The Holy Spirit

Journeying with the Holy Spirit can be as spiritually enriching as it is mystifying.

Some Catholics tend to consider the Holy Spirit the least understood person of the Holy Trinity. It’s easy to put a face on Jesus through the Scriptures of the New Testament, and God is the ultimate father.

The Holy Spirit? Perhaps a bit more complex.

“I think we are not understanding the father, son and Holy Spirit as one being in three persons,” said Dina Dow, director of the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. “I think if we get back to the basics of understanding the Trinity – father, son and Holy Spirit – and how that relationship is a relationship we are actually incorporated into and are a part of, that we sit with, that we pray with, then I think our understanding will not separate the three.

“We will understand how the Trinity is one as we are one.”

“I think we are not understanding the father, son and Holy Spirit as one being in three persons. I think if we get back to the basics of understanding the Trinity – father, son and Holy Spirit – and how that relationship is a relationship
we are actually incorporated into and are a part of, that we sit with, that we pray with, then I think
our understanding
will not separate the three.”

Dina Dow

Director of the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis
for the Diocese of Baton Rouge

Dow said the love between the father and son, or God and Jesus, is so great that the Holy Spirit was born of that love, much the same way a child is born out of the great love of a mother and father. She said the Holy Spirit animates the life of every Catholic, moving every person according to his or her faith.

“As blood runs through the veins, the Spirit runs through our souls as part of our being,” Dow said. “Without the Holy Spirit, we can’t move.”

Catholics initially receive the Holy Spirit at baptism, through the words of the Rite of Baptism. Dow recalled Christ’s words from Scripture when he said, “I baptize you in the name of the father of the son and the Holy Spirit.”

“That’s how we receive the trinitarian rite in our lives,” she said. “All of the gifts of the Holy Spirit we receive at Baptism.”

Pope Francis is even more emphatic regarding the importance of the Holy Spirit. He said the protagonist of the Acts of the Apostles is not St. Peter, Stephen or St. Philip but the Holy Spirit.

“(The apostles) could have sought a good compromise between tradition and innovation: some rules are observed, others are left out,” the pope said. “Yet the apostles do not follow this human wisdom, but adapt themselves to the work of the Spirit, who had anticipated them by descending upon the pagans just as on them.

“As church, we can have well-defined times and spaces, well-organized communities, institutes and movements, but without the Spirit, everything remains soulless.”

Dow said she petitions the Holy Spirit daily to lead, to guide, to protect, to heal, to comfort and recommends a similar practice for Catholics.  She emphasized the Holy Spirit is the transformative love that transforms all beings into the Lord.

She also said Pentecost Sunday, which was celebrated May 28, is one of the most important solemnities of the year, calling it the birthday of the church.

It is when we see the movement of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the apostles who were still, even after the Lord’s ascension, doubting. And so the Lord told them to wait for the advocate. “And so that day in the Upper Room the Holy Spirit descends upon and animates and empowers and enlivens and infuses the apostles to have the fortitude, strength, wisdom  to go out and proclaim that Jesus is risen from the dead.”

If indeed the mission of the church is to evangelize, proclaim, teach, baptize and bring all souls to Jesus then Pentecost marks the day Catholics are called. Dow said the faithful are called daily to receive the power of the Holy Spirt, to claim it and to go out with courage and spread the good news.

And that only be accomplished through the Holy Spirit.

“It’s what moves us do so things,” Dow said. “He is what helps us with the Spirit of truth, to grow in our understanding.”

“Can I see the holy spirt?” she said. “No. I can see the presence of the Holy Spirit in someone else. I can see the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, I can see things in people that I had never seen before without the grace and power of the Holy Spirit moving through them.”

She said the days following Pentecost are a good time to discern what it means to be a disciple and to recommit to that call. She said she often hears people complain about what is going on around the country and the world but her response is to ask them how are they are answering the call to discipleship and are they reaching out to help people who are struggling?

“How much courage do we have to speak with them in such a way to invite them back into a relationship with God?” she said. “With family, friends that are off the path, how are we taking that moment to ask the Holy Spirit to open the door and ask for that dialogue to happen?

“I really want to walk with this person but how do I do that?”

She said to ask through the Holy Spirit and it will be received but quickly added, “Then hang on because the Holy Spirit will take you where you will never have thought of, you will be able to accomplish what you set out to do, and it’s always going to be more than what you expect.

“You have to trust and let go.”

Dow encouraged people to faithfully and intentionally pray to the Holy Spirit, beginning with the  morning prayer and ending with the night prayer. She recommends people asking the Holy Spirit to be part of one’s daily life, to consecrate one’s self to him.

“He says ‘I’m your advocate, I am here for you.’ We are never alone, not with the Holy Spirit,” she said. “We receive the Holy Spirit, we become holy. We have the openness to grow each day.”

The fire of the Holy Spirit burns within everyone and it’s up to each individual to call upon that Spirit to be able to walk closer with Christ.

“If the church does not pray to and invoke the Spirit, it closes in on itself, in sterile and exhausting debates, in wearisome polarizations, while the flame of mission is extinguished,” Pope Francis said regarding praying to the Holy Spirit. “Do I pray to the Spirit? Do I let myself be guided by him?”