THE HOLY SPIRIT OF PRAYER

SATURDAY, Sixth Week of Eastertide

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP

Acts 18:23-28; Ps 47:2-3,8-10; Jn 16:23-28

Theme: You will receive all you ask the Father in my Name

To profess faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ is to be in accord with the will of the Father. It is to come to the knowledge of the goodness of the Father who sent his Son into the world to redeem us. Through faith, we understand and appreciate the love of the Father. The confession of faith removes every impedance to the flow of the Father’s love to the soul that believes and confesses. The love that flows from the Father is a divine Person—the Holy Spirit—who proceeds from the Father. He also proceeds from the Son because the profession of the divinity of Jesus Christ fills our hearts with the love of him who humbled himself and assumed our lowly human nature for the love of us. Hence, the profession of faith in the divinity of Christ opens the eternal gates of the soul for the inflow of the Holy Spirit. These throw more light on the gospel of today. “I tell you most solemnly, anything you ask for from the Father he will grant in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and so your joy will be complete.” Jesus was postulating the state of affairs that would be after his death and resurrection. 

The disciples’ faith came to maturity only after the resurrection of the Lord. They witnessed his gruesome death, though he was innocent, he suffered death for us and came back to life through the power of God. The Spirit came to them once the light of faith dawned on them. So, the coming of the Holy Spirit depends on the maturity of our faith in Jesus Christ. The coming of the Holy Spirit is also the birth of prayer in our souls, for his presence is our new birth in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit joining with our new spiritual self, which he nurtures, helps us to cry Abba Father. That is when we start asking, for as our Lord said, until then we have not asked for anything in his name. Truly we have not asked for anything, though we have made so many prayers before our real conversion to Jesus Christ, because it is only the Son that asks from the Father. The Holy Spirit, when he is present in us, makes us ask like sons in the Son. When we come to this spiritual state, then the Father will not be a metaphoric name or person, but the real God the Father to us, for our blossoming faith in the Son reveals the Father to us. Having a good knowledge of our Father in heaven and asking with the Spirit of the Son make us receive the answer to every prayer we make. 

We heard this from Jesus Christ himself: “When that day comes you will ask in my name; and I do not say that I shall pray to the Father for you, because the Father himself loves you for loving me and believing that I came from God.” The veracity of our understanding here is demonstrated in the first reading. Though Apollos, the Alexandrian Jew, had no formal Christian baptism, he had no formal encounter or experience with the Holy Spirit. But his knowledge of the scriptures and his faith in the word of God concerning Jesus Christ as Messiah already lit up his spiritual countenance with the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was already at work in him due to his knowledge and faith in the word of God which is Spirit and life. His baptism only confirmed what God was already doing in him through his word. Faith in Jesus Christ comes from reading, meditating, and contemplating the word of God daily. An increase in our faith in Jesus Christ makes us see the Father more clearly and love him more dearly. The love is the Holy Spirit dwelling in our souls and leads us to pray better. Knowing the divinity of Christ better also makes us have a second look at his Mother in wonderment and admiration of what God did in her. With the angels, we ask: Who is She that comes forth like the morning rising? Songs 6:10

Let us pray: O God who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that through the prayers of our Blessed Mother Mary, we may be filled with his consolation and know the life of prayer. 

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