GIFTS are tokens of love. Given during baptisms, birthdays, weddings and special occasions, presents are treasured and the memories they evoke warm the heart. With or without gifts, good-byes among friends spark sadness. To assuage feelings, assurances of “I will never forget you,” are expressed.
The apostles, too, were sad when Jesus told them He had to return to His Father.
In His pledge of oneness with “His dream team,” He said: “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate, to be with you always” (John 14:16).
“The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, that the Father will send in my name—He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (John 14:26).
The Holy Spirit makes His abode
Baptism is the first foundation of a person’s initiation to Christian life. The faithful is born anew, and baptism removes the original sin inherited from man’s first parents, Adam and Eve.
Purified from original sin, man is clothed with sanctifying grace. Since the Advocate dwells in everyone who is in the state of grace, the person is transformed into a living tabernacle where the Holy Trinity dwells.
Is it a wonder, then, that saints, overflowing with the Holy Spirit, can live with almost any situation? How easily they are borne with difficulties, sufferings, and embrace martyrdom without qualms.
Doctors attest that there is a limit to man’s tolerance for anguish. How and from whom martyrs get strength and inspiration to thwart fear of pain, even death, astound people, but not the religious who refer to the first cause of all existence—God and the Advocate who sanctifies the lives of holy people.
How Saint Laurence welcomed death is a dramatic example. He was placed on a gridiron with burning coals beneath for slow and excruciating death.
While being roasted, he even humored his persecutors. With a cheerful smile, he remarked: “Let my body be turned, one side is cooked enough.”
Fr. Nil Guillemette, SJ, narrates that Saint Philip Neri outranks many saints on the joy that consort with suffering. He laughs with a tremor that makes things near him shake.
Begging God to gift him with the Holy Spirit, a globe of fire entered his mouth. His habit was torn because of the intense warmth as he fell on the ground feeling a marvelous heat. His heart was enlarged that two of his ribs broke to give way to a much bigger heart, which should function normally.
Fr. Paul Sullivan, OