This rosary meditation reflects on the Third Glorious Mystery — The Decent of the Holy Spirit. The apostles, scared of suffering a similar fate as Jesus Christ, hid in a locked house. Suddenly, a strong wind came through and tongues of fire appeared above the their heads. Strengthened with the gift of the Holy Spirit they went out and made bold proclamations understood in any foreign language.
Many of us have heard this story before. In fact, we often pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us through our daily lives. We ask for just one good day where we don’t make any big mistakes at work. We ask the Holy Spirit to be with us as we take that big exam. We ask that we say all the right things to all the right people. In short, we ask the Holy Spirit to make our lives easier and not screw up in any large ways.
But what gifts does the Holy Spirit really give us? Is the Holy Spirit supposed to be a sort of spiritual cheat sheet to give us the answers to life’s big problems? How many times do we ask God or the Holy Spirit for a “favor” with the only purpose to make our lives easier? Like the Second Luminous Mystery, we have the tendency to only ask for God’s gifts when it will somehow help us out. For example, how many times have you uttered a small prayer when buying a lottery ticket? Like a little child we like to tell God that we’ll be good if He just helps us out this one time. That, of course, is missing the entire point of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit does not come down to magically change the world to make our lives easier. As much as we may wish it, the gifts do not “pave over” all of life’s obstacles so that we may continue living any way we wish. The world in which the apostles lived did not magically change after they received the tongues of fire. The people who wished them harm were still there. Those who crucified Jesus did not vanish. Nor where the apostles filled with any more knowledge than what they had learned from Jesus’ own words. After all, did they not already have experience preaching the way of Christ when Jesus was still alive?
The real gift of the Holy Spirit is courage to do God’s will. When it comes down to it, we all know the basics of right and wrong. Very few of us deal with those moral edge cases on a daily basis if at all (my prayers go out to those that do). We know the Ten Commandments and we have an understanding that Jesus’ way is one of love. And yet, often we fail to act on that knowledge. But there are those times when we do the right thing even when we know doing something different would be a lot easier. I think those are the times when the Holy Spirit is driving us the most in our lives. In short, if we resolve to live God’s will — to choose good over evil and right over wrong the Holy Spirit will give us that little push in the right direction.
I do not want to reduce the Holy Spirity to just one characteristic. Instead, I think we should look at courage to do God’s will as one of the gifts we often overlook. Let us pray and reflect that the Holy Spirit will give us the courage to do God’s will even if it makes our earthly lives more difficult. The next time we think about taking an easy way out of a difficult situation, let us look to the Holy Spirit to lead is back to what is right and face whatever consequences come our way. After all, God never gives us challenges we cannot handle, is more than generous in His gift of the Holy Spirit, and is infinitely forgiving when we fall short and sin. Armed with knowledge of Jesus’ teachings, courage from the Holy Spirit, and God’s forgiveness, what do we really have to fear from this world?
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- Pentecost shows universality of the Church, Pope declares (catholicnewsagency.com)
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Interesting article.
I want to say I was very glad to read this. My thoughts were on this very topic recently. In church we are often told to love, and it seems implied that if we love, the action of self-sacrifice and putting God’s will ahead of our own will follow. It’s just not mentioned enough that to actually follow God’s will requires immense courage and strength because, when faced with challenges, it will truly be difficult for us. We won’t just get a warm fuzzy feeling and be able overcome them. We will actually have to pull together all our courage and strength to put our faith into action. The Holy Spirit is greatly needed for these gifts. I’m glad you said it so well and so eloquently!