May 11, 2008 FrJFC

The Catechism says, “No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.” That is also from 1^st Corinthians 12. Galatians says, “God has sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” This knowledge of faith is possible only from the Holy Spirit, only in the Holy Spirit. To be in touch with Christ, the Holy Spirit must first have touched us. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By the way, the voice crying, “Abba, Father”, was in us. Abba, of course, means Daddy, it is the loving form of Father, Papá, Daddy, Da, as the Irish say. You know, we know there are three persons in one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We seem to have a certain familiarity with the Father. We can picture Him. Michelangelo helped us with that: the great white beard and a great head of hair, the Creator. Of course, we have a familiarity with Christ. We can picture Him. He was human. He looked like us. However, many people, apparently, feel a distance with the Spirit. They just cannot get their mind around what this Person is. Yet, as the Catechism reminds us, we knew the Spirit before we knew the Father and the Son. Without the Spirit, we would not know the Father or the Son.

I submit to you, that you know the Spirit better than you know the Father and better than you know the Son. How do we know someone? We know someone through experiencing them. You have been experiencing the Holy Spirit in your life for many, many years, depending on how old you are. Let me try to illustrate what I’m talking about. We experience the Holy Spirit in nature and creation. If you’ve been to the Grand Canyon, you look at this marvelous work and there’s that feeling in you, that sense of awesome respect, that’s the Spirit. There is one Preface in the Mass that says even our desire to please God is His gift. That is the Spirit of God in us. We always pray to the Father, through Jesus, in the Spirit. Romans reminded us of that tonight. That we don’t know how to pray as we ought, so the Spirit expresses itself by groaning within us.

We experience the Spirit in our conscience. You’ve heard the voice. “Don’t do that. That’s wrong. You better change. You’re better than that.” You really should hear that voice. “That’s not you, Christian. You’re better than that.” I know a young man who said, “I don’t do these sins because that’s not who I am. I am a child of God.” It was the Spirit speaking. We experience the Spirit when we are forgiven, especially in that little room back there, the Confessional. We hear those words of forgiveness that come from God. Have you experienced this in your life? Where someone needed some advice and some help and you gave him or her good advice but you never thought about that advice until it came out of your mouth. Right? Then they left and they were better and you said, “Where did I get that?” That’s the Spirit of God. You got out of God’s way long enough for Him to help that person.

We experience the Spirit when we know deep down inside us that all is well, because all is well with God, regardless of whatever the circumstances may be around us. You know that deep down that it’s O.K. because you are O.K. with God. At the time that St. Augustine experienced the Spirit, he knew Christ was Lord but he didn’t want to turn away from his old way of life. He had invested so much in it and he was conflicted and he heard a voice that said, “Take and read.” He picked up the Bible and read and he tells us in his Confessions that verse that he looked at was exactly what God needed him to know at that time. Have you ever done that? Or not only Scripture but picked up something when you were troubled and read it and the light came on, and you say, “O.K. I see now.” That’s the Spirit. Over the millennia, there’s been actually a few people affected by homilies and sermons. Seriously though, sometimes after Mass people say, “Father you said something I needed to hear.” I reply, “And what was that”. When they tell me, I don’t remember saying that. Between the words spoken and the words received, the Spirit enters.

Have you ever had a premonition that proves true? All the women are going “yeah”, all the men are going “I don’t know.” The Spirit expresses Himself in mothers. They come with an extra portion. If you are a mother, have you ever known something’s wrong with your children, a child, even though he or she is not close to you at the time, maybe they’re far away? Uh-huh. There is also the complete sense of peace and trust in the final hours of life. I see that a lot. You know many people die really well, where they are ready. Last Friday, I spoke to Dick Branch, he died on Sunday morning. I said, “You’re not afraid, are you.” He said, “Oh no. No, I’m not Father. I’m not afraid.” As he said that, he was at total peace. That is the Spirit in him saying that. The true and certain knowledge that a deceased loved one is in the hands of God. I know many people come and tell me, “I know she’s safe now because I know”.

