[Editor's Note: This is the first of a series of articles on the theme, “Being a Man of the Spirit.”]
“If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13)!
“I say, then: Live by the Spirit, and you will certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
“If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such, there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).
I have often heard it said that the Holy Spirit is the forgotten person of the Blessed Trinity. Yet, we all know how important the Spirit is to our Christian walk as Catholic men. Jesus once said to his disciples, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). How can this be so? How can we do greater works than Jesus? First of all, as we wrestle with this question, it is important to know that through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have received the same Spirit that enabled Jesus to perform miracles, to welcome sinners, and to love his enemies. Is it not possible that the Church, made up of millions of Spirit-filled believers who desire to be faithful to Jesus’ call, could do great works?
We don’t have to be perfect for the Spirit to work in us; we just need to recognize our need for him and be hungry for his touch. If we want to be faithful to the Lord’s call for our lives, our first priority should be to learn how to open ourselves to his Spirit. This begins with asking the Lord to fill us with his Holy Spirit. This is not just a one-time thing. Every day we should ask to be filled afresh with his Spirit.
God longs to reveal himself and his plan to us, his people. Even our ability to truly understand biblical truths and moral principles, and apply them to our lives, comes as a gift from the Holy Spirit. But this is only part of our heritage. We are also capable of receiving spiritual revelation and enlightenment from God about these truths and principles. Knowing about an event intellectually and knowing it by the power of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily the same thing. They are two different (though related) things. Listen to what St. Paul told the Corinthians: “However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’ — but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
God also desires to enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we could perceive the inheritance that is ours in Christ (Ephesians 1:18). Likewise, God wants to speak to us through his Spirit dwelling in us. He wants to tell us how much he loves us. He wants to reveal to us his glorious plan of salvation and our part in that plan. He wants to empower us by his Holy Spirit to embrace his glorious plan more fully.
The Power of Pentecost
It is one of the greatest ironies of God’s plan of salvation that the event that most filled the disciples with fear and distress — Jesus’ death on the cross — became the very thing to usher them into a new life of peace and courage. Even after witnessing Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples were still full of fear, and it wasn’t until Pentecost — after Jesus had ascended into heaven — that the disciples really could “take courage” and place their faith in Jesus’ victory over sin, Satan, and the world (John 16:33). Now filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples were transformed from weak, timid followers into courageous witnesses and apostles. Not even the threat of death could hold them back from joyfully proclaiming the good news of Jesus.
Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we too can be like the first disciples and be fearful and timid. We too can miss out on the fullness of truth and the transforming work of the Spirit. We can be good people with good intentions, but our relationship with Jesus is determined more by how well we love him and others, and obey his commandments, than it is simply by our intentions. That is why we need to continually ask the Lord to fill us with his Holy Spirit. That is why we need to seek the transforming power of the Spirit, so that we can become partakers of the very nature of God (2 Peter 1:4), empowered by the Spirit not only to obey God but also to become like Jesus his Son. Through the Holy Spirit, each of us has Jesus living within us, transforming us, giving us the boldness and courage to place our faith in him, and empowering us to be his witness to others.
Recognizing the Work of the Spirit
How can we know if we are experiencing the Holy Spirit in greater and greater measure? There are many ways, but let’s focus on two. First, we will recognize the Spirit’s presence as we become more and more convinced that Jesus truly is the Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). But the Lordship that we experience from Jesus is far different from the kind of authority we might expect. Jesus is not a distant, indifferent ruler who erects barriers between himself and his people, as great kings and emperors have done throughout history. Rather, Jesus’ Lordship is more like the biblical images of a shepherd faithfully caring for and protecting his sheep (Matthew 18:12-14).
The Holy Spirit wants to show us more and more how desirable it is to live under Jesus’ authority. He wants to convince us that living for ourselves only leads to heartbreak and loneliness, but living for Jesus and his people leads to a life of adventure, fulfillment, and great accomplishment. He wants to show us that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation and that this new creation has the capacity to do the very things that Jesus did while he walked among us (2 Corinthians 5:17; John 14:12).
