Though I do not know exactly where I first heard it, one of the more helpful, simple lessons on prayer that I have heard goes like this: “When we pray, God always answers.  Sometimes He answers, ‘yes’, other times He answers, ‘no’, and still other times He answers, ‘not yet.”

In my homily two Sundays ago, I reflected on a four-letter word that most of us hate hearing (no, it is not one of THOSE four-letter words) – that word is “wait.”  We do not like to wait for things, including when it comes to prayer.  We often expect our experience with prayer to be like putting a request into ChatGPT, receiving an immediate response.  But there are so many times when we have prayed for something and not received any response, or any indication of a response.  In a sense, God is inviting us to wait for His response, and we do not particularly like that.  But the Lord knows what He is doing, He has a reason for His seeming silence and perceived delay.  This is what Pope Benedict reflects on in next paragraph of Spe salvi, and he does so by referencing some time-honored wisdom from St. Augustine:

Saint Augustine, in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. “By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]” (SS 33)

The Holy Father then offers the following beautiful image from the same saint about this process of enlarging our hearts to prepare for what the Lord desires to give to us:

Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of God’s tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?” The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined (St. Augustine, Cf. In 1 Ioannis 4, 6: PL 35, 2008f)

The pope reflects on how this waiting that the Lord allows to experience has a way of purifying our desires as well, also helping us to see beyond just ourselves and our wants, but expands to include others as well.  He writes:

When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God—what is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment—that meagre, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. (SS 33)

Perhaps as you read this column, you are struggling with the “not yet” answer the Lord has given to your prayer.  I am hopeful that these important lessons from the school of prayer give you hope to continue to trust in the Lord’s goodness, and His desire to give “good things to those who ask Him.” (Mt 7:11)

If you have been following the thread of the articles I’ve been writing, you may have noticed that last week’s article was the tenth and final article in the series on the Pentecost Sequence. Though I have been intently considering topics for a new series of articles, I have come to no definite conclusion as to what exactly to write about. 

The theme of the work of the Holy Spirit is still, however, hovering in my mind, as I look out at the natural beauty of these hot and humid late summer days. The Spirit helps us to listen to the Word of life and beauty God spoke into creation. The natural world truly proclaims God’s glory and is a place of contemplation in which we see clearly His desire that all things would have life and have it abundantly – that all things would grow to their full potential. 

We see great trees with gnarled roots that seem to want to last forever, small weeds that grow out of parking lots and cracks that I would never have believed could hold a living thing for long. Even the small tree or animal cut down and killed by man or nature becomes a happy home for a multitude of organisms that keep on living and consuming and bringing order to this changing world. Only a great and beautiful mind could have been the source of this relentless life. 

I conclude with a poem – one that may remind you of springtime (and hopefully cooler days!) – a poem that touches upon the scriptural and very Augustinian theme of nature praising its maker by simply existing as he wishes:

Upon the dappled walls of stackéd stone
a vine grows up and sprouts its verdant bud
A leaf springs forth and looks to meet the sun
that breaks aloft with yellow on the clouds
The stone reflects what light the vine lets through
as leaves of green and shadow rustle round
The moist spring breeze of blue-green-yellow runs
past leaves a-glinting in the post-rain light
This earthen majesty about me sighs
and clearly speaks of Him who made the sun,
the leaves, the wall, the stone, the vine, and bud
and sets them light with life upon the spring
O Spring of Life, O Beauty’s Source, you hear
the golden love flown from my heart of flesh,
that sees all things and knows their maker plain
Full life, my God, Sweet Love in whom I trust

As mentioned in the previous article, the final section of Pope Benedict’s Encyclical on Christian Hope, Spe salvi, is dedicated the various settings “in which we can learn in practice about hope and its exercise.” (SS 31) These next sixteen paragraphs will offer some practical suggestions for deepening our experience of this great virtue of hope.

The first setting in which to learn about hope is prayer.   In this first paragraph, which is very short, the Holy Father begins with a beautiful reflection on the consoling presence of God in prayer as an anchor of hope:

When no one listens to me any more, God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone or call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, he can help me. When I have been plunged into complete solitude …; if I pray I am never totally alone. (SS 32)

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness to be an epidemic.  He warned that about half of the adults in the country were experiencing some form of loneliness, intensified no doubt by the recent pandemic.  This problem affects both young and old alike.  I am sure that anybody reading this can think of somebody they know in their lives who has struggled or is currently struggling with loneliness.

While the problem of loneliness is a complex one and there is no single solution, it is important for us as Christians to see prayer as an essential avenue in combatting loneliness.  When we turn to prayer in faith, we do not just hope that God hears us, using hope in that more generic, everyday sense.  Our hope, supported by faith, is rooted in the conviction that He is true, He is present, He is listening to us, and that He loves us.

The pope calls prayer a “school of hope”, and I like that image.  It is a school that we are enrolled in throughout our entire lives.  We should always be learning more about prayer.  If our prayer looks like it did when we were in grade school, focusing only on reciting memorized prayers, then we are missing out on so much that prayer offers to us.  Prayer is something very intimate and very personal.  Some helpful descriptions on prayer that I often use in defining prayer are:

For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. (St. Teresa of Avila)

Prayer is “a very personal inner conversation between yourself and God” (St. Josemaria Escriva)

Prayer is a personal response to God’s loving presence. (Armand M. Nigro, S.J.)

When we see prayer in this way, as personal, intimate, and relational, we can open ourselves to the Lord about anything, including the loneliness that we feel.  We can share with Him our hopes and desires, our sadness and frustrations.  We can share anything and everything, and in doing so, we receive from Him the gift of His loving presence as a reminder of what we heard Him tell His Apostles before ascending to Heaven: “Behold, I am with you always.” (Mt 28:20)  

Da virtutis meritum, Grant the reward of virtue,
da salutis exitum, grant the deliverance of salvation,
da perenne gaudium. grant eternal joy.
Amen. Alleluia. Amen. Alleluia.

At the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). These “things” Jesus has spoken of are the unity of Christians in the one body of Christ, the command to love one another, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of an eternal home in the Father’s house. These things bring us joy, almost automatically! And they are, in a very real way, a gift and consequence of the action of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit comes to us, he brings with him the virtues of faith, hope, and charity to dwell in the soul and give it life. He infuses all of our other human virtues with supernatural life and power – virtues like our Justice, Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, among others. He makes us into children of God our heavenly Father, and heirs to the eternal kingdom of heaven. He binds us to Jesus as members – limbs – of his mystical body. He draws our souls in a generally invisible way into the love-life of the Holy Trinity, so that the Father loves us with the love he has for the Son. 

In other words, the Holy Spirit makes deliverance, salvation, and eternal joy possible for us. He not only makes it possible, but he makes it so much more beautiful, deep, and incredible than any eternity of simply “human life” could be. He grants us the gift of an eternal “divine life.” That is the gift of God. He wants us to share in HIS glory and HIS love for all eternity. Eternal divine life is inexhaustible, ever deepening, and forever joyful.

In the here and now, however, it doesn’t always feel so good. We don’t get a clear view of that eternal joy here on earth. So often, in this “valley of tears,” we suffer in pain, darkness, and fog, even when the Spirit is with us, filling our souls with his life. He acts in a generally unseen and unfelt way, yet gives us the guarantee of faith, hope, and charity through it all. In fact, the best measure for his work here and now in this life is not good feelings and a sense of power coursing through us. The best measure of his presence and work in us is our continual growth in actual charity lived out in faithful loving actions toward God and our human brothers and sisters. 

Therefore, in this time before eternity, we pray constantly. We pray for the Holy Spirit to come and fill us. We pray for his fire to light our way and melt our hard hearts. We pray for the refreshing dew of his presence to cool the earthly fire of our passions. We pray for his light to fill our intellects and wills so that we see clearly what is good, true, and holy, and do it. We pray for his presence, his comfort, his rest, his love, and the peace that only he can give. 

