John Henry Newman: The Holy Spirit is a Spring of Health and Salvation Sunday, May 19 2013

The Holy Ghost…dwells in body and soul, as in a temple.

[...]  He is able to search into all our thoughts, and penetrate into every motive of the heart.

Therefore, He pervades us…as light pervades a building, or as a sweet perfume the folds of some honourable robe; so that, in Scripture language, we are said to be in Him, and He in us.

It is plain that such an inhabitation brings the Christian into a state altogether new and marvellous, far above the possession of mere gifts, exalts him inconceivably in the scale of beings, and gives him a place and an office which he had not before.

In St. Peter’s forcible language, he becomes “partaker of the Divine Nature,” and has “power” or authority, as St. John says, “to become the son of God.”

Or, to use the words of St. Paul, “he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.”

[...]  This wonderful change from darkness to light, through the entrance of the Spirit into the soul, is called Regeneration, or the New Birth; a blessing which, before Christ’s coming, not even Prophets and righteous men possessed, but which is now conveyed to all men freely through the Sacrament of Baptism.

By…the coming of the Holy Ghost, all guilt and pollution are burned away as by fire, the devil is driven forth, sin…is forgiven, and the whole man is consecrated to God.

And this is the reason why He is called “the earnest” of that Saviour who died for us, and will one day give us the fulness of His own presence in heaven.

Hence, too, He is our “seal unto the day of redemption;” for as the potter moulds the clay, so He impresses the Divine image on us members of the household of God.

And His work may truly be called Regeneration; for though the original nature of the soul is not destroyed, yet its past transgressions are pardoned once and for ever, and its source of evil staunched and gradually dried up by the pervading health and purity which has set up its abode in it.

Instead of its own bitter waters, a spring of health and salvation is brought within it; not the mere streams of that fountain, “clear as crystal,” which is before the Throne of God , but, as our Lord says, “a well of water in him,” in a man’s heart, “springing up into everlasting life.”

Hence He elsewhere describes the heart as giving forth, not receiving, the streams of grace: “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of Living Water.” St. John adds, “this spake He of the Spirit” (John 4:14; 7:38, 39).

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 2, Sermon 19, The Indwelling Spirit.

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Leo the Great: The Holy Spirit Came to Enkindle to a Greater Heat and Fill with Larger Abundance the Hearts Dedicated to Him Friday, May 17 2013

The Lord Jesus had promised that the Holy Spirit should come, not then for the first time to be the Indweller of the saints, but to kindle to a greater heat, and to fill with larger abundance the hearts that were dedicated to Him, increasing, not commencing His gifts, not fresh in operation because richer in bounty.

For the Majesty of the Holy Ghost is never separate from the Omnipotence of the Father and the Son, and whatever the Divine government accomplishes in the ordering of all things, proceeds from the Providence of the whole Trinity.

Therein exists unity of mercy and loving-kindness, unity of judgment and justice:  nor is there any division in action where there is no divergence of will.  What, therefore, the Father enlightens, the Son enlightens, and the Holy Ghost enlightens, and…both the Unity and the Trinity are at the same time revealed to us….

The fact, therefore, that, with the co-operation of the inseparable Godhead still perfect, certain things are performed by the Father, certain by the Son, and certain by the Holy Spirit, in particular belongs to the ordering of our Redemption and the method of our salvation.

For if man, made after the image and likeness of God, had retained the dignity of his own nature, and had not been deceived by the devil’s wiles into transgressing through lust the law laid down for him, the Creator of the world would not have become a Creature, the Eternal would not have entered the sphere of time, nor God the Son, Who is equal with God the Father, have assumed the form of a slave and the likeness of sinful flesh.

But because “by the devil’s malice death entered into the world,” and captive humanity could not otherwise be set free without His undertaking our cause, Who without loss of His majesty should both become true Man, and alone have no taint of sin, the mercy of the Trinity divided for Itself the work of our restoration in such a way that the Father should be reconciled, the Son should reconcile, and the Holy Ghost enkindle.

For it was necessary that those who are to be saved should also do something on their part, and by the turning of their hearts to the Redeemer should quit the dominion of the enemy, even as the Apostle says, “God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father,” “And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” and “no one can call Jesus Lord except in the Holy Spirit.”

