The Holy Spirit, Fire of Divine Love

by Wilfrid Stinissen

  But just as the Father is always with and in him, so the Holy Spirit is always in him. The fact that we do not notice in him any of the phenomena that, as a rule, accompany and reveal the coming of the Holy Spirit and his action is a sign that points to his divine Personhood. He does not experience the Holy Spirit as a power coming from outside himself. He is at home with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is his Spirit. “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn 16:14–15).

  He receives the Spirit from the Father. This is shown forth clearly at his baptism. “And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove” (Mk 1:10).

  But the Spirit is not a gift that fills a vacuum. Jesus receives the Spirit just as he receives himself from the Father. He is always the Son, and he is always the Son in the Holy Spirit.

  Our Good Memory

  How does the Holy Spirit lead us into all truth? By shedding light on certain words or actions of Jesus. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). The Spirit is in a certain sense our good memory.

  We know from experience how words that we have heard or read many times can suddenly become illuminated and reveal an unimagined depth. We also know that we could never conceive of such an insight by ourselves. It is the Spirit who “reminds” us. Sometimes he does it directly, without the mediation of other human beings. Sometimes it happens through a person, a book, a letter, or a conversation. Thanks to the reminder of the Holy Spirit, lifeless words come alive. He shows and proves that Jesus has “the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68), words that have the power to give life.

  In his Encyclical Letter on the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World, Dominum et vivificantem (dated May 18, 1986), Pope John Paul II explains that the words “all truth” allude to the total destitution of Jesus.1 That the Spirit guides us by the whole truth means that he gives us an ever deeper insight into Jesus’ suffering and death. It is on the Cross that the whole truth is seen. There Jesus reveals God. There the hidden God is no longer hidden. It is on the Cross that all of God’s glory, the glory of love, is revealed. There love is exposed in all its splendor.

  The Spirit Lays Bare Sin

  We do not understand the Cross if we do not understand sin. If we deny that there is sin, the Cross loses its meaning. That is why it is difficult in our time to speak about the Cross. One no longer knows what sin is.

  The way the Spirit chooses when he wishes to lead us into all truth is through sin. He makes us conscious of our sin. “And when he comes, he will convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (Jn 16:8–11).

  Pope John Paul II gives a fine commentary on this text.2 He shows how these three words: sin, justice, and judgment, which at first glance seem hard and frightening, in reality speak only of God’s love.

  When the Spirit shows us our sin, it is a work of mercy. Jesus’ definition of sin is: not to believe in him. It is something completely different from what we usually mean by “sin”. It is uncommon to hear a person confess that he has not believed, that is, that he has not trusted in Jesus enough. One confesses things that one has done wrong: that one became angry or irritated, that one was dishonest or came late for work. But for the most part, we do not think of the basic sin, which is not trusting in Jesus.

  There is an immense difference between understanding sin as a trespass of commands and understanding it as a lack of trust in Jesus. It is also a question of another atmosphere. If sin consists of breaking rules, the emphasis is cold and juridical. If, on the other hand, we understand sin as a lack of trust, we are already on the way toward love.

  I am always moved when someone comes to confession and confesses that he has not trusted in God enough. He is able to say this only when he realizes that God can be trusted, that God is trustworthy. When he admits his lack of trust, he admits at the same time God’s trustworthiness. For such a person, God is no longer an abstraction. He has begun to be real for him.

  We ought to hear the constantly recurring question “Do you believe in the Son of man?” (Jn 9:35) with different words: “Do you trust in me?” When we go to confession, it should always be to say: “No, I have not dared to trust in you, but from now on I want to do it.”

  The other word is justice. “When he comes, he will prove the world wrong about justice.” Here we should not think of God’s punishing, avenging justice. What is meant is that God makes his Son perfectly just by allowing him to enter into his glory. He does this because the Son has been “righteous”; he always does “what is pleasing” to the Father (Jn 8:29). It is a great thing to be enlightened by the Spirit about what “justice” is: that it does not have to do with self discipline or faithfulness to norms; rather, it is the attitude that makes Jesus say: “I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me” (Jn 8:28).

  The third word is the most frightening: “He will prove the world wrong about judgment.” But this judgment does not strike us; it strikes Satan! “The prince of this world has been condemned”, Jesus explains. He has come, not to judge, but to save. We even find this twice in the Gospel (Jn 3:17, 12:47). It is precisely to save us that he condemns Satan. That the Spirit allows us to understand what judgment is means that we no longer need to be afraid of the powers of evil. Evil is powerless. It is already defeated. Jesus has conquered it once and for all. In the measure we “remain” in him, we share in his victory.