The Father and the Son are pleased to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us in abundance (see Luke 11:13). They want us to be on fire and in love. May we all be filled with that heavenly fire and so set the world on fire. Jesus wants that! Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love!

The next two paragraphs in Spe Salvi serve as a brief summary of what Pope Benedict has written up to this point.  The final section of the document will look at some specific “settings” for learning and practicing hope.  We will make that transition next week, but there are a few points from this summary that I think are good for our review and reflection.

The Holy Father returns to the important theme of our daily experience of hope, especially as we understand it from our perspective while we are still here on our pilgrim journey.  He writes:

Day by day, man experiences many greater or lesser hopes, different in kind according to the different periods of his life. Sometimes one of these hopes may appear to be totally satisfying without any need for other hopes. Young people can have the hope of a great and fully satisfying love; the hope of a certain position in their profession, or of some success that will prove decisive for the rest of their lives. When these hopes are fulfilled, however, it becomes clear that they were not, in reality, the whole. It becomes evident that man has need of a hope that goes further. It becomes clear that only something infinite will suffice for him, something that will always be more than he can ever attain. (SS, 30)

That something infinite is of course someone, as he writes in the next paragraph: “This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain.” (SS, 31) The pope then concludes this section with the following words that I find especially encouraging to us as we sometimes experience the drudgery of facing life’s seemingly endless challenges:

His love alone gives us the possibility of soberly persevering day by day, without ceasing to be spurred on by hope, in a world which by its very nature is imperfect. His love is at the same time our guarantee of the existence of what we only vaguely sense and which nevertheless, in our deepest self, we await: a life that is “truly” life. (ibid.)

That idea of “sober perseverance” is one that resonates well, for it reminds us to not get too excited when we experience those daily, lesser hopes, nor should we be too overwhelmed when those hopes get dashed.  We do well to direct our gaze to God, whose love is being poured out upon us, and to be reminded of His great desire to sustain us throughout our journey.  It is comforting to know that God offers us, through His grace, a share in His life which enables us to have the strength to keep moving forward with His help.

In Matthew’s Gospel, as Jesus speaks to His disciples about the challenges that humanity will face before His return in glory, He offers us this important promise: “the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.” (Mt 24:13) Therefore, it is helpful for us to pray regularly, even daily, for the grace of sober perseverance.  In addition to the Lord’s Prayer, where we can ask for that grace a part of our “daily bread”, I love the following prayer from St. Teresa of Avila:

Let nothing disturb you, 
Let nothing frighten you, 
All things are passing away: 
God never changes. 
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing; 
God alone suffices.

Da tuis fidelibus, Give to your faithful,
in te confidentibus, those who trust in you,
sacrum septenarium. the sevenfold gifts.

When the Bishop celebrates the sacrament of Confirmation, he prays a prayer that includes asking God to pour out his seven gifts upon the candidates: Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord. This prayer, coupled with the gesture of the laying on of hands, is a significant and key part of the sacrament of Confirmation which can be somewhat easy to miss.

And, truthfully, if you do not remember your Confirmation, or only slightly remember the Bishop saying those words over you, you might wonder how effective it was. I know after my own confirmation, I certainly didn’t feel more wise, understanding, knowledgeable, etc. No, what I have learned over the years is that if I want to grow in these seven gifts I need to grow in a desire for them presently, here and now. The sacrament worked, but my reception of it is ongoing and grows over time. I have found great consolation in continuing to pray for these gifts, and I highly encourage everyone to do so – to renew, nourish, and strengthen the graces given in Confirmation.

I want to share with you a way that I love to pray for these gifts. It involves using a standard rosary. I’ll set it out in a series of steps:

1. I first think of some people I want to pray for, always including myself.
2. Then I begin with the traditional prayer, “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your Faithful and kindle in them the fire of your Love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the Earth. O God, who instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us by that same Spirit to be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.” 
3. Then, I skip the short introductory beads and move straight to the decade beads.
   1. On each of the first ten beads: “Come Holy Spirit, fill us with the fire of your Love.” 
   2. On the next ten beads, “Come Holy Spirit, fill us with the fire of your Wisdom.” 
   3. The next decades:
      1. “Come Holy Spirit, fill us with the fire of your Understanding,” 
      2. “Come Holy Spirit, … Knowledge,” 
      3. “Come Holy Spirit, … Counsel,” 
      4. “Come Holy Spirit, … Piety,” 
      5. “Come Holy Spirit, … Fortitude,” 
      6. “Come Holy Spirit, … Fear of the Lord.” 
   4. This takes you around the rosary about one and a half times. 
4. On each of the regular Our Father beads, I say a single Hail Mary, though it’s entirely up to you to choose what to do on that bead. 
5. At the end, I usually say another Hail Mary and then the traditional “Come Holy Spirit” prayer again, then finish with a Glory Be. 

This is the sort of prayer you can modify and make your own as you pray it. I find that it is a great way to memorize the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and to grow in a devotion to the person of the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love!

In last week’s column, I noted how Pope Benedict used the example of St. Augustine and his call to put aside his desire to seek salvation in a private, contemplative way of life, embracing a life of service to others in imitation of Christ who died for all, thus providing the model for Christians to live no longer just for themselves, but for the good of others.

In the next paragraph of Spe salvi, the Holy Father gives a description from St. Augustine’s own writing as to what this “life for others” looked like for him.  I think it is worth sharing those words, not so much because they necessarily pertain exactly to each of us in our state in life, but because they present an awareness of what living according to the Gospel demands for anybody who is serious about being a Christian.  St. Augustine writes of his daily life:

The turbulent have to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel’s opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved. (St. Augustine, Sermo 340, 3: PL 38, 1484; cf. F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop, London and New York 1961, p.268.)

After that intimidating list of duties, the pope then quotes another line from another sermon from St. Augustine as he reflects on these demands of the Gospel, and he concludes: “The Gospel terrifies me.” (Sermo 339, 4: PL 38, 1481.)

That line struck me as I read it, and it is easy to see how, after reading the list of duties he needs to be attentive to, St. Augustine would come to this conclusion.  But before we dismiss that conclusion as something applying just to his circumstances as a leader in the Church, I think we need to see how we must all come to that same conclusion.  Though many of the duties he lists among his daily concerns may not apply to us directly in our state of life, that final one applies to all Christians, that “all must be loved.”

Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel about the necessity to love our neighbor as we love ourselves also includes loving our enemies, praying for those who persecute us, and blessing those who curse us.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about the judgment and how our judgment will take into account the following warning: “what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” (Mt 25:45)

So if we do not feel somewhat terrified by the Gospel, then it might be worth asking whether it is full Gospel we are following, or just those parts with which we agree and with which we are comfortable.  But the type of fear of which St. Augustine writes, and which we often feel regarding the demands of the Gospel are not meant to discourage us.  Rather, as Pope Benedict writes, the challenge of the Gospel message produces “that healthy fear which prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to pass on the hope we hold in common.” (Spe salvi, 29) Having been loved so generously by God, we desire to likewise imitate His generosity of loving all those who, in His Providence, He has allowed to be a part of our lives, thus being witnesses and instruments of hope in a world so desperately in need of it.

At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and all those gathered with them in the upper room, He came down as tongues of fire. From this point on, spiritual fire has been one of the most recognized signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit. We hear phrases like, “The fire of love,” or “my heart was burning,” and “set the world aflame,” and these words lead us to think of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the eighth stanza of the Pentecost sequence sings of the Holy Spirit as heavenly fire:

Flecte quod est rigidum, Bend that which is inflexible,
fove quod est frigidum, fire that which is chilled,
rege quod est devium. correct what goes astray.

The first line of the stanza reminds me of the line in the Psalm, “Bend my heart according to your will” (Ps 119:36). The Lord wants to give us natural hearts that are not brittle but can be moved and “bent” according to His will (see Ezekiel 36:26). Just as fire can cause a cold, hard iron bar to be highly malleable and shaped according to the mind of an artist, so too the fire of the Holy Spirit can teach us to desire what God desires and be “flexible” to do the will of God.

