MCF NEWS AND EVENTS! / ¡NOTICIAS Y EVENTOS DEL FCM!
Rule of Life #3: The Spirit Who inspires us
At the very heart and center of the missionary life is the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was the essence of the life of the first apostles. Without the Spirit divinizing, emboldening, enlivening their efforts – and ours – the tasks are fruitless and deadening. However, with the Spirit, all of life is transformed and made whole. It is important, therefore, to spend a few moments looking at the place this most precious Spirit has in the apostolic life.
The Spirit at the Heart of All Creation
We Catholic Christians, when we understand our own faith properly, never see a dichotomy between “God” and the “material world”. God and God’s creation are surely two distinct realities . . . but never separate! God’s creation is not God. We are not “pan-theists”, i.e. people who believe that God is everything and everything is God. We do, however, have a distinctly unified vision of life. Although God and the material world are not the same, all “matter” is transfused, thoroughly penetrated with Spirit. Everything we see, everything we touch, feel, smell, taste or experience is, in some direct or obscure fashion, touched by Spirit.
From the first words of the creation story in Genesis, it is clear that the Spirit is at the very core of our lovely universe. “In the beginning . . . the earth was a formless void” – chaos! But over this chaos “God’s spirit hovered” like a mother bird over its young in the nest (Gen. 1:1-2; see also Deut. 32:11). Then, as God spoke and the Spirit moved over this seething, primordial tumult, beauty and order and light and harmony began to emerge – fruits of the Spirit’s action. Thus every molecule, every atom, every minute speck of creation is – in the words of the great Jesuit poet of nineteenth century, Gerard Manley Hopkins – “charged with the grandeur of God” (God’s Grandeur).
Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin whose thinking so dramatically affected the work of the Second Vatican Council speaks eloquently of this “divinized” nature of all the created universe:
All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and below, we have only had to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through . . . By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers . . . (T)he world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 112.
The tale of Adam’s creation gives us a clear picture of this divine glory in the heart of every human being. The Lord bends down, forms from the dust of the earth a puppet with human features, gently lifts the limp figure to His face and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and thus man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7). In the very depths of every human heart, the fundamental basis of all human dignity is the divine spark, the mighty Spirit of God that lies at the center of all human life. The Spirit forms every human heart “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27).
Father Judge shared this all embracing perception of the Spirit’s work and presence:
“There is not a tint nor a fragrance of those beautiful flowers . . . but they have been placed there by the Holy Ghost.” The Spirit “ripens the harvest, . . . gives form and shape and beauty and health to the body, . . . causes your optic nerve to function,” gives “health and grace and charm.” It is the Spirit who “has molded you so exquisitely and splashed the color of a rose in your cheek.” (MF:10770.)
Suggested Process For Reflection
First, read one or more of the recommended Scriptures. Select one or two of the related Scriptures cited for your reading and reflection:
Gen. 1:1-2, 2:5-7;
Ps. 104:27-32, 139:7-14;
Wisd. 1:7, 11:24-12:2;
Ecclus. 39:1-8 may be especially helpful.
Second, think about what you have read.
Is there anything particularly that strikes you?
Is there anything you don’t understand?
Is there anything that you disagree with or that troubles you?
As you reflect on your experience in the light of the Scripture,
do you see the world “charged with the grandeur of God” or are things pretty “boring” and “mundane” for you?
Do you see your own life or the life of others as gift, filled with blessing, touched by the Spirit of God?
What prevents you from experiencing your own life or that of the world or others as blessing and gift?
Third, talk to God about what you have read, thought, questioned, felt.
Tell God what is most on your mind and in your heart as you read or listen to these passages.
Any one of a range of emotions and feelings is possible to express to God: hope, joy, consolation, gratitude, anger, sorrow, adoration.
The important thing is to be as honest as possible in opening your heart up to God.
Fourth, sit quietly and do nothing. Many times we are so preoccupied with talking to God that we don’t give God a chance to speak with us. God speaks best in silence and in quiet so don’t be afraid to do nothing for a few moments and then, if there is still time, begin the process over again: read, think, talk, sit quietly.