  Pope John Paul II fixes his attention especially on the first of the three words: that the Spirit shows us what sin is. The Spirit does this not to oppress us. He is not the accuser. The great accuser is Satan, he who accuses us before God both day and night (Rev 12:10).

  The Spirit makes us conscious of our sin in order to lead us to the Cross. At the same time that he points out sin, he also points out the forgiveness of sin. He shows us sin in order to save us from it.3

  God’s Suffering

  By illuminating the relationship between sin and the Cross, the Spirit also shows us how terrible sin is; what it has cost God. Without the Holy Spirit, we are incapable of understanding the evil of sin and, thus, incapable of understanding anything of God’s love. If one makes light of sin, one also makes light of God’s mercy.

  The Spirit lets us see how every sin has something to do with original sin and how original sin is an attempt to distort both God’s being and man’s being. God who is love, and who in creating man has no other purpose than to communicate himself to him, is presented by the serpent as a threat. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). Love is presented as rivalry. God wanted friendship with man, but Satan sows the seed of enmity in his soul. He succeeds in making man believe that God is dangerous for him, that he is his adversary. Ever since original sin, we have a tendency to regard God as someone who restricts our freedom, instead of seeing him as the source and guarantee of freedom.

  Secularism (secularization taken to its limit) and “the God is dead theology”, which has now become old and outdated, is the final consequence of this attitude. If there is anything that is a threat to man, it is the death of God. “For without the Creator the creature would disappear. . . . When God is forgotten. . . the creature itself grows unintelligible.”4 If we do away with God, we also do away with man, because man has his roots in God.

  By exposing sin in us, the Spirit also reveals something of God’s being. He is the one who “searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10). What he reveals is God’s suffering. There has been much discussion about whe
ther one can speak of suffering in God. Pope John Paul II says very cautiously that the Bible, in its anthropomorphic representation of God, seems to hint at a suffering in God, yes, even in the heart of the Trinity itself.5

  Traditional theology has always described sin as an offense against God. The offense consists in the fact that love has been rejected. Is there anything more painful than the pain of love that is disdained? The Old Testament attempts to hint at this pain of God by pointing out that God regrets he has made man on the earth (Gen 6:6–7). God feels deeply hurt, he is disappointed in man.

  In the New Testament we get a deeper insight into God’s pain. There we see how God cries, not because he feels hurt himself, but for man’s sake. His suffering is compassion (suffering with). “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem. . . . How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Mt 23:37).

  But God’s compassion is different from man’s. It is not limited to suffering with us; instead, it results always in new “saving actions”.

  When the Holy Spirit works in man and makes him conscious of sin, he gives him the possibility of sharing in God’s pain. He then regrets his sin, not only because he has lost his peace through sin or because sin has other negative consequences, but also because he has wounded God’s love and prevented him from fulfilling his plan of love. A regret of this kind is especially painful, but it also has great power to create anew.

  The Sin against the Holy Spirit

  The more the Spirit is given a chance to live and work in us, the more we also become aware of our sin.

  People who have nothing to confess show by this that they are blocking the activity of the Holy Spirit within them. With most people, it probably happens unconsciously. If it happens consciously, however, one makes oneself guilty of what the New Testament calls the “sin against the Holy Spirit”.

  “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Mt 12:31–32).

  The blasphemy for which there is no forgiveness is not to say something bad about the Holy Spirit. It is, rather, a refusal, a cold-blooded refusal to accept the salvation that God offers through the Spirit. If I refuse to be enlightened by the Spirit about my sin, then I also refuse to be saved. My sin cannot be forgiven. God wishes nothing more than to forgive, but if I do not want to accept forgiveness, I remain in my sin. Then even God cannot save me.

  The sin against the Holy Spirit presupposes a clear awareness of what is at stake. Most Christians (if we wish to limit ourselves to them, for the Spirit works also in non-Christians) live so unconsciously that they are hardly in a position to pronounce either a clear Yes or a clear No. The question simply does not arise.

  To be capable of saying No to the Holy Spirit, it is necessary for you to have already met him. He has to have placed a choice before you. If, like the disciples from Ephesus, you are forced to admit that you have not so much as heard of the Holy Spirit’s existence (Acts 19:2), you are not “capable” of committing the sin against the Holy Spirit.

  The situation is much more risky for those who have a deeper contact with God, who have been given a taste of him. Priests, religious, and so-called “pious” Christians run a greater risk. They can hardly be unaware that the Spirit is at work in them. To say No in that case is a serious matter. “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains” (Jn 9:41).