One of God’s greatest desires and commands is that we would “love one another” (John 13:34). When we are filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, we are filled with love for our neighbor – i.e. the desire we have for their good – eternal and present – is increased without limit. St. Paul, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, writes of his love for the Corinthian people by saying that his heart is opened wide for them (2 Corinthians 6:11). In a commentary on this passage, St. John Chrysostom explains,

“Our heart is enlarged. For as heat makes things expand, so it is the work of love to expand the heart, for its power is to heat and make fervent. It is this that opened Paul’s lips and enlarged his heart. … he loved all the faithful with as intimate a love as any lover could have for a loved one, his love not being divided and lessened but remaining whole and entire for each of them.”

The heat of love – the fire of the Holy Spirit – expands our hard hearts enough to love all those around us. This fire comes to us when we invite the Holy Spirit in, and when we invite Jesus in, because he brings with him the Holy Spirit. And, amazingly, when we receive Holy Communion, believing that Jesus truly comes into our hearts, we believe that the Holy Spirit in his entirety comes as well. In this regard, Pope St. John Paul II quotes St. Ephrem as saying, “He called the bread [the Eucharist] his living body and he filled it with himself and his Spirit… He who eats it with faith, eats Fire and Spirit.”

This Holy Fire, the person of the Holy Spirit, works in us continually to bring about a great work of conversion in our souls and lives. The last line of the stanza reminds me of Psalm 139:24 – “See that there be not an evil way in me, and lead me in the path of life eternal.” I find it very consoling to know that I can trust in the work of the Spirit to guide and correct me as I move along in life. He is our best and truest spiritual director. His fire lights our way (see Ps 119:105) when we go astray.

A heart on fire is a heart longing without ceasing for the Heavenly rest. It is a heart that yearns with an ever-increasing longing for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, fill me with this desire! Let it burn in me hotter than any furnace; brighter than the sun. All the water of the oceans and more could not suppress the strength of this love. Let this burning flame light my way and guide me to my Father’s house, as I walk in the dark valleys of this world. Let my expanded heart burn for you, for the good of my neighbor, and make me all aflame. Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love!

As you may be aware, Father Daniel and I have been offering monthly presentations on the documents of the Second Vatican Council during this Jubilee Year of Hope.  When we presented on the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, I shared that one of the key concepts not just in that document, but indeed throughout the Council, was communion.  Communion is basically the sharing of goods with another.  In the case of our Catholic faith, it is sharing the good of divine life with God, and sharing in the life of charity with one another.  In other words, there are two dimensions of communion – vertical with God, and horizontal with others.  Both are essential to living an authentically Christian life.

This is the basic premise behind the next paragraph in Spe salvi where Pope Benedict returns to the question of whether our understanding of Christian hope leans toward an individualistic understanding of salvation, or “hope for myself alone.” (Spe salvi, 28) He answers that question in the negative, as he reminds us of a necessary truth about our relationship with God:

Our relationship with God is established through communion with Jesus—we cannot achieve it alone or from our own resources alone. The relationship with Jesus, however, is a relationship with the one who gave himself as a ransom for all (cf. 1 Tim 2:6). Being in communion with Jesus Christ draws us into his “being for all”; it makes it our own way of being. (ibid.)

But the Holy Father is quick to anticipate a possible misunderstanding of our call to live for others, as though service, or love of neighbor, take precedence over worship and love for God.  The pope writes: “He commits us to live for others, but only through communion with him does it become possible truly to be there for others, for the whole.” (ibid.) To use the language of the two dimensions of communion, the vertical communion with God comes first before true horizontal communion with others.  An image that I find helpful to demonstrate this is that of a cross.  There are two beams, one that is vertical, and one that is horizontal.  Without the vertical being in place, the horizontal is left by itself on the ground.  But through union with the vertical, it is raised up to its proper place.  Service to others is possible without others, no doubt, and there are many such examples in our world of that.  But by loving God, our love for others is elevated and infused with the love of God working in us and through us.  Living both dimensions allows us to live the cruciform life of which St. Paul writes – that is a life shaped by the Cross of Christ which all Christians should strive to live.

