THE HOLY SPIRIT: OUR UNITY AND COMMUNION


SUNDAY, SEVENTH WEEK OF EASTER

Act 7:55-60; Ps 97:1-2,6-7,9; Rev 22:12-14,16-17,20; Jn 17:20-26

The Holy Spirit of Unity and Communion

On this third of day of the novena we reflect on the Holy Spirit as the source of unity. The unity which we reflect on and pray for is of the essence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son and the bond of eternal communion of love between them. He is the life of the Father and the Son, for God is love; he lives and creates all things in love. It is beyond our understanding that the Son would ask the Father to give us the same Holy Spirit to dwell in us and bring us into the same communion with the Father and the Son. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.” By the gift of the Holy Spirit, we can convince the world of the divine origin of the Son of Man. The importance of the Holy Spirit for us Christians and the Church as a whole makes the Pentecost Novena the mother of all novenas. The coming of the Holy Spirit gives each of us a new spiritual birth into the communion or family of God. His indwelling gradually redeems and renews our corrupted members through the efficacious grace of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. By our constant and frequent obedience of faith, our spirits, souls, minds, hearts, and bodily senses respond to his invitation to call God our Father.

Through the Holy Spirit, the Son of Man continuously and consistently acted in oneness with his divine nature and in obedience to the will of the Father. The Holy Spirit is the glory of God the Father that the Son gave to us his own as he was leaving the world. “I have given them the glory you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so completely one that the world will realise that it was you who sent me and that I have loved them as much as you loved me.” This gift of glory was necessary to the Son of Man for his adequate and proportionate response to the love of the Father. The same importance is attached to our reception of the Holy Spirit, for without him, we cannot love God and cannot love ourselves and our neighbours rightly and spiritually. For God to be in us in love and grace, we need the Holy Spirit. Through this loving presence in us, the Holy Spirit opens our spiritual eyes to the presence of God everywhere, within and without. He enabled Saint Stephen to behold the throne of God and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God the Father. “Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.” The Holy Spirit brings us into the presence of God, which the Spirit is.

The presence of God that accompanies and defines the Holy Spirit as the love of the Father and the Son creates an enabling environment for prayer. Thus, by inviting us to worship and unite our spirits to pray, he brings us into the holy presence of God for the communion of prayer. In this light, the Church’s liturgical celebrations and communion are impossible without the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the Church by his presence and inspiration. He is the life of the Church, just as he is the life of the Son of Man, the Head and the Body. As children of the Church and members of Jesus Christ, any work not inspired by the Holy Spirit is not of faith and cannot win any reward in heaven. “I, John, heard a voice speaking to me: ‘Very soon now, I shall be with you again, bringing the reward to be given to every man according to what he deserves.” We work in the Lord when we work with faith in his name. The Holy Spirit inspires any work we do with faith. As Saint Paul noted, no one can witness the Lordship of Jesus Christ without the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the communion the Church of Jesus Christ enjoys. Her possession of the Holy Spirit makes her the Bride of the Lamb. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ Let everyone who listens answer, ‘Come.’ Then let all who are thirsty come: all who want it may have the water of life and have it free.” To thirst for the water of spiritual life is to desire Jesus Christ, which is satisfied by the presence of the Holy Spirit, for he makes the Lord present to us always, as we have noted above. The desire for the Lord is the source of Christian sacrificial life, which models or patterns us on the life of Jesus Christ. Love is sacrifice. People feel the Holy Spirit in us in our willingness to make sacrifices for Jesus Christ and the salvation of our brothers and sisters. The Lord revealed that only this will demonstrate to the world that we belong to him and that the Father sent him. Hence, the central celebration of the Church is the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Body and Blood of the Son of Man. Celebrating the Mass attentively, the Holy Spirit consecrates us in love, and he inspires and enables us to sacrifice our lives in union with Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear our supplications, O Lord, so that we, who believe that the Saviour of the human race is with you in your glory, may experience, as he promised, until the end of the world, his abiding presence among us. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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