  Judas had lived in the company of Jesus. He knew who Jesus was. That is why his final No was so decisive. He did not say this No when he betrayed Jesus—it is true the act in itself was a No, but not a definitive one—rather, the decisive, final No came when he, though he realized he had sinned, did not want to go to Jesus with this sin. It appears as though the Holy Spirit was about to act in Judas to make him conscious of his sin (Mt 27:4), but Judas interrupted the process. He refused to admit his sin before Jesus and appeal to his mercy. Instead, he went and hanged himself. “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (Mt 26:24), says Jesus.

  His words remind us of God’s reaction after the Fall, when he perceived how great man’s evil was (Gen 6:6–7).6

  4

  The Spirit, the Comforter

  “And I will ask the Father,” says Jesus, “and he will give you another Counselor [Paraclete], to be with you for ever” (Jn 14:16).

  The Greek word parakletos can mean both helper and comforter. I have chosen the latter meaning for this chapter. The Spirit comforts in different ways.

  Blessed Are the Poor

  He comforts by giving a certain taste for poverty. He teaches you to love your littleness.

  If you try to take the Gospel seriously, you will sooner or later come to a point where you stand face to face with your own poverty. You discover that there is more darkness in you than you realized, more evil than you imagined. You feel incapable of living up to the Gospel’s high demands. You experience that you cannot produce any willpower, that your resources are not enough.

  In this feeling of desperation that arises, and which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s work in you, it is the same Spirit who comforts you. He does not comfort primarily by making you strong. Many go around with the illusion that if they give their weakness to God, he will transform it into strength. But God knows man well enough to see that he cannot bear such strength immediately. He would only become more puffed up.

  Jesus did not seek to rid himself of his weakness. On the contrary, he wanted his weakness to be made known. He was filled with anguish in Gethsemane; he fell under the Cross; he “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death” (Heb 5:7). But in the midst of his sufferings the Father’s power was at work in him. “For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we shall live with him by the power of God” (2 Cor 13:4).

  The one who refuses to be weak does not receive God’s power, either. “ ‘For my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor 12:9).

  Instead of making you strong, the Spirit teaches you to accept and even love your poverty. “The poorer you are the more Jesus will love you”, writes Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) to her sister Celine.1 There is an indescribable joy in being incapable of doing anything oneself and, instead, being completely dependent on God.

  If you wish to know if you understand anything of the Gospel message, you have only to see how you react when you discover your wretchedness. Does it make you feel happy and encouraged, or do you become sad and discouraged?

  It is the Spirit, the Comforter, who leads you to realize that this very poverty is your true wealth, that it gives you “power” over God. God cannot resist a person who is aware of his poverty and stretches out his arms to him. It is the Spirit who makes you understand that you are blessed when you are poor (Mt 5:3).

  “Take away temptations,” says one Desert Father, “and no one will be saved.” It is above all in temptations that we experience our weakness. It often takes a long time before we dare to admit and accept this. The Spirit helps and consoles by teaching us that it is this poverty which is the treasure buried in our field. He comforts everyone who has a weak will and teaches him that this very weakness opens the door to God.

  “We must take the right train”, writes Jean Lafrance. “The train of willpower and sacrifice (le train de la générosité) is beautiful and fascinating. It departs when it wills—immediately. Unfortunately, it never arrives. The train of the Holy Spirit is poor and miserable. It has difficulty getting started, but it is the only one that reaches the goal, the kingdom of heaven.”2

  You may think, perhaps, tha
t despite everything, the poverty of Jesus, Saint Paul, and Saint Thérèse was a beautiful poverty. Someone comes to me and says: “All that you preach about poverty, trust, and confidence is encouraging, but my poverty is real poverty, it is sin, misery, cowardice, and pride.” And I answer: “If you have real misery, then you have a right to real misericordia” (mercy).

  What God wants from you is humility, not perfection.

  There is, of course, a false humility. The devil is a master at making us humble in the wrong way. He makes us sad about our failings by harshly pointing out the difference between the ideal and the reality. This false humility, which is nothing other than wounded pride, makes us lose courage and give up. The devil is surely laughing up his sleeve when he is able to bring us to this point.

  If, on the other hand, it is the Holy Spirit who shows us our poverty and misery, then that is another matter. While the devil shows us only half the truth, the Spirit leads us to the whole truth: both our poverty and God’s mercy. He teaches us to be as wise as serpents (Mt 10:16). If we wish to have more of God’s mercy, we need only to go deeper into our poverty and show it to him. We ourselves can open the tap that allows God’s mercy to flow. It is enough to tell him how poor we are. “Turn to me, and be gracious to me; for I am lonely and afflicted” (Ps 25:16). “But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God!” (Ps 70:5). “Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy” (Ps 86:1).