listen to the Spirit

A breath of love is generative. The breath of love that comes from God is within the very nature of God. This divine self-communication takes place in the Holy Spirit, takes us and our history also into a bond of love. history. The goodness of God is manifested in creation. The entire creation drinks from that goodness. God opens himself to us in the Holy Spirit, so that we may participate in the depth of God’s love and goodness.

Humanity is in need of the breath of love. It is yet to open itself to live in the breath of love. It is yet to desire for the goodness of God to be reflected in its life. What we need the most is an earnest desire for it. We can no longer be agents of division, hatred, war, and destruction. By God’s own help let us bring into our sight both the dry lifeless condition and the living and fruitful condition; thirsty ones, drinking from the fountain of life, turns to be a heart of overflowing streams. Being in a gentle flow of stream is refreshing. That breath of love and the stream of life is the Holy Spirit.

“Let anyone who is thirsty, come to me…”

“Let anyone who believes in me come and drink.”

“From his heart, shall flow streams of living water.”

“My spirit fails. My soul thirsts for You like a parched land” (Ps 143: 6) expresses the deep longing for life. We can see today, the complexities of life, and the struggles that we carry. Some are condemned and some are despised. No human condition is incapable or unworthy to yearn for God. In fact, already there is the cry of the Holy Spirit deep within that we may be filled by the life of God. Drinking from the wellspring of life we begin to live afresh.

Life produces its fruits, and there is a joy of the harvest. The fruit that the Holy Spirt produces in us as persons and as the church is conforming us into Christ. All other fruits and charisms are to be known within our conformity with Christ. It is a celebration of re-creation and of a harvest as the feast of Pentecost itself was the feast of the first fruits. No one receives the Holy Spirit as a personal possession, we have received the Spirit as we are one body in a family, community, a parish or the church. Perhaps, it is a time that we once again come together as small groups experiencing the vibrance of the Holy Spirit, as a body that knows the members. Something that is essential here, first of all, is the realisation of the need for the Holy Spirit and the readiness to be guided by the Spirit. Secondly, it is something of great importance is the joy of mutual building through the charisms each of has received.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are generated in us out of sincere following of the values of the kingdom of God, and seeking its justice. Indwelling of the Holy Spirit wells up from us and from the church as fruits of the Gospel which we received, sprouted and grew. A person or a church that does not seek the kingdom of God is hypocritical in calling out for the Holy Spirit and claiming to have the whole possession of the Holy Spirit. So, we cannot take the Holy Spirit for granted. If we do not have the readiness to listen to the Holy Spirit, if we are not ready to listen to the voice of one another, no prayer to the Holy Spirit, no worship in the name of the Holy Spirit will dispose ourselves to the working of the Spirit. Dramatic performances and mesmerising events cannot bring down the Holy Spirit. Our favourite imaginations like consuming fire that burns and destroys hide the gentle Spirit who sanctifies through the spring of new life.

Often, we speak about a second Pentecost and expect the Spirit to come. The Spirit has not gone away. We need to ask ourselves how willing are we to take the Gospel as the first option in our life. It is costly because it risks our devotional easy ways, rigid moralism, ideologized beliefs. When the values of the kingdom become the first option, the Spirit will well up within us and will manifest the nature of Christ. So, the manifestation can happen only through a sincere gift of our very ‘self’ to God. Through the action of the Spirit-Paraclete, a process of true growth in humanity may be accomplished in our world, in both individual and community life.

The Spirit never manifests in isolation. Instead, the Spirit makes God visible in the Church when we are open to the Spirit. What if we take the existence of the Church for granted? The church lives as the body of Christ, mutually building, healing, and nourishing one another. When each church and denomination claim originality, distance one another, when different renewal movement hold an elite holy attitude and condemn others, when we upheld order, unity, solutions at the risk of unity itself, when we divinise power and authority and forget love and service, we take for granted that there exists a church. But that is a church that resists against the Holy Spirit.

Noone has the monopoly over the Holy Spirit; no branded evangelists, no great preacher, no gospel channel has the custody of the Holy Spirit. All of us are continuously called to give ourselves to God with our whole being. This is our deepest vocation. We can do it only by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit enlightens our minds, and helps us to do His will. Ultimately the Spirit brings us into the mystery that gathered as one body in Christ we are all the children of God. We live it consistently experiencing the breath of love and causing the streams to flow out as fruits of the goodness of God.

This is something important for us today as humans to live in the reality of the kingdom of God. It is also important for us today to live in the Holy Spirit, a life of goodness, communion and love, that millions of years later when no humans may be there to celebrate Pentecost, the creation may still share the first fruits for its children, of course, God’s own children.