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 77, 1-2.

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Athanasius of Alexandria: Through the Holy Spirit We Are Partakers of God Thursday, May 16 2013

He is called a quickening Spirit. For it says: ‘He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.’ The Lord is the very life, and ‘author of life’, as Peter put it.

And as the Lord said himself: ‘The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life. . . . But this spake he concerning the Spirit which they that believed in him were to receive.’

[...] The Spirit is called unction and he is seal. For John writes : ‘As for you, the unction which ye received of him abideth in you, and you need not that anyone teach you, but his unction’ — his Spirit ‘teacheth you concerning all things.’

[...] Paul says: ‘In whom having also believed, ye were sealed unto the day of redemption.’ But the creatures are by him sealed and anointed and instructed in all things.

[...] The seal could not be from among the things that are sealed, nor the unction from among the things that are anointed; it pertains to the Word who anoints and seals.

For the unction has the fragrance and odour of  him who anoints; and those who are anointed say, when they receive thereof: ‘We are the fragrance of Christ.’

The seal has the form of Christ who seals, and those who are sealed partake of it, being conformed to it; as the Apostle says: ‘My little children, for whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.’

Being thus sealed, we are duly made, as Peter put it, ‘sharers in the divine nature’; and thus all creation partakes of the Word in the Spirit. Further it is through the Spirit that we are all said to be partakers of God.

For it says: ‘Know ye not that ye are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.’

[...]  The fact of our being called partakers of Christ and partakers of God shows that the unction and seal that is in us belongs…to the nature of the Son who, through the Spirit who is in him, joins us to the Father.

This John taught us, as is said above, when he wrote: ‘Hereby know we that we abide in God and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.’

[...] It is on this account that those in whom he is are made divine.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c.293-373): Letters to Serapion, 1.23-24.

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John Henry Newman: The Comforter Comes to Us as Christ Came, by a Real and Personal Visitation Wednesday, May 15 2013

The gifts of the Holy Ghost…under the Jewish covenant…were great mercies; yet, great as they were, they are as nothing compared with that surpassing grace with which we Christians are honoured; that great privilege of receiving into our hearts, not the mere gifts of the Spirit, but His very presence, Himself, by a real not a figurative indwelling.

When our Lord entered upon His Ministry, He acted as though He were a mere man, needing grace, and received the consecration of the Holy Spirit for our sakes. He became the Christ, or Anointed, that the Spirit might be seen to come from God, and to pass from Him to us.

And, therefore, the heavenly Gift is not simply called the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of Christ, that we might clearly understand, that He comes to us from and instead of Christ.

Thus St. Paul says, “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts;” and our Lord breathed on His Apostles, saying, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost;” and He says elsewhere to them, “If I depart, I will send Him unto you.”

[...] The Comforter who has come instead of Christ, must have vouchsafed to come in the same sense in which Christ came; I mean, that He has come, not merely in the way of gifts, or of influences, or of operations, as He came to the Prophets…; but He comes to us as Christ came, by a real and personal visitation.

[...] We are able to see that the Saviour, when once He entered into this world, never so departed as to suffer things to be as before He came; for He still is with us, not in mere gifts, but by the substitution of His Spirit for Himself, and that, both in the Church and in the souls of individual Christians.

For instance, St. Paul says in the text, “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.” Again, “He shall quicken even your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

“Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?” “Ye are the Temple of the Living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them.”

The same Apostle clearly distinguishes between the indwelling of the Spirit, and His actual operations within us, when he says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us;” and again, “The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 2, Sermon 19, The Indwelling Spirit.

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Cyril of Alexandria: “I Am in My Father, and You in Me, and I in You” Wednesday, May 1 2013

In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you (John 14:20).

After the creature [man]…had attained unto the propriety of its perfect nature by means of both soul and body…, then like a stamp of His own Nature the Creator impressed on it the Holy Spirit – the Breath of Life.

Thus the creature became moulded unto the archetypal Beauty, and completed after the image of Him that created it, enabled unto every form of excellence, by virtue of the Spirit given to dwell in it.

