THE SPIRIT SEARCHES THE DEPTH OF MAN

ST GREGORY THE GREAT, POPE, DOCTOR

1 Cor 2:10-16; Ps 145:8-14; Lk 4:31-37

The Spirit Searching the Depth of God

The heavenly life that commences with our acceptance of the word of God and commitment to God is remarkably different from natural life. It starts with an introspection. The introspection is the only way to discover our nothingness and the darkness that dwells within us when the word of God is not illumining us. Thus, the inability to look inside is the greatest undoing of the modern time and the souls who imbibe the contemporary lifestyle. Without looking inside, we can never discover that we are empty and that the external reality is an illusion. This description is another way of expressing the death of worldly souls, expressed in their way of living. This experience is what St. Paul means by saying: “After all, the depths of a man can only be known by his spirit, not by any other man, and in the same way the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God.” For a man not to know his depth implies that his spirit is dead or inactive.

If the spirit is like a lamp with which a man searches his deepest part, when the lamp is off, there is no way for the man to know his most essential aspect. Hence, it is understood, and as the scriptures bear witness, that a sinner is dead without the word or Spirit of God. The reason for the death of a soul when the spirit is not functional is that the Holy Spirit is the life and anchor of our spirit. So, without God, who is the life of the spirits, the centre of every spiritual being cannot hold. A spiritual soul is plunged into darkness without the word of God, that is our spiritual Sun. “An unspiritual person does not accept anything of the Spirit of God: he sees it all as nonsense; it is beyond his understanding because it can only be understood by means of the Spirit.” When our spirit is regenerated by the Holy Spirit and through the word of God, our spiritual eye gradually develops and gets used to spiritual reality. We start making sense of heavenly things. This ability marks the commencement of the interior life of a soul. The spiritual life and reality extend the physical life and reality because they give a better framework to understand them and the purpose for which God made them. Hence, St. Paul says the spiritual man judges the value of everything and cannot be judged by other men. Our constant reading, meditation, and contemplation of the word of God is a cultivation of the mind of Jesus Christ.

The cultivation of the mind of Christ enables us to live and act in synchrony with the Spirit of God. It gives us a clear understanding of the nature of God and his love towards us. This type of knowledge is the expression of the Psalmist. “The Lord is king and full of compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love. How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures.” The natural affinity of our mind to the light of the word of God made the people in Capernaum, who listened to the teaching of our Lord, recognise the authority of his words and teaching. The evil spirit that heard his voice recognised him to an extent because of the blast of the spiritual light from his word. Hence, he cried out and shouted his identity. “Ha! What do you want with us? Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are:  the Holy One of God.” That is the much he knows about his identity, which the blast of spiritual light reveals to him. The detail of his divine identity was unknown to the evil spirit, for that is revealed only by the Holy Spirit to those he has regenerated to become the temple of God. “Who can know the mind of the Lord, so who can teach him? But we are those who have the mind of Christ.” St. Gregory had such a mind of Jesus Christ. God gave him illumination as a monk, and he employed his knowledge of God in teaching and guiding the flock of Jesus Christ. He wrote extensively on pastoral care, spirituality, and morality and was the first to call himself “the servant of the servants of God.”

Let us pray: O God, who care for your people with gentleness and rule them in love, through the intercession of Pope Saint Gregory, endow, we pray, with a spirit of wisdom those to whom you have given authority to govern, that the flourishing of a holy flock may become the eternal joy of the shepherds.