Be With You Always

Be With You Always

May 19, 2013

Pentecost 2013 C

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.  And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.  Acts 2:1-4

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.  To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.  1 Corinthians 12:4-7

Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.  John 14:15-16

Piety

Our piety is the life of the Spirit within us.  It is by the Spirit within us that we belong to God.  We become Temples of the Holy Spirit.  Our holiness is the visibility of the life of the Spirit within.  All good thoughts come from the Spirit.  The Spirit claims us for the Father even as we allow the sway of the Spirit to grow within us. 

Study

We belong to God by all the ways the Spirit is at work in what we do.  We know that wherever there is love God is there.  God is the essence of our love.   The Father is total giving.  The Word is what the Father spoke.  Total giving and total receiving meet as the Holy Spirit.  How we open up our hearts to the goodness of each other is how we grow in holiness and the life of the Spirit within us.  Truly we are not islands.  We are part of the mainland of God’s love in the world.  There is no action of any part of the Mystical Body of Christ that does not touch the total reality of love.  God is every gift we make of ourselves for each other.  Our love allows us to grow continually in the part of the Mystical Body we are.  With or without awareness we belong to Christ by his love becoming our love for one another.  In Christ we find our being.  In the goodness of each other we find direction for our growing even more deeply into the Christ that calls us into his life.  Pentecost allows us to say with Paul; “Now I no longer live.  Christ lives in me.”

Action

The actions of our lives under the guidance of the Spirit become the fruits of the Spirit in our lives.  Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding and Counsel are the gifts to the Mind that influence how we think the thoughts of God.  How well we put his thoughts into practice are through the gifts to the will, Fortitude, Piety and Fear of the Lord are the gifts that belong to the Will.  The way we put into practice the gifts of the Spirit gives rise to the fruits of the Spirit in our lives.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control are all the fruits of the Spirit that bespeak our action and how we do them in the name of the Lord.  Because we are becoming Contemplatives in Action, we let the Lord work a hundred percent in what we do.  We work as if all our actions depended on the work of God and thus learn how to pray as if all our prayers depended on ourselves.  We reverse what is popularly though to be the way things should be as we give God full control of our lives.  Thus we can understand how our work becomes our prayer and our prayer becomes our work.  The Spirit then is the driving force of all we do in life.  Pentecost becomes every day of our lives.