SPIRITUAL BIRTH AND LIFE


SATURDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF EASTERTIDE   

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

The Spiritual Nativity of a Christian

The important role of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian cannot even be imagined by our natural mind, because a natural man cannot comprehend spiritual matters. This was the topic and the cause of Nicodemus's bewilderment when he came to discuss with Jesus Christ at night. As we already know, the descent of the Holy Spirit into a person's soul marks the spiritual birth of that person in God. Without this new birth, discerning and comprehending spiritual matters is like discerning the direction of the wind, according to the Son of Man. Because the unregenerated mind cannot easily receive the unction of the Holy Spirit, he may succeed in knowing material reality well after much effort, and some part of the spiritual reality in a confused and disorderly manner through the visible creation. When the Holy Spirit gives a repentant soul spiritual life through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Son of Man, He also gives him the needed faculties to comprehend spiritual things as relating directly to God. With the new spiritual life, we begin to know God as the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. The awareness of God as Father is the heart of the spiritual life. Hence, Saint Paul describes our initial yearnings and musings as comparable to those of a new baby yearning for its mother’s breast milk.

Many souls who received their baptism as a ceremonial washing, without pledging themselves to live the spiritual life, have it within them as a seed that is yet to germinate into a heavenly tree. The Spirit makes his entrance into our souls gradually; for he creates a yearning first within the soul, making it possible for the soul to conceive itself in God. The apostles had this period with the Lord during his earthly ministry. As the Lord was about to be glorified, they were spiritually expectant, awaiting their spiritual birth. Hence, they could not ask anything of the Lord because they did not yet understand their spiritual needs. The Lord discerned their needs as the Lord and Master of our spiritual life. “I tell you must solemnly, anything you ask for form 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.” These words of our Lord would be meaningful only after their spiritual birth, when the Holy Spirit would lead them to ask according to God’s will in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Subsequently, it means that the time Jesus refers to, when he will talk to them about the Father in plain words and language, is after their spiritual birth. After our spiritual renewal, we will start having insights into divine truths and commence praying according to God’s will, prompted by the Holy Spirit. Our spiritual birth marks the dawn of the heavenly day and the vision of a new reality. Divine things become clearer and clearer as we make progress daily. The disciple, Apollos, presents a good illustration of what we have explained above. “An Alexandrian Jew named Apollos now arrived in Ephesus. He was an eloquent man with a sound knowledge of the scriptures, and yet, though he had been given instruction in the Way of the Lord and preached with great spiritual earnestness and was accurate in all the details he taught about Jesus, he had only experienced the baptism of John.” He was spiritually pregnant with all the knowledge of Jesus Christ garnered from the scriptures, but not yet spiritually alive in Christ and operational with the Holy Spirit. His baptism brought him into the life and Spirit of Jesus Christ. Our baptism is a new birth in the Holy Spirit, which we ought to live in order to grow spiritually in Jesus Christ. On this second day of the novena, let us invoke the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the desire for the life of God, which Jesus Christ offers us through his death and resurrection.

Let us pray: O God, whose Son, at his Ascension to the heavens, was pleased to promise the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, grant, we pray, that, just as they received manifold gifts of heavenly teaching, so on us, too, you may bestow spiritual gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.         

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