We experience the Spirit in art and music, in tears and laughter. I always say that God doesn’t think because God is. But God laughs. Doesn’t he George? Yeah. At you and me. And God cries. I may have mentioned this before but after 9/11 a teenager came up to me and she was distraught, really hurting, as we all were. She said, “I’m angry and I’m afraid and I feel for those people and their families. But I can’t pray. All I can do is cry.” I said, “Well, that’s prayer.” That’s what we heard today in Romans. An earlier translation of that Scripture we heard from Romans said, “We do not know how to pray as we ought, so the Spirit of God expresses Himself within us through cries and supplications to the Lord.” Tears, when they are tears of love, or even fear, or whatever, is the Spirit of God expressing Himself through you. We know crying makes you better. Doesn’t it? It does. That’s why guys, women live forever because you never stop crying. Cry when you’re happy, cry when you’re sad, cry when you’re angry, cry, cry, cry! Men don’t cry and we die young.

The way that we experience the Spirit, the greatest way, is when we have an awareness of the sanctity and sacredness of the human person, created in God’s image. If we are created in God’s image, we should see God when we look at each other and we do, if we look hard enough. God is there, especially in a baby. Many a person, especially men, have come back to Church, or come to Church because they have had a baby. They say, “You know, I believe now there is a God and it is a God of love. I want to get to know Him better because He gave me this child, this baby.” You know there’s this Scripture we all heard in the Gospel. It says, “Unless you become like a child you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” That’s Luke’s Gospel. I prefer Matthew, because Matthew says, “Unless you become like an infant.” Children can be cruel. Not to mention what happens when they get into their teens. Like an infant, and that’s the word Matthew uses is an infant, a baby. Babies really are perfect. Aren’t they? They are just what they are.

I want to read a reflection. I tried to work this in tonight because it’s Mother’s Day weekend. No one loves babies like mothers. A friend of mine, Alice Sullivan, wrote this reflection. She is a co-founder of Praying Mothers. Alice is a mom, a wife, and a grandmother. She doesn’t come from an “Ozzie and Harriet family.” She comes from a real family with lots of challenges. She’s a wonderful person if you get to know her. She’s also hot-tempered, emotional, she’s very Irish. She wrote this some years back and I want to share it with you on this Mother’s Day weekend. It’s called A Bundle of Hope.

A Bundle of Hope

When the time comes that I must stand alone in the judgment, I pray that the Father sees me as less than a child. May He see me as a mere baby. A baby revels in the gift of life. Not driven by intellect or wisdom nor is she fearful based on earthly memories or experience. The baby is fearless. She brims with hope yet knows not what hope is. She will feel joy at the sight of her own fingers and toes. Any new shape, color or sound brings astonishment. She does not need to know why nor does she need the words to explain the joy of life. She simply exudes it. A baby will not cry for success, money, pride, or possessions. A baby only cries to demand those things that will perpetrate life itself: love, food, shelter, or a change of a diaper. A baby can attain none of her own needs but she sleeps in peace.

It has been scientifically proven that a baby, still in the womb, can reach the dream state. Of what does a baby dream? It must be dreams of heaven and the Father. She comes to earth with nothing more to offer than a glimpse of heaven itself. A baby’s essence sparks our own flame of hope. As mothers, we are given the noble but arduous task of guiding our babies through a difficult obstacle course. We must accomplish this and at the same time keep alive that glimpse of heaven despite the inevitable hardships that lie ahead. That is a mighty task indeed, as we set our children off into a world fraught with pain, temptation, hatred, and evil. Painfully, we must forge our children with discipline and joyfully we form them with love. The process is the same one used on us as God guides us through life and indeed His own Son walked the same path with Mary His mother at His side. Mercifully, God has graced us with the weapons of faith, love, and hope.

For me, the most elusive concept is hope. Yet a baby needs no concept of hope. Without ever having read a book or partaking in an intellectual discussion, a baby knows hope. A baby is hope. Funk and Wagnall’s define hope as a desire with expectation of fulfillment. As I struggle to put the word hope into focus, I find this definition to be puny. Perhaps it should read a desire with expectation of fulfillment despite the odds, logic, practicality, wisdom, experience, fear, and despair of life. A mother’s faith and love nourishes the hope that we ourselves brought from heaven at our own birth. As a gift from God, no linguist can find the words to describe hope. As my grown children move through the world and sometimes fall into the snares of life, be it sickness or sin, fear or pride, hot-headedness or cold-heartedness, I can still see in their eyes the joys of gurgling and cooing. In this vision lies my hope as a mother. As a child of God myself, my hope is that when I stand before Him that He sees beyond my blemishes, failures, and sin. I hope and pray that He will see a giggling, sparkling infant waiting for his embrace.