A breath of love is generative. The breath of love that comes from God is within the very nature of God. This divine self-communication takes place in the Holy Spirit, takes us and our history also into a bond of love. history. The goodness of God is manifested in creation. The entire creation drinks from that goodness. God opens himself to us in the Holy Spirit, so that we may participate in the depth of God’s love and goodness.

Humanity is in need of the breath of love. It is yet to open itself to live in the breath of love. It is yet to desire for the goodness of God to be reflected in its life. What we need the most is an earnest desire for it. We can no longer be agents of division, hatred, war, and destruction. By God’s own help let us bring into our sight both the dry lifeless condition and the living and fruitful condition; thirsty ones, drinking from the fountain of life, turns to be a heart of overflowing streams. Being in a gentle flow of stream is refreshing. That breath of love and the stream of life is the Holy Spirit.

“Let anyone who is thirsty, come to me…”

“Let anyone who believes in me come and drink.”

“From his heart, shall flow streams of living water.”

“My spirit fails. My soul thirsts for You like a parched land” (Ps 143: 6) expresses the deep longing for life. We can see today, the complexities of life, and the struggles that we carry. Some are condemned and some are despised. No human condition is incapable or unworthy to yearn for God. In fact, already there is the cry of the Holy Spirit deep within that we may be filled by the life of God. Drinking from the wellspring of life we begin to live afresh.

Life produces its fruits, and there is a joy of the harvest. The fruit that the Holy Spirt produces in us as persons and as the church is conforming us into Christ. All other fruits and charisms are to be known within our conformity with Christ. It is a celebration of re-creation and of a harvest as the feast of Pentecost itself was the feast of the first fruits. No one receives the Holy Spirit as a personal possession, we have received the Spirit as we are one body in a family, community, a parish or the church. Perhaps, it is a time that we once again come together as small groups experiencing the vibrance of the Holy Spirit, as a body that knows the members. Something that is essential here, first of all, is the realisation of the need for the Holy Spirit and the readiness to be guided by the Spirit. Secondly, it is something of great importance is the joy of mutual building through the charisms each of has received.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are generated in us out of sincere following of the values of the kingdom of God, and seeking its justice. Holy Spirit cannot be generated in a powerful 'Praise and Worship.' Indwelling of the Holy Spirit wells up from us and from the church as fruits of the Gospel which we received, sprouted and grew. A person or a church that does not seek the kingdom of God is hypocritical in calling out for the Holy Spirit and claiming to have the whole possession of the Holy Spirit. So, we cannot take the Holy Spirit for granted. If we do not have the readiness to listen to the Holy Spirit, if we are not ready to listen to the voice of one another, no prayer to the Holy Spirit, no worship in the name of the Holy Spirit will dispose ourselves to the working of the Spirit. Dramatic performances and mesmerising events cannot bring down the Holy Spirit. Our favourite imaginations like consuming fire that burns and destroys hide the gentle Spirit who sanctifies through the spring of new life. Holy Spirit cannot be generated in a powerful 'Praise and Worship.'

Often, we speak about a second Pentecost and expect the Spirit to come. The Spirit has not gone away. We need to ask ourselves how willing are we to take the Gospel as the first option in our life. It is costly because it risks our devotional easy ways, rigid moralism, ideologized beliefs. When the values of the kingdom become the first option, the Spirit will well up within us and will manifest the nature of Christ. So, the manifestation can happen only through a sincere gift of our very ‘self’ to God. Through the action of the Spirit-Paraclete, a process of true growth in humanity may be accomplished in our world, in both individual and community life.

The Spirit never manifests in isolation. Instead, the Spirit makes God visible in the Church when we are open to the Spirit. What if we take the existence of the Church for granted? The church lives as the body of Christ, mutually building, healing, and nourishing one another. When each church and denomination claim originality, distance one another, when different renewal movement hold an elite holy attitude and condemn others, when we upheld order, unity, solutions at the risk of unity itself, when we divinise power and authority and forget love and service, we take for granted that there exists a church. But that is a church that resists against the Holy Spirit.

Noone has the monopoly over the Holy Spirit; no branded evangelists, no great preacher, no gospel channel has the custody of the Holy Spirit. All of us are continuously called to give ourselves to God with our whole being. This is our deepest vocation. We can do it only by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit enlightens our minds, and helps us to do His will. Ultimately the Spirit brings us into the mystery that gathered as one body in Christ we are all the children of God. We live it consistently experiencing the breath of love and causing the streams to flow out as fruits of the goodness of God.

This is something important for us today as humans to live in the reality of the kingdom of God. It is also important for us today to live in the Holy Spirit, a life of goodness, communion and love, that millions of years later when no humans may be there to celebrate Pentecost, the creation may still share the first fruits for its children, of course, God’s own children.

Event creation - Pentecost

The preparations for Pentecost takes over the nature of event management. Our expectations are high. Such exciting doings cannot rightly open ourselves for the receiving of the Holy Spirit. First of all, Pentecost is not the only day Holy Spirit lives in us. It is an everyday reality. Secondly, the Jesus event in our life is not a crazy following, it is a loyal, responsible, mature relationship. It means  well reflected acts welling up from that relationship. 

The presence of the Holy Spirit is not  a magical outcome, but it is the fruition of the Gospel in us. There are many secret pious practices developing in the name of faith and evangelization. Seemingly they are zealous, and have greater faith than 'normal' people. But in fact, they are instrumentalizing and magicalizing devotions and even  the eucharist. We have failed to live in the Holy Spirit by finding comfort in cultic closures of our beliefs. There is no faith, there is no devotion. Genuine faith and devotions will lead us to seek justice, and live the values of the kingdom in our lives. That is the only way we can be open for the Holy Spirit. 

The Helper

Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to us, the Spirit that comes from the father. The Spirit is the true witness to the inner life of the trinity, to the whole history of creation, evolution, sciences, arts and civilizations. Helped by the Spirit, we know the free from all prejudices.

 
As Christ sends the Spirit to us, we are also sent by him, for we have been with him. We know the truth and bear witness. Unless helped by the Spirit we can end up in living for isms, even those of faith, religion, liturgy and so on. They have no root in the Father.

It's Spirit that knows the mind of God. When we have the Spirit we too know the mind of God, and act accordingly by the help of the same Spirit.

Remain in my love

We are on the 6th Sunday of Easter. Have we met the risen Christ? In opening the Scriptures and breaking of the bread, the Church has been leading us to have an intimate experience with Christ present amidst us. He is recognised as Lord and God, walking along with us amidst our doubts and fears, caring, guarding and healing as a good shepherd, holding us all together as branches in a vine. Then, He calls us to the ultimate aim of his incarnation, passion, death and resurrection; the communion with the Father. He says, “abide in me,” “remain in my love.”

That is not so exciting, isn’t it? But it is the truth that Christ opened for us that our joy may be complete, and may bear fruit. We are often excited and enthusiastic in adoring and worshiping a super-spiritual divine being. The communion with him does not excite us much. Not because it is difficult or mysterious, but the communion involves a commitment to love others also.

God of superpowers can be worshiped very safely in a cultic system, and we can go free. Bit worship that Christ seeks happens in communion, and only in communion. All that we do in the name of God and in the name of the Church devoid of this communion only affirms what St John wrote, “God’s love is not in them.”

This abiding in God is a deep mystery, a bond of love. Let us listen to Christ in love! He says, “I am in the Father,” “you abide in me. I abide in you,” thus, we remain in the love of the Father. Jesus called us to follow him, Jesus asked us to love God and love others. It is a communion with God and others. The gospel passage today teaches us what it means and how it is essential for us.

Jesus loved us from the love he received from the Father. “I have loved you as the Father has loved me.” The call to abide in him is to be made real after the example of how Christ abides in the Father, and has loved the Father. “… just as I have kept my Father’s commandments,

and remain in his love, if you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” The life that we have received in Christ makes known the love of the Father whereby we have the joy of Christ himself and that our joy may be complete.

If we are to live in that communion, primarily we need to be filled with a constantly reminded awareness that we are all God’s children, “and that is what we are!” This reality and the primary commandment to love is what compromise at the risk of communion with God. Keeping aside this commandment, we are strict with all commandments that we have made in the name of God. We teach and preach them as God’s commandments. We have reinterpreted the commandment and justified our boundaries and prejudices. There is no communion with the Father. When we create divisions in the name of God, traditions, liturgy, and authority, Father’s love does not remain with us, because we have chosen not to have communion. When we surrender our spirit to immoral and inhuman structures that spread lies and hatred, we don’t remain in Christ and his love. This is very much visible in our lives and in the life of the church, in the very moments we have multitude of activities, increasing devotional practices, shrines, and religious festivities.

Being in communion with God, just as Christ loved God, and being in communion with others as Christ loved us, really means a life of goodness, justice, love, authenticity, and compassion. It also means a readiness to accept all as the children of God, beyond all prejudices. Then our families, our parishes, religious communities will be truly living in Christ and in his love. We will have joy, and we will have fruits that will last.

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