120. The Holy Spirit in our lives

The Holy Spirit in our lives.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 120

Ave Maria series

120  What does the Holy Spirit do in my life?

The Holy Spirit makes me receptive to God; he teaches me to pray and helps me to be there for others.  [738-741]

St._Peter_Preaching_at_Pentecost by Benjamin West 1738-1820 ca 1800. …..120

Augustine calls the Holy Spirit “The quiet guest of our soul”.  Anyone who wants to sense his presence must be quiet.  Often this Guest speaks very softly within and with us, for instance, in the voice of our conscience or through other interior and exterior promptings.  Being a “temple of the Holy Spirit” means being there, body and soul, for this Guest, for God in us.  Our body is therefore God’s living room, so to speak.  The more receptive we are to the Holy Spirit in us, the more he becomes the master of our life, the sooner he will bestow on us even today his charisms for the upbuilding of the Church.  And so, instead of the works of the flesh, the fruits of the Spirit grow in us.  290-291, 295-287, 310-311

Fruits of the Holy Spirit are:  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control  (Galatians 5:22-23).

The works of the flesh are:  According to Galatians 5-19ff., these include immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.

“The working of the Holy Spirit deepens our interior life.  Connected with this is a search for silence, an aversion to inopportune speech.”  Heinrich Spaemann (1903-2001.  Catholic priest and spiritual writer.

[738-741]

The Holy Spirit and the Church

738 Thus the Church's mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament: in her whole being and in all her members, the Church is sent to announce, bear witness, make present, and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity (the topic of the next article): –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

All of us who have received one and the same Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, are in a sense blended together with one another and with God. For if Christ, together with the Father's and his own Spirit, comes to dwell in each of us, though we are many, still the Spirit is one and undivided. He binds together the spirits of each and every one of us, . . . and makes all appear as one in him. For just as the power of Christ's sacred flesh unites those in whom it dwells into one body, I think that in the same way the one and undivided Spirit of God, who dwells in all, leads all into spiritual unity. (St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Jo. ev., 11,11:Patrologia Graeca 74,561)¹³³ --CCC

739 Because the Holy Spirit is the anointing of Christ, it is Christ who, as the head of the Body, pours out the Spirit among his members to nourish, heal, and organize them in their mutual functions, to give them life, send them to bear witness, and associate them to his self-offering to the Father and to his intercession for the whole world. Through the Church's sacraments, Christ communicates his Holy and sanctifying Spirit to the members of his Body.--CCC

740 These "mighty works of God," offered to believers in the sacraments of the Church, bear their fruit in the new life in Christ, according to the Spirit. --CCC

741 "The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sighs too deep for words." (Romans 8:26)¹³⁴  The Holy Spirit, the artisan of God's works, is the master of prayer.—CCC

St. Peter Preaching