Having free will, and entrusted with the reins of its own purposes – for this also is an element in the image, forasmuch as God has power over His own purposes – the creature turned and has fallen.

God the Father both determined and took in hand to gather together once more in Christ the nature of man unto its ancient estate, and, willing it, He accomplished it.

[...] It was not otherwise possible for man, forasmuch as he was of a nature that was perishing, to escape death, save by recovering that ancient grace, and partaking once more in God.

For God holds all things together in being and preserves them in life through the Son in the Spirit.

Therefore He has become partaker of blood and flesh. He has become man, being by nature Life, and begotten of the Life that is by nature, of God the Father.

He is the Father’s Only-begotten Word, Who became man in order that, uniting Himself with the flesh that by the law of its own nature was perishing, He might bring it back unto His own Life and make it through Himself partaker of God the Father.

For He is Mediator between God and men, according as it is written, knit unto God the Father naturally as God and of Him, and again unto men as man; and withal having in Himself the Father and being Himself in the Father.

For He is the impress and effulgence of His Person, and not distinct from the Essence, whereof He is impress and wherefrom He proceeds as effulgence.

[...] And He wears our nature, remoulding it unto His own Life. And He is also Himself in us; for we have all been made partakers of Him, and have Him in ourselves through the Spirit.

Thus we have Both, being made partakers of the Divine Nature, and are entitled sons, in this way having in us also the Father Himself through the Son.

And Paul will testify hereof where he says: Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 

Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444): Commentary on St John’s Gospel, book 9 [on John 14:20].

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Catherine of Siena: Because of Your Confidence in the Blood of the Crucified Christ, Never Fear Anything Whatsoever Monday, Apr 29 2013

My dearest children in Christ, the sweet Jesus!

I, Catherine…, desire to see you as sons who are obedient unto death, learning from the immaculate Lamb who was obedient to the Father even to an ignominious death on the cross.

Pay close attention for he is the way and the rule that you and all creatures ought to follow. I wish you to place him before your mind’s eye.

Look at how obedient that Word is! He himself does not refuse to carry the burden which he received from the Father, but on the contrary runs to it with the greatest desire.

He made this clear at the Last Supper when he said: I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you before I die.

To eat the Passover means to fulfill at the same time the will of the Father and the desire of the Son.

Seeing that he had hardly any time left and that at his life’s end he was to be offered as a sacrifice to the Father on our behalf, he rejoices and exults and says with joy: I have greatly desired.

And this was the Passover of which he spoke, namely, to give himself as food and to immolate the sacrifice of his body in obedience to the Father.

[...] He was commanded to give us his blood that the will of God might be fulfilled in us and that we might be sanctified by that very blood.

Therefore I beseech you, my sweet children in Christ, the sweet Jesus, because of your confidence in the blood of the crucified Christ, never fear anything whatsoever.

Do not separate yourselves from him by temptations and errors. You cannot persevere out of fear, nor can you endure obedience…out of dread. I desire, then, that you never fear.

May all servile fear be removed from you. Along with the sweet and loving Paul say:

“Be strong today, my soul. Through the crucified Christ I can do everything, for he who comforts me dwells in me by desire and love.” Love, love, love!

[...] Have confidence! You shall find the source of charity in the side of the crucified Christ. I wish you to establish yourselves there and make a dwelling there for yourselves.

Rise up then with great and burning desire. Approach, enter and remain in this sweet dwelling.

No demon or any other creature can take this grace from you or hinder you from reaching your end, namely, that you should come to see and taste God.

I say no more. Abide in the holy and sweet love of God. Love, love one another.

Catherine of Siena (1347-1380): Letter to the novices of the Order at Santa Maria de Monte Oliveto, from the Supplement to the Liturgy of the Hours for the Order of Preachers, feast of St Catherine of Siena, April 29^th.

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Macarius the Egyptian: One who Wishes to be a Partaker of the Divine Glory Must Seek the Help which Comes Mightily from God Friday, Apr 12 2013

Those upon whom the divine law is written, not with ink and letters, but implanted in hearts of flesh, these, having the eyes of their mind enlightened, and reaching after a hope, not tangible and seen, but invisible and immaterial, have power to get the better of the stumbling- blocks of the evil one, not by themselves, but from the power that never can be defeated.

