“Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Come, Holy Spirit!
The Year of the Holy Spirit has begun in the Diocese of Saginaw. This extraordinary year invites each of us into a deeper experience of the 3rd person of the Holy Trinity, who has sent us on mission, one heart and mind, “carrying forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served.”1 Without the Holy Spirit, the Church is merely a human institution. With the Holy Spirit, she is the living Body of Christ. In fact, Jesus longs for his “living Body” to catch and spread like wildfire.
Come, Holy Spirit!
The Year of the Holy Spirit has begun in the Diocese of Saginaw. This extraordinary year invites each of us into a deeper experience of the 3rd person of the Holy Trinity, who has sent us on mission, one heart and mind, “carrying forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit. And Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment, to serve and not to be served.”1 Without the Holy Spirit, the Church is merely a human institution. With the Holy Spirit, she is the living Body of Christ. In fact, Jesus longs for his “living Body” to catch and spread like wildfire.
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” 2
What kind of fire is Jesus talking about? Think New Pentecost! “Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” 3
Jesus desires that his disciples be on fire with the Holy Spirit.
Envision Jesus speaking these words to you: “I am fire! I wish to blaze across the earth, setting the whole world on fire with this love that burns in my most Sacred Heart! I don’t want anything or anyone to be lost! I will hand myself over to cross and death, bitter humiliation, loneliness and loss if only this fire will push men and women beyond the limits they have set for themselves, the boundaries by which they protect their own interest. How I desire that they break out of the personal worlds of their own making, and step into the Kingdom revealed by my Father.” 4
Imagine if, in this Year of the Holy Spirit, this became the desire of every person’s heart across the Diocese – to break out of the personal worlds of our own making, and step into the Kingdom revealed by [his] Father. Imagine the transformation that would take place!
Jesus’ statement about bringing fire to the earth symbolizes the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, and the purifying zeal of divine love. He speaks these words as he prepares his disciples for the coming challenges of His mission, emphasizing that his purpose involves profound spiritual change and the bringing forth of God’s kingdom. Jesus’ fire signifies the transformative power he sought to bring into the world through his presence, igniting faith, conviction, and spiritual renewal in the hearts of believers.
How intense is the fire of the Holy Spirit burning in each of us? Does it need to be reignited? This is what this Year of the Holy Spirit is about – asking the Holy Spirit to reignite our hearts with the fire of his love.
“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful. Kindle in us the fire to proclaim the living gospel. Lord, send forth your Spirit so that you may lead your people to salvation through your healing, love, and mercy. Come Holy Spirit, renew the hearts and minds of the people of the Diocese of Saginaw.”
When we allow ourselves to be reignited and set on fire with the love of God, we cannot help but to spread his love to everyone and in every place we meet. When the fire of his Holy Spirit burns within us, we cannot help but to spread his love to the world.
Someone once said, the Holy Spirit is perhaps the most neglected inheritance in human history. “It’s like suffering in poverty, not knowing that our rich relative has died and willed us his vast fortune.”
The Holy Spirit radically changed the early disciples from fearful, scared, lost men and women into courageous witnesses to Christ and enlightened heralds of his word. It was this Spirit who guided them along the difficult and new paths of mission, that same mission given to every baptized person.
Pope St. John Paul II expressed, “Whenever the Spirit intervenes, he leaves people astonished. He brings about events of amazing newness; he radically changes persons in history. He also distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank, makes him fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up the church.”5
In this Year of the Holy Spirit, we want the Spirit to astonish us, to bring about events of amazing newness, to radically change us, don’t we? The Lord Jesus has already given the Spirit to us, but wants to ignite the fire.
This power of God in the Holy Spirit wants to come alive in you and in me. Jesus' redemptive mission was aimed at giving us the Spirit of God, recreating us in the waters of baptism and empowering us, sending us into the mission of the Church. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, “the Spirit of God was poured out in a super-abundant way, like a waterfall able to purify every heart, to extinguish the flames of evil and ignite the fire of divine love in the world.”6
What a gift the Lord wants to give us! The Spirit only waits for us to empty our lives of worldly things and desires, and open our hearts. We have to let go of our grip on worldliness and material security, and take hold of the words of Jesus and nothing else.
Friends, do not be afraid to open your hearts to this fire of divine love! Let us not let the Holy Spirit continue to be the most neglected inheritance in human history, but let’s receive Him who is that vast fortune which always awaits us.
1 Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, #3
2 Luke 12:49
3 Acts 2:3-4
4 Sr. Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, Jesus Is a Fire on This Earth, Article posted on Touching Sunrise Posting
5 Pope John Paul II, Speech with Ecclesial Movements and New Communities, May 30, 1998
6 Pope Benedict XVI, in his Regina Cæli address on the Solemnity of Pentecost (11 May 2008)
Bishop Robert D. Gruss is the seventh bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw.
