believe in God, to hope in and to love Him. Grace from the Spirit gives us the power to live and act according to His promptings, and to grow in theological and moral virtues. It is the Holy Spirit who invites me to spend time contemplating Him and prompts me to yearn to find my baptized soul. It is the Spirit who will reward my search by the regeneration of my sinful soul.
When I spend time earnestly seeking the Holy Spirit I fulfill a portion of the baptismal promise made by my parents and godparents, the promise I renew each Easter. For I am bound by duty to grow daily in my love for God and to proclaim my faith in Him. The task of seeking the Spirit dwelling within me should not be a burden or require grand mystical understanding to achieve. He is an old friend who knows me, and I Him.
I can start by considering a few of the infinite aspects about the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit animates all creation. As the breath of God, He is at work at the origin of the being and life of every creature. “No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1Cor. 2:11). It is this Spirit of truth who speaks the Father’s word and who unveils Christ to us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that only by the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within us can we know Him (CCC 687); without baptismal indwelling we can not receive or know Him.
It is the Holy Spirit who inspired the Tradition of the Church, who instructed the Church Fathers and who continually assists in the Magisterium. In the sacramental liturgy, the Spirit puts us in communion with Christ; in prayer He intercedes for us. His particular gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord all point to the Holy Spirit’s role as the source of all holiness.
The most stunning example of the Holy Spirit’s effects is discovered in the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is “the master work of the mission of the Son and the Spirit in the fullness of time. For the first time in the plan of salvation and because His Spirit had prepared Her, the Father found the dwelling place where His Son and His Spirit could dwell among men…In Her, the ‘wonders of God’ that the Spirit was to fulfill in Christ and the Church began to manifested…” (CCC 484). The Holy Spirit dwells in my soul today because of Mary’s fiat to her Divine Spouse.
Among many other things, the Holy Spirit is my advocate, my counselor, my teacher. When temptation strikes, He strengthens me. When I am ignorant, He enlightens me. When I fail, He consoles me. When I am emptied, He fills me.
With this rich food for meditation, spending five minutes daily with the Holy Spirit and reconnecting with my baptized soul becomes less like fulfilling a duty and more like breathing clean air. The deeper I breathe the more my eyes and ears and mind can perceive eternal realities that I had become blind and deaf to. I become again God’s creation, re-born at baptism, loved, directed, redeemed and sanctified in order to accomplish a lifelong mission that no other person is capable of achieving. In short, through the Holy Spirit, I find myself the way God intended.
