THE SUNDAY WORD

This is the first of a new weekend series here at CINOPS. Our guest columnist will provide a weekly reflection for your use on the Lord's Day.

Holy Spirit? Who is That?

If you ask the kids in Confirmation class “Who is the Holy Spirit?,” you probably get silence or maybe one will say, “It’s the bird!”. We have a novena to the Holy Spirit. We mention Him in the Sign of the Cross and the Glory Be. But just who is He?

Maybe we can get a lead on Him by looking at His titles.

First we see in His name that He is Holy, which means He is God, the third person of the Trinity. He is pure Spirit—no feathers or wings. Those are good answers but the description is still abstract to our experience. Let’s think of some of His other titles.

St. Paul calls Him the Paraclete—that is the one who intercedes for us. When we have trouble praying, we can say Holy Spirit, teach me to pray and He will intercede for us. He brings our needs to the Father.

The Holy Spirit is called the Finger of God in Luke 11:20. What does the Finger of God do? He paints the image of Jesus Christ on our souls so that we become more Christ like. St. Paul says that as Christ grows in him, Paul diminishes. That is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Finger of God, conforming us to Jesus Christ.

He is the Sweet Guest of the Soul. In our hearts, he takes up His rest. The Holy Spirit wants to dwell within us so we will always have His sweet consolation. But like any good guest, he never comes to visit uninvited.

He is the Sanctifier. To sanctify means to make holy. The Holy Spirit wants to make us over into saints. When we cooperate with his inspirations, we grow in holiness. In a vision, the devil told the Cure of Ars, St. John Vianney, that if there were six more Cure of Ars in the world, the entire kingdom of Satan would collapse. If all of us grow in holiness and become great saints we could convert the world!

St Maximilian Kolbe said that if you wanted to see the Incarnation of the Holy Spirit, look at Mary. She is the Mystical Spouse of the Holy Spirit. St. Louis de Montfort said that if any person had true devotion to Mary, the Holy Spirit would fling Himself into that person’s soul!

All the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available to us. We must invite Him and His mystical spouse to be sweet guests of our souls. He will lead us in prayer and closer union with Christ just as He did for Mary.

Come, Holy Spirit! Come to us, Holy Spirit, through the heart of Mary!