Sunday after the Ascension
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Peter lays out some challenging admonitions for us in our epistle today: “be serious and sober for prayers…let your love for one another be intense…be hospitable without complaining…[use your gifts] to serve one another.” Those are all things to which I hope we aspire. But maybe we feel like we simply have to muscle through to get these things done. And perhaps, as we try to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps, we get frustrated because in day to day life exhibiting these behaviors doesn’t always come easily, and maybe we even fail on a regular basis.
But God does not want us to muscle through or to try to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. God gives us a gift that will give us what we need to live as St. Peter exhorted. That gift is the Holy Spirit. He is the one who makes living as a disciple of Christ possible as the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, and gives us the power to live that truth daily.
I know that sometimes as Catholics who love the traditional Latin Mass we can get nervous about the Holy Spirit. Maybe we see charismatic Catholics whose outward appearance seems more like Pentecostals than Catholics in their devotions and even in their liturgies. Or people equate the way Vatican II was implemented (which was often a hot mess) with the Holy Spirit who called Pope St. John XXIII to convoke the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. So perhaps we are a bit skittish when it comes to this Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
But we do not believe in a Binity, only two Divine Persons of the Godhead. We profess our faith each week in the Trinity, which includes the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. And without Him, we miss something of the full expression of our life in Christ. Christ promised us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to help us to know the truth who is Christ, and to live that truth, even in the face of persecution and suffering. And these nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost are precisely the days when our Lord asked the Apostles and the Blessed Mother to pray for that gift of the Holy Spirit, who would give them a new power from on high to evangelize and transform the world.
But the Holy Spirit is not just for new hires or major changes. I need to, and I encourage you to, make the Holy Spirit more of a daily part of my life. The Holy Spirit is not just the closer you bring in towards the end of the ninth inning to help you win the game. The Holy Spirit should be the starter, the reliever, and the closer, all rolled up in one. And the more we condition ourselves to be attentive to His voice in our daily lives, the more even our small choices will be guided by the Holy Spirit so that we cooperate with God in the big and the small matters. This is the way the saints lived.
One of the primary ways the Holy Spirit guides us is through the conscience. Again, most people act as if the conscience is some subjective voice which tells me what do to without any connection to anything else. Basically, we can use the word conscience to justify simply following our feelings. But the Holy Spirit, as our conscience, tells us how the moral law applies in various situations. He does not make us a moral law unto ourselves, determining right from wrong, though many would like that to be the case, which is exactly what Adam and Eve wanted. They wanted to determine right from wrong, rather than let God guide them.
As a parent, and especially today as we honor mothers, the Holy Spirit helps you to know how to raise your children. I do not envy you parents in trying to raise your children today. On the one hand, kids are so often over-exposed to social media, to extreme violence, to lust, and to unkindness from others. Yes, I got teased when I was a young boy, but I could get away from it when I went home. Today, kids will mercilessly make fun of each other on social media, and you never seem to be able to find a place that is not connected to it. I was first exposed to pornography in a magazine when I was in high school. Today, due to phones and the internet readily available in most places, many kids see images they should never see in fifth or sixth grade and devices their parents give them (because every other kid has one), and it can affect their future relationships and their interactions with the opposite sex. When I was growing up, we knew that boys and girls were different, even if some girls liked rough sports and GI Joes, and some boys didn’t appreciate those things as much. Now, our national leaders can’t even say what makes a woman and woman, and kids are told that gender dysphoria is not only not an illness that needs therapy, but should be celebrated and protected.
On the other hand, you can’t just live in a bubble (at least most can’t). Eventually, children will go out into a rough and morally dangerous world, and parents are tasked with preparing them to choose virtue even when vice seems more attractive and readily available. Part of the vocation of a mother or father is to help their children be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit to know what behaviors will lead them away from God the Father, and which behaviors will lead them toward God the Father. A mother or a father’s vocation is to help their children be able to interact with people who are different from them and love others who do not live as God invites us, but to be able to reject the behaviors of those who reject God’s laws and teachings. That is only possible if parents are calling upon the Holy Spirit daily to help them know when to push towards freedom and when to pull back to safety. The Holy Spirit can guide you to know how best to discipline with charity, and not simply out of anger or a lack of patience.
So not just in these nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, but each day, may we all call upon the Holy Spirit to help us hear the voice of God in our hearts, which is really His voice, and to follow it, so that we can go where Christ has led and has brought our human nature with Him, the right hand of God the Father, who with Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them both, lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
