Robert Barron - Hints of the Holy Spirit
Peace be with you. Friends, we come to the Sixth Sunday of Easter. We're getting very close to Pentecost. So what the Church does, it gives us readings that are kind of hinting at the Holy Spirit, giving us a kind of foretaste of this great feast of the descent of the Spirit. So what I want to do is a little bit unusual, is to say something about each of the three readings, to pick out these moments when the Holy Spirit is being adumbrated. So the first reading is from the Acts of the Apostles.
So all during the Easter season, we read from the Acts of the Apostles, and Peter is now in the house of Cornelius. So it's this pivotal moment when the Jewish Christians are meeting the Gentiles really for the first time, and lots is going on in that encounter. But while he's there, listen: "While Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word. They were astounded at the gift of the Holy Spirit... for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God". So it's a strange scene, I'll grant you that. Peter's talking to Cornelius, the Gentile, and suddenly the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, comes upon everybody in the room.
So these Gentiles now begin speaking in tongues. What did that mean? Well, speaking in languages probably not their own, praising God in these foreign tongues. And Peter says, well, how can we not baptize these people? They've already received the Holy Spirit. Now, you might be tempted to say, well, that's I guess a peculiarity of those early days of the Church. These kind of things happen. Paul, of course, talks about speaking in tongues. But look, up and down the Christian centuries, we can find it. In my great intellectual hero St. Thomas Aquinas, we find a discussion of speaking in tongues. Thomas says, yes, it's given to some for the praise of God and for the propagation of the faith.
And then I spent six years in the Los Angeles area, and a number of times I went to the site of the famous Azusa Street Church. That's the Protestant church where in, I think it was 1906, this happened. The Spirit fell, and from that little church in Los Angeles grew up the Pentecostal movement, which has now swept the whole world. It's about a hundred and some years old. Is there a version of it within Catholicism? Sure. The charismatic renewal that happened after Vatican II. The Spirit comes with great power among us. What's the Spirit's purpose? Well, to praise the Father and to propagate the faith. The Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son.
We see it manifested here in this sort of scene. Is the Spirit still doing these things? You bet. These extraordinary gifts, by their nature, they're extraordinary, are not given to everybody. Sometimes the Spirit gives very relatively ordinary gifts like teaching and evangelizing and even administration. But sometimes, sometimes the Spirit falls, the fire falls, and these extraordinary manifestations of the divine love occur. So that's our first little hint from reading one. Now listen to reading two, which is from the First Letter of John. Can I suggest this everybody? It's always a worthwhile exercise to open up the Bible to the First Letter of John, because in many ways it's a summation, in very simple language, but boy, talking about the deepest things, but it's a summation of Christian spirituality.
So listen to these simple but infinitely profound words: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love". Now, there it is. The medievals saw this, the medieval theologians, it's the pivotal text of New Testament revelation. If God's name in the Old Testament is being, Moses said, "Hey, what do I tell the Israelites when they ask what your name is"? and God said, "I am who I am," and from that comes that wonderful tradition of naming God as being itself. Correct, of course. But St. Bonaventure argued in the Middle Ages there's an even higher name of God, and it's delivered to us here. God is love. What is the being of God? Love.
Now, see, look what follows, everybody. Chesterton saw this. From this doctrine follows the Trinity. For if love is not just something God does, not just one of God's activities or attributes, and all the religions say some version of that but only Christianity says that God is love, well, that means within the unity of God, there has to be someone who loves, someone who is loved, and the love that they share. And so we speak of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. If God just has love or love is something he does, I wouldn't need to appeal to the Trinity. But if he is love, that's his own most nature. Then I have to speak of lover, beloved, and shared love.
Do you see now why this is speaking to us of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the love that God is, and that's why if we love one another, we will the good of one another. We're coming to know God not in a detached, scientific way, but we're coming to know God by means of real participation in him. Again, "everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God". Authentic love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit operating in you. So yes, sometimes in extraordinary ways through tongues and these charismatic manifestations, but in the ordinary, even though it's not really ordinary at all. I mean love, when it really breaks out, is the most extraordinary thing. But when we really love, that's the sign that the Holy Spirit is operative in us.
