{"id":8915,"date":"2015-05-03T13:08:42","date_gmt":"2015-05-03T17:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/?p=8915"},"modified":"2015-05-12T10:06:55","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T14:06:55","slug":"the-highest-gift-of-god-to-mankind-fourth-sunday-of-easter-ef-may-3-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/the-highest-gift-of-god-to-mankind-fourth-sunday-of-easter-ef-may-3-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"The Highest Gift of God to Mankind, Fourth Sunday of Easter (EF), May 3, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Roger J. Landry
\nSt. Agnes Church, New York, NY
\nFourth Sunday after Easter in the 1962 Roman Missal
\nMay 3, 2015
\nJames 1:17-21, Jn 16:5-14<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today’s homily was not recorded. The text that guided the homily was:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Today in the Gospel Jesus says something truly shocking: \u201cI tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.\u201d Jesus is basically saying that if we have a choice between Him and the Holy Spirit, we should choose the latter. That\u2019s how important he says the Holy Spirit is.<\/p>\n

The great joy is that we don\u2019t have to have to choose between the two! But it is crucial for us to ponder the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life and to examine whether we\u2019re docile to the help He wants to give us to live by faith.<\/p>\n

The reality, however, is that the Holy Spirit remains the \u201cgreat unknown\u201d not just in the life of so many of the Christian faithful.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a well-known scene in the Acts of the Apostles when St. Paul came to Ephesus and met some disciples. He asked, \u201cDid you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?\u201d They responded, \u201cWe have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.\u201d Pope-emeritus Benedict, at World Youth Day in Australia in 2008, said, \u201cThe Holy Spirit has been in some ways the neglected person of the Blessed Trinity,\u201d and confessed that it was only as a young priest teaching theology that he began not only to recognize the importance that the Holy Spirit should play in his life as a priest and professor but that he came to know him intimately. He added, \u201cIt is not enough to know the Spirit; we must welcome Him as the guide of our souls, as the \u2018Teacher of the interior life\u2019 who introduces us to the Mystery of the Trinity, because He alone can open us up to faith and allow us to live it each day to the full.\u201d And we don\u2019t have to be a member of the Charismatic Renewal to allow the Holy Spirit to become that teacher and guide. If we wish to understand the faith, if we wish to live it, if we wish to pass it on, we must allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, even if we, like Joseph Ratzinger, are beginning as adults. For us, the \u201cgreat unknown\u201d must become the \u201cgreat known,\u201d the teacher, the leader, the consoler, the advocate.<\/p>\n

The importance of the Holy Spirit in our life as Catholics cannot be overstated. Jesus tells us this in today\u2019s Gospel when he emphasized that it was good that he left us because in comparison with the gift of His presence, the gift of the Holy Spirit\u2019s presence in our life is more important. That\u2019s how crucial the Holy Spirit is meant to be in our life as disciples and apostles. Benedict told the Church down under, \u201cThe Holy Spirit is the highest gift of God to humankind,\u201d something that we proclaim whenever we sing the Veni Creator Spiritus<\/em> and call the Holy Spirit, “Altissimi Donum Dei.”\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

As Catholics, how should we be seeking to grow in our docility to this highest gift of God?<\/p>\n

The first is in our prayer.\u00a0 St. Paul tells us, \u201cThe Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.\u201d The Holy Spirit teaches us how to pray. He does this not principally by putting words in our minds and mouths to say, but changing who we are as we pray, helping us to be conscious of our reality as sons and daughters so that we can cry out \u201cAbba, Father!\u201d \u201cDaddy!\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, we also need to be guided by the Holy Spirit in our speaking about and giving witness to the faith. Jesus had promised that the Holy Spirit he would send would teach us all things, lead us to all truth, remind us of everything he had taught us, and, as we hear in today\u2019s Gospel, prove the world wrong about sin, holiness and judgment. He had said that when we are dragged before governors, and synagogues and courts, or into television and radio studios and into debates, or before cantankerous relatives or coworkers, \u201cDo not be anxious beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given to you in that hour, for it is not you who pray but the Holy Spirit.\u201d We see the miracle that occurred in the life of the apostles with the help of the Holy Spirit. The same apostles who 53 days before Pentecost had left the Upper Room only to scatter like frightened children in the Garden now left the same Upper Room to gather God\u2019s children together for Christ. The same Peter who denied even knowing Jesus in order to keep himself warm by the courtyard fire, was now on fire confessing that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of the Living God. The disciples who were too ashamed to appear at the foot of the Cross now boldly and proudly proclaimed God\u2019s love seen by Christ\u2019s death on that Cross. It was the Holy Spirit that had effected the transformation from apostates to apostles, from cowards to courageous witnesses, from chickens to shepherds. The Holy Spirit wants to work that same inner transformation in all of us \u2014 and he will, provided that we cooperate with him like Jesus\u2019 first followers.<\/p>\n

Third, the Holy Spirit wants to help us to live according to the Holy Spirit. This is the definition of a Christian life of faith. St. Paul in his letters to the Romans and Galatians contrasts the life according to the Spirit and the life according to the flesh. That\u2019s the biggest choice we make in life. In today\u2019s readings, we see some aspects of this life according to the Spirit. He says, \u201cKnow this, my dear brothers: everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.\u201d Through life according to the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity wants to help us to seek the things of the Spirit, what God wants, rather than worldly desires. He wants to help us walk by the Spirit by strengthening us to crucify our flesh with its passions and desires so that we may be able to be other Christs. That is authentic Christian \u201cspirituality.\u201d<\/p>\n

One means by the Holy Spirit does this is through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, by which the Holy Spirit helps us in the concrete circumstances of our daily life to act in conformity with what God wants and others need.<\/p>\n