The second way we will know the Spirit is at work within us comes as we are convinced that our sins are forgiven (1 John 1:9). The Holy Spirit wants to show us that every one of our transgressions has been washed away in Jesus’ blood. As we allow the Spirit to unfold this truth to our hearts, nothing will be able to keep us from confessing our sins and receiving the forgiveness that Jesus won for us on the cross. In fact, we will learn to run to Jesus with every area of darkness, eager to know his power to cleanse and heal us. Is there a part of your life that you feel powerless to change? Are you carrying guilt and shame from some past action that you now regret? Well, listen to the Spirit’s personal message for you: Your sins have been forgiven. Period. Don’t be afraid to expose your needs, your sins, and your weaknesses to the Lord. Don’t let the devil convince you that you’re beyond redemption. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Conclusion
Every day, we need to acknowledge and live according to the spiritual “new birth” that is ours. We were “born anew” in the Spirit so that we could walk in the Spirit with increasing maturity (Galatians 5:16-25). Let us pursue the Holy Spirit every day in prayer as we experience a living relationship with Jesus, the lover of our souls.
When troubles come your way, don’t bear them alone. Take them to Jesus. Ask the Spirit to give you wisdom, knowledge, or discernment — all the gifts you need to be faithful to God. Peace is God’s gift to all his beloved children. His perfect love — the love we experience by the power of the Spirit — casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). Jesus wants us to know that we can share in his victory, no matter what the circumstances or struggles of our life are. Through his Spirit, every trial and temptation is an opportunity to experience God’s grace and to take part anew in the triumph of his cross and the outpouring of his Spirit and grace. Every day, let him overcome not only the darkness in the world but your own doubts, fears, and failures. Let his love and peace become the source of your joy and confidence. And then give this love, peace, and joy to others.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can expect to know God’s presence right now. This is not a gift to be received passively. Having made the Father known to us, Jesus is now inviting us to work with him to make God known to everyone around us — to all the people he is calling to himself. He has “glorified” God by revealing God’s mercy and kindness, his generosity and power to heal. Now, through his Holy Spirit, he wants us to reveal his mercy and kindness to our family and our neighbors in this world, to overflow with his generosity, and to be instruments of his healing.
Finally, let me give you a very simple illustration of the why this interior transformation by the Holy Spirit is so important. A plain bar of iron is worth about five American dollars. The same bar made into a pair of horseshoes would be worth about fifty dollars. Made into medical needles, it might be worth as much as five thousand dollars. And if it were made into balance springs for fine Swiss watches, that iron bar might bring in as much as five hundred thousand dollars. The point is this: when it comes to the value of our lives as Catholic men, it is of immense importance to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us into men of the Spirit. This of course is an interior work, but it will manifest itself in our actions. These actions, which flow from a heart in tune with the Holy Spirit, will have great worth to God. And then when we see our Lord face-to-face in Heaven, we will hear these words, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21,23).
Many thanks to The Word Among Us for allowing me to adapt material from daily meditations in their monthly devotional magazine. Used with permission.
(Maurice Blumberg is Executive Director of the National Fellowship of Catholic Men. This article is part of NFCM's sponsorship of the Catholic Man channel. Contact NFCM at P.O. Box 86381, Gaithersburg, MD 20886 or e-mail them at info@nfcmusa.org. If you would like to make a contribution to the NFCM, just click here.)
Reflection Questions on Page 2
Questions for Reflection/Discussion by Catholic Men
1. What is your gut reaction to these words of Jesus in John 14:12: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father”? We know that Jesus’ words are true. How can these words become more of a reality in your life and in the life of your men’s group?
2. We tend to think of expressions such as “born again” and “born anew.” as evangelical Protestant terms. In what ways are these also legitimate Catholic terms as well?
3. In Scriptures, we continually hear the term “filled with the Spirit.” For example, in the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke, this term is used in referring to John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), Elizabeth (1:41), Zechariah (1:67), and Simeon (2:25). It is also used with regard to the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2:4), and throughout the book of Acts (e.g., 4:8, 4:31, 9:17), as well as other New Testament books (e.g., Ephesians 5:18). How important is it to you to be “filled with the Spirit”? Why or why not?
4. In what ways have you seen the work of the Holy Spirit in your life? What steps can you take to deepen this work of the Spirit in your life?
5. One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to transform us and the way we live our Catholic Christian lives so that we will hear these words of the Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21,23), when we see him face-to-face in Heaven. How important is it to you to hear these words spoken to you?
6. If you are in a men’s group, take some time at the end of your meeting to pray for one another to be more deeply filled with the Holy Spirit.
