Living Icons of Jesus through The Holy Spirit

During these days of prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our world and our lives, the Liturgy presents us, once again, with the beautiful reading of St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit.
I have commented before (here) some parts of this text but it is well worth reading and re-reading it. This is a great hymn and a consoling prayer that can give us theme for a quiet, contemplative time in the secret of our inner room.
I'm copying the text from the Liturgy of the Hours:

   

The Work of the Holy Spirit

The titles given to the Holy Spirit must surely stir the soul of anyone who hears them, and make him realise that they speak of nothing less than the supreme Being.

Is he not called:

            the Spirit of God,

               the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,

                  the steadfast Spirit,

                     the guiding Spirit?

But his principal and most personal title is the Holy Spirit.

To the Spirit all creatures turn in their need for sanctification;

all living things seek him according to their ability.

His breath empowers each to achieve its own natural end.

The Spirit is the source of holiness, a spiritual light, and he offers his own light to every mind to help it in its search for truth.

By nature the Spirit is beyond the reach of our mind, but we can know him by his goodness.

The power of the Spirit fills the whole universe, but he gives himself only to those who are worthy, acting in each according to the measure of his faith.

Simple in himself, the Spirit is manifold in his mighty works.

The whole of his being is present to each individual; the whole of his being is present everywhere.

Though shared in by many, he remains unchanged; his self giving is no loss to himself.

Like the sunshine, which permeates all the atmosphere, spreading over land and sea, and yet is enjoyed by each person as though it were for him alone, so the Spirit pours forth his grace in full measure, sufficient for all, and yet is present as though exclusively to everyone who can receive him.

To all creatures that share in him he gives a delight limited only by their own nature, not by his ability to give.

The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress.

He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself.

As clear, transparent substances become very bright when sunlight falls on them and shine with a new radiance, so also souls in whom the Spirit shines become spiritual themselves and a source of grace for others.

From the Spirit comes

     foreknowledge of the future,

       understanding of the mysteries of faith,

         insight into the hidden meaning of Scripture,

           and other special gifts.

Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we enter into eternal happiness, and abide in God.

Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations – we become God.

From the treatise On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil the Great, bishop

The last paragraph makes a very bold statement on our destiny and our identity as human beings. We are created with the image and likeness of God in us (Gen 1:26) like a seed that we need to nurture and allow to grow over time in order to bring it to fruition. 

In Jesus the Christ we have the perfectly accomplished human image of God. Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life is One with God, and like Him, we too are called not only to union but to oneness with God through identification and participation in Christ.

Thus our earthly journey is about becoming like Christ, becoming Christ. We are presented in the Gospels with the Model we need to imitate in our lives with our free decision to follow Him every day. But our actions, our efforts are not enough to make us like Him. For this to happen a real transformation has to take place. We call it holiness, which is a divinization not only of our actions but also of our faculties, of our mind and our psyche, of our feelings and desires. 

Jesus fulfills his promise not to leave us orphans (Jn 14:18) by becoming, through the workings of His Spirit, the yeast of our transformation that sculpts in us his own likeness and makes of us his Living Memories, his Living Icons when and where we surrender and entrust the whole of our being to the Divine Artist who is recreating in us the human face of God.

Come Spirit of Jesus!

The Ascension of The Lord

In Canada we are celebrating this Sunday the beautiful feast of the completion of Jesus' journey on earth even beyond the Resurrection, that is the Ascension, Jesus' return to the Father, and the end of the post resurrection "stage of formation" for the Apostles.

Luke describes for us the scene in Acts 1 where Jesus is giving them final instructions:

Do not leave Jerusalem but wait there for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

This sounds promising and exciting to the disciples: finally something is going to happen. They are used to hearing Jesus talk of the Father and all, so this is familiar territory, but they can also feel in the air that there is like a feeling of expectation, of real power about to burst into something big.

In this special moment with Jesus we have the last recorded words addressed to Jesus by the disciples. They ask Him:

Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? 

What a revealing question! They have been with Jesus for three years and they still don't have a clue of what is Jesus talking about. They heard but didn't get it. They saw Jesus dead (from the distance) and risen, but still don't get it. It's like they are living in parallel worlds, no matter how long they journey they never meet. The apostles are still thinking of an earthly kingdom where they will have political power.

I think that this is the need that Jesus is addressing in the Ascension: as far as the disciples see Him "there", with the eyes of their bodies, they won't get what  the whole Jesus' thing is about. There has to be a shift in their consciousness, a huge one, and that Jesus will accomplish through the Power of God at work within, the gentle, humble, invisible Holy Spirit on Pentecost day.

They certainly needed it. But not only them. Doesn't this also sound like our communities and our churches today? How many of us today believe that we are mature disciples of Jesus and yet we live out of a consciousness which is a parallel world with Jesus' and the Gospel and closer to that of the apostles in this passage? What are our expectations and desires? What do we labor for with our life? We have probably received the sacrament of confirmation, but have we also entered, with Mary, the womb of prayer that will give birth to the Spirit in our life?

In yesterday's readings we heard (John 16:23-28)

I came from the Father and have come into the world; 

again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.

This is an overview of Jesus' journey, and it's also an overview of our own personal journey as Jesus has shown us with His life. We come from God, we are in the world but not of the world -we belong with God, and we journey back to God. And yet we live and judge and talk and feel as if we come from this earth, belong in this earth, and will remain here forever and ever. This is how we approach events and decisions both personally and socially. We manage to create and live in a parallel world which is not Jesus' or the Kingdom He came to bring.

This is why we need so badly an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us individually, upon the Church, and upon the world. We need to awaken to the consciousness of our real purpose and destiny in God. We have limited time and endless opportunities. God is with us in this journey but we need to feel the need for a change of heart and mind, and open ourselves to the groaning of the Spirit within always yearning to fill us with the humble power of the Kingdom.

During this week before Pentecost, let us unite in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon each one of us, our families and communities, the Church, and our world.

Come Holy Spirit!