Now, listen to this: "In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us". There's that principle that the theologians call the love of predilection. The divine love always comes first. See, if I speak of, "Well, I love God, I'm seeking God. I'm interested in God," well see, that can become my project pretty quickly. That's religion, if you want. That's what all religions have in common. But then there's this claim. It's not that we've loved God, but that God has loved us. Now, what does it mean? It means the Holy Spirit is alive in us. The Holy Spirit has been given to us as a gift.
What does the risen Christ do with his Apostles, but he breathes on them and he says "Receive the Holy Spirit"? It's not that we've loved God, it's that God has loved us. That's the Spirit in us. Okay? Now the Gospel from John. We're still talking about the Holy Spirit. Jesus said to his disciples, this is now the night before he dies; this, it's the very climax of his life, "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love". Well, that's it. I mean, remain in the power of the Holy Spirit. But now, listen: "If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love".
There is, everybody, in the Christian spiritual life, a play between the unconditional love of God and the conditional love of God. I know it's a bit unfashionable to say that, but it's just true. Are we loved unconditionally? Yes, we've been loved into being. God makes us "ex nihilo". God makes us. We're not earning that in any way. So of course, God's love is unconditional. It's not you love me; I've loved you first. But if you want to remain in my love, then you have to keep my commandments. That's conditional. Now, it's not God playing hard to get or God being difficult or overbearing. No, no, not that at all. I've given you the Holy Spirit.
Now, you want to remain in the Holy Spirit, what do you have to do? You have to turn your life into a gift. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you," says the Lord, and then the Lord says, "I have loved you, then you must love one another". To remain, see, to remain in the Holy Spirit. We have to give the Holy Spirit away as a gift. If you get that, everybody, you got the whole spiritual life. You got the Law and the prophets, you got everything every spiritual teacher's trying to teach you. Receive the Holy Spirit and then give it away in love.
Now, "I have told you this," the Lord goes on, "so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete". Oh, if I could, this is based on almost forty years of preaching, if I could get out of people's minds and hearts this view that God is just this kind of tyrannical figure who's putting us to the test all the time, who's just unhappy with us and is making impossible demands upon us. We have to extricate that from our minds and hearts. What does God want? Again, listen: "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you". They asked Thomas Aquinas what God does all day. His answer was he enjoys himself. That's the perfect answer, because God savors his own goodness.
So what does God want? To share that with us. Who's the Holy Spirit? The love that God is. And so the Holy Spirit, the flag of the Holy Spirit, it's been said, just as you know, when the monarch of England is in Buckingham Palace, his flag flies over the palace, so the flag of the Holy Spirit is joy. Spare me from joyless Christians. Spare me joyless Christians. They could be right as rain about the moral life, and they might have the correct doctrine, but if they're joyless, they're not living in the Holy Spirit. Period. Period. End of argument. That's why it's such a tiresome, anti-evangelical perspective when Christians, even if they're right about doctrine and morals, but they're radiating unhappiness.
They don't have the Holy Spirit in them. That's why he's come, Jesus said, that you might have life and have it to the full, and here that my joy may be in you. That's the flag of the Holy Spirit. And then finally, listen: "You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves... but I call you friends". I've suggested, too, this is another text that in some way expresses the totality of Christian revelation. I mean, every religion will talk about becoming the servant of God or obeying God and following his commands. Sure, and all that's fine and true. But then there's this, everybody, there's this weird claim, is that "I no longer call you just servants. I call you friends".
If you said to Aristotle you can be God's friend, he'd say it's crazy. You can't be the friend of someone who's infinitely superior to you. No, but by giving us the Holy Spirit, by sharing his inner life with us, God makes us worthy of real friendship with him. Now, what do friends do? Well, they love each other and they follow each other and obey each other and listen to each other. If you're God's friend, you're not going to live this sort of wild, irresponsible, immoral life. No, on the contrary, you're going to live in accord with God's will. So, everybody, spend a little time with all three of these readings, because they're all getting us ready for Pentecost. They're getting us ready for the coming of the Spirit, who sometimes comes in these extraordinary ways, typically expresses himself in our capacity for love, which gives us joy, joy, joy, and invites us into friendship with God. May God bless you.