23/05/2010 - PENTECOST - C
1Reading Act 2,1-11 Psalm 103 2Reading Rom 8,8-17 Gospel Jn 14,15-16.23-26
"O most blessed Light divine, let your radiance in us shine, and our inmost
being fill. Nothing good by man is thought. Nothing good by him is wrought.".
These are words from the Sequence that invokes the coming of the Holy Spirit. Already
from this prayer, one can understand how much the gift of the Holy Spirit is needed.
Who are we without his presence in us? Without the Holy Spirit we are "under
the power of the flesh", says st. Paul. This means that our life is all stamped
by our egoism and rests on our concupiscence that lead to evil. Let's keep on praying
the Father and Jesus the gift of the Spirit, because we want to be free from those
internal impulses that push us to material things and depend totally on what is
destined to pass. The apostle says that if the Spirit is in us, then we are alive,
and we can overcome the obstacle of those forces that bring fear and lead to death.
With the Spirit in us, we are alive, filled with that life that has no limits and
no end, of that life that has value and meaning even when for the world it does
not. True life is that life in God which is Jesus, as he himself said. It's the
Spirit that gives it to us. This is the reason why our Lord spoke so often and with
insistence of him, and desired and prayed that he comes to us. In today's Gospel
Reading, he assures us that he shall continue to pray to the Father so that he gives
us the Consoler and that this one remains with us for ever. If Jesus expresses himself
so, it means that the Holy Spirit is truly important for our existence. It is he
who gives us the love for Jesus: without this love all his saints and wise teachings
would fall in down, because only "if you love me, and obey my commandments"
that we can survive. Those who, even though they respect Jesus and his teachings
but don't love him, cannot live his teachings in their lives.
We want to welcome the great gift of the Spirit, who helps us to love Jesus. His
love for us, helps us to obey his Word, and made us worthy of the Father to choose
us as his abode. We are an abode/dwelling of the Father and of Jesus! To believe
this possibility makes us happy, but above all change us from within. If I am a
place where God lives, I should not worry too much of myself, but of his presence
in me. If God lives in me, I'm to allow him to express himself through my capacities,
my strengths, my thoughts, my whole being and behavior. All my life becomes an act
of love, of great love, to forgive and have mercy of all.
If God dwells in me, I should not oppose "to kill the works of the flesh"
to live a heavenly life, a life that is of "the children of God". I cannot
say enough how much our relationships change from the moment we take seriously the
truth of being "God's dwelling", "children of God". Not only
our relationships with one another change, but also with creation, with the past
and with the future. We start to look at creation as a great gift of which we don't
own, others becomes really image of God and we respect them because they are occasions
to show him a worship and listening heart. The past is not anymore a place to look
for wounds recorded in our subconscious, but a place in which the love of the Father
rests, that love that help us grow through the pain of our limits and the corrections
we received. The future is not an unknown reality that surprises, but the place
of the surprises of God's love, who wants us to help him in creation and salvation.
The Holy Spirit is a blessed Light: in his light we see all the realities with their
true colors and according to their true dimensions. Thanks to the Holy Spirit we
see the value of everything, and our lives change so much, that we ourselves become
a surprise for those who know us.
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
Send us a ray of your light from heaven!