Life in the Spirit

VATICAN - AVE MARIA by Mgr Luciano Alimandi -

Life in the Spirit

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Easter Season which culminates with the Solemnity of Pentecost, is a privileged time for deepening our communion with the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity who, as we profess in the Creed, is "Lord and giver of Life"! Divine Love is the "giver of life" and without Him it would be absurd for us Christians to speak of life in the spirit. Only with the Spirit of God can our life rise heavenwards and become life "for God" and "in God". With the gift of the Spirit we are no longer alone, in a desert, we walk in the company of God.
The Lord gives his Holy Spirit to those who keep his commandments. Therefore to experience the fruit of the Holy Spirit, " love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Gal 5, 22), we must live in keeping with the Gospel, in keeping with Christ's teaching: " 'If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mk 8, 34). Therefore the first condition for authentic discipleship is "renouncing self".

As Saint Paul advises his Letter to the Galatians: "be guided by the Spirit, and you will no longer yield to self-indulgence. The desires of self-indulgence are always in opposition to the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are in opposition to self-indulgence" (Gal 5, 16-17). The Holy Father recalls: " Without love for Jesus, which is expressed in the observance of his commandments, the person is excluded from the Trinitarian movement and begins to withdraw into himself, losing the ability to receive and to communicate God. " (Benedict XVI, homily 27 April 2008).

We can only speak of spiritual life when we decide to obey the Will of Jesus in a continual "battle against the flesh", that is our selfishness. Sadly one of the most frequent mistakes in the spiritual life is to compromise with sin, deceiving ourselves that Divine mercy "covers", "excuses" our compromising; but, if we sadden the Spirit, we sadden Divine Mercy too, since we refuse to let it heal us from spiritual infirmity.

"The Holy Spirit, who is God with the Father and the Son, renews us in Baptism, and from our state of imperfection restores us to our original beauty, filling us with His grace, so that we can no longer live unbecomingly. He frees us from sin and death, and he makes us, earthly beings of dust and earth, spiritual beings, enabling us to share in the divine glory of being children and heirs of God the Father, to render us similar to the image of His Son, his brothers and co-heirs, destined one day to be glorified and to reign with Him" (From «De Trinitate» Didymus of Alexandria).

The Church has always taught in the light of revealed truth that the Holy Spirit guides the hearts of the faithful along a progressive path of purification, indissolubly connected with repentance for sins, to life reconciled with God. Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, entrusted to the Apostles and their successors the Sacrament of Reconciliation, through which, not only are sins forgiven, but sanctifying grace is "increased", and this helps the soul free itself increasingly from attachment to sin.

How many miracles of inner healing come about in the discretion of the confessional, in those who come to confess their sins with sincere repentance! With regard to these "hidden miracles", in the Diary of Saint Faustina Kowalska there is a densely significant passage where the humble Polish nun tells of her conversation with the Lord:

"Tell souls they must search for consolation … at the court of mercy (in Confession): it is there that the greatest miracles occur… to obtain these miracles there is no need to make pilgrimages to far away lands, or perform solemn outward rites, you need only kneel at the side of one of my representatives and confess to him your wretchedness: and the most beautiful miracle of divine mercy will happen itself in all its fullness. Even if a soul were in decomposition like a cadaver and humanly speaking there were no chance of resurrection and all were lost, for God this would not be so: a miracle of divine mercy will give new life to that soul in all its fullness. Unhappy are those who fail to take advantage of this miracle of divine mercy! You will invoke Him in vain when it is too late!". (Diary, page 476)

The agent in every sacramental confession is the Holy Spirit, effused for the forgiveness of sins! If we wish to live more closely united with Him, we must decide, as the Church recommends, to go frequently to confession in order to "dig out" from our heart any sort of compromise with sin and so experience ever more intensely that "Now this Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."!

(2 Cor 3, 17) (Agenzia Fides 30/4/2008; righe 56, parole 817)