At the end of this paragraph, Pope Benedict uses the example of St. Augustine As he became a Christian, he was drawn by the idea of living a contemplative life dedicated to prayer and study, “choosing in this way the ‘better part’ (cf. Lk 10:42)” (ibid.) That phrase should sound very familiar as we heard it in this last Sunday’s Gospel about Martha and Mary.  Though Mary, and thus contemplation and love of God may be the “better part”, Martha’s service to Jesus, and by extension our service to others, is also necessary.  It is not an either/or, but a both/and.  St. Augustine was “forced” into becoming a priest, and later a bishop, and though he may have been attracted to flee to the wilderness to simply be with God, he was consoled by the words of St. Paul: “Christ died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died.” (cf.2 Cor5:15) 

May we too see that living for the Lord, and living in the hope of the reward of sharing in His life more fully in Heaven, means to allow ourselves “to be drawn into his being for others.” (SS, 28)

Cleanse me, O Holy Spirit!

            Fire, water, wind, a dove, light, etc. Throughout the Scriptures, The Holy Spirit is described in a variety of ways, using a variety of images. Some of the most prevalent and memorable are those I just listed. In this stanza and the next, we beg the Holy Spirit to help us in ways that correspond to two of these images – water and fire. This week, we ask him to cleanse, water, and heal – three properties of the spiritual water which is the Holy Spirit. Next week, we ask him to bend, fire, and correct – three properties of the spiritual fire or light which is the Holy Spirit.

            This week’s antiphon:

            In the Gospel of John, Jesus refers in two places to a “living” or “spiritual” water. When he is speaking with the Samaritan Woman by the well, he says, “…but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Then, while he is in Jerusalem for the feast of Booths, he teaches, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” John then explains, “Now this he said about the Spirit…” (John 7:37-39). Jesus was preparing his followers to receive a gift from him – the Holy Spirit – a gift that would cleanse them, quench their thirst, and heal them, granting them eternal life.

            This water comes to us through faith in Christ, and sacramentally through the saving waters of Baptism, which are an effective sign of our spiritual cleansing by the Spirit’s power. Sin – both the Original Sin and our personal sin – is that terrible thing in our lives which causes us to be unclean, dried up, and wounded. As Catholics, we believe in the further beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation, through which we are sacramentally cleansed of any sins, particularly the grave sins, committed after Baptism. The prayer of Absolution retains this theme of water as we hear the priest solemnly pray, “God the Father of mercies, through the Death and Resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins…” (added emphasis). 

            The Lord renews our souls through these sacraments by cleansing us, watering our souls so that the Word of God can grow there in a healthy way, and healing us.

            I think, however, that as Catholics, we easily fall into the trap of thinking that the only time I need to ask God to cleanse me, heal me, water me, or forgive me is when I decide to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. While that sacrament may be necessary (as in the earlier-mentioned case of any mortal sins), and even highly encouraged (regular reception of this sacrament, even for only venial sins, is very good for us), we can also always very fruitfully ask for the Lord’s forgiveness and the cleansing and healing presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

            Spiritually speaking, possibly the cleanest I have ever felt was during one of my retreats in seminary. My director was speaking with me about praying with the scene of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, and my director asked me, “Have you allowed Jesus to wash your feet?” I went and spent another hour praying with that passage, and in my imagination in prayer and in reality, Jesus did wash my feet. I had distinct interior impressions of him holding my feet and washing them, patiently taking splinters from them, and bringing healing. The splinters weren’t wood though, they were small sins, the effects of my sins, and the wounds caused by them. This experience of prayer brought me freedom and peace. I believe the Holy Spirit was directly involved in facilitating this prayer, and I include it here as an example of further spiritual healing after and outside of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

            Any time we ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us, we can invite him into specific wounds and areas of sin in our hearts and minds and memories. He wants to come, to enter where we allow him, and bring us new life, freedom, and peace so that we can better praise him, glorify him, and serve him. Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love!