But those who have not been honoured with God’s word, nor instructed by divine law…fancy that by their own free will they can bring to nought the resources of sin, which is only condemned through the mystery contained in the Cross.

It lies in the power of man’s free will to resist the devil, but it does not extend to an absolute command over the passions. Except the Lord build the house…and keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain, and the builder laboureth in vain (Ps. 126:1).

You cannot go upon the asp and basilisk and tread under your feet the lion and the dragon [cf Ps. 90:13] without first purging yourself as far as human ability goes, and being strengthened by Him who said to the apostles, Behold, I have given you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy.

If human nature had had force, without the whole armour of the Holy Ghost, to stand against the wiles of the devil, St Paul would not have said, The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly, and again, Whom the Lord shall destroy with the Spirit of His mouth.

That is why we are bidden of the Lord to pray, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. If we are not delivered by the superior power from the fiery darts of the wicked one and admitted to the adoption of sons, our social existence is in vain; we are far from the power of God.

Accordingly, one who wishes to be a partaker of the divine glory, and to see as in a glass the form of Christ in the ruling faculty of his own soul, ought with insatiable affection and an inclination which is never filled, with all his heart and all his might, by night and when it is day, to seek the help which comes mightily from God.

Of this help, as I have said before, it is impossible to partake, unless a man first abstains from the luxury of the world, from the desires of the opposing power, which is alien to the light, and is an activity of wickedness with no kinship to a good activity, but wholly estranged from it.

Macarius the Egyptian (c. 300-391) [attributed]; Fifty Spiritual Homilies, 27,1-3, trans. by A.J. Mason DD.

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Silouan the Athonite: Adam Wept: “What Hinders Him from Dwelling in Me?” Sunday, Mar 24 2013

Adam knew great grief when he was banished from paradise, but when he saw his son Abel slain by Cain his brother, Adam’s grief was even heavier. His soul was heavy, and he lamented and thought:

Peoples and nations will descend from me, and multiply, and suffering will be their lot, and they will live in enmity and seek to slay one another.

And his sorrow stretched wide as the sea, and only the soul that has come to know the Lord and the magnitude of His love for us can understand.

I, too, have lost grace and call with Adam:

Be merciful unto me, O Lord! Bestow on me the spirit of humility and love.

 

O love of the Lord! He who has known Thee seeks Thee, tireless, day and night, crying with a loud voice:

I pine for Thee, O Lord, and seek Thee in tears.

How should I not seek Thee?

Thou didst give me to know Thee by the Holy Spirit,

And in her knowing of God my soul is drawn to seek Thee in tears.

 

Adam wept:

The desert cannot pleasure me; nor the high mountains, nor meadow nor forest, nor the singing of birds.

I have no pleasure in any thing.

My soul sorrows with a great sorrow:

I have grieved God.

And were the Lord to set me down in paradise again,

There, too, would I sorrow and weep – ‘O why did I grieve my beloved God?’

 

The soul of Adam fell sick when he was exiled from paradise, and many were the tears he shed in his distress. Likewise every soul that has known the Lord yearns for Him, and cries:

Where art Thou, O Lord? Where art Thou, my Light?

Why hast Thou hidden Thy face from me?

Long is it since my soul beheld Thee,

And she wearies after Thee and seeks Thee in tears.

Where is my Lord?

Why is it that my soul sees Him not?

What hinders Him from dwelling in me?

This hinders Him: Christ-like humility and love for my enemies art not in me.

God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe.

 

Adam walked the earth, weeping from his heart’s manifold ills, while the thoughts of his mind were on God; and when his body grew faint, and he could no longer shed tears, still his spirit burned with longing for God, for he could not forget paradise and the beauty thereof; but even more was it the power of His love which caused the soul of Adam to reach out towards God.

Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938; Eastern Orthodox): Adam’s Lament (extract), from St. Silouan the Athonite, by Archimandrite Sophrony @ Mystagogy.

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Bede the Venerable: Christ Dwells in the Hearts of His Chosen Ones through the Grace of His Love Friday, Mar 15 2013

(The Latin phrase “miserando atque eligendo” used by Bede to describe the way in which Jesus looked on Matthew is the episcopal motto of Pope Francis.)

Jesus saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him: Follow me. Jesus saw Matthew  more with the interior gaze of his love than with corporal eyes.

He saw the tax collector and, because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him (miserando atque eligendo), he said to him: Follow me.

This following meant imitating the pattern of his life – not just walking after him. St. John tells us: Whoever says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

And he rose and followed him. There is no reason for surprise that the tax collector abandoned earthly wealth as soon as the Lord commanded him.

Nor should one be amazed that neglecting his wealth, he joined a band of men whose leader had, on Matthew’s assessment, no riches at all.

Our Lord summoned Matthew by speaking to him in words. By an invisible, interior impulse flooding his mind with the light of grace, he instructed him to walk in his footsteps.

In this way Matthew could understand that Christ, who was summoning him away from earthly possessions, had incorruptible treasures of heaven in his gift.

As he sat at table in the house, behold many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.

This conversion of one tax collector gave many men, those from his own profession and other sinners, an example of repentance and pardon.

[...] To see a deeper understanding of the great celebration Matthew held at his house, we must realise that he not only gave a banquet for the Lord at his earthly residence, but far more pleasing was the banquet set in his own heart which he provided through faith and love.

Our Savior attests to this: Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

On hearing Christ’s voice, we open the door to receive him, as it were, when we freely assent to his promptings and when we give ourselves over to doing what must be done.

Christ, since he dwells in the hearts of his chosen ones through the grace of his love, enters so that he might eat with us and we with him.

He ever refreshes us by the light of his presence insofar as we progress in our devotion to and longing for the things of heaven. He himself is delighted by such a pleasing banquet.

The Venerable Bede (672/4-735): Homily on the Call of Saint Matthew, the Tax Collector, (Hom. 21: CCL 122, 149-151) from the Office of Readings for the Feast of St. Matthew, apostle and evangelist on September 21 @ Crossroads Initiative (slightly adapted).

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Thérèse of the Child Jesus: We Possess the Truth, for Our Beloved Dwells in Our Hearts Sunday, Mar 3 2013

“I went down into the garden of nut-trees to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard has flourished, and the pomegranates were in bud. I know longer knew where I was: my soul was troubled because of the chariots of Aminadab” (Canticle of Canticles 6:10-11).

There is the true picture of our souls. Often we go down into the fertile valleys where our heart loves to find its nourishment.

And the vast fields of Holy Scripture, which have so often opened to yield us richest treasures, now seem but an arid and waterless waste.

We no longer even know where we stand. In place of peace and light, all is sorrow and darkness.

But, like the Spouse in the Canticles, we know the cause of this trial: “My soul was troubled because of the chariots of Aminadab.”

We are not as yet in our true country, and as gold is tried in the fire so must our souls be purified by temptation. We sometimes think we are abandoned.

Alas! The chariots – that is to say, the idle clamours which beset and disturb us – are they within the soul or without?

We cannot tell, but Jesus knows; He sees all our grief, and in the night, on a sudden, His Voice is heard: “Return, return, O Sulamites: return, return, that we may behold thee.”

[...] Jesus calls us that He may look upon us at leisure. He wills to see us; He comes, and with Him come the other two Persons of the Adorable Trinity to take possession of our soul.

Our Lord had promised this, when, with unspeakable tenderness, He had said of old: “If anyone love Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him.”

To keep the word of Jesus, then, is the one condition of our happiness, the proof of our love for Him; and this word seems to me to be His very Self, for He calls Himself the Uncreated Word of the Father.

In the Gospel of St. John He makes the sublime prayer: “Sanctify them by Thy word, Thy word is truth.” And in another passage Jesus teaches us that He is “the Way and the Truth and the Life.”

We know, then, what is this word which must be kept; we cannot say, like Pilate: “What is truth?” We possess the Truth, for our Beloved dwells in our hearts.

Often this Beloved is to us a bundle of myrrh. We share the chalice of His sufferings; but how sweet it will be to us one day to hear these gentle words:

“You are they who have continued with Me in My temptations, and I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a kingdom.”

Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897): Letters of Saint Thérèse to Her Sister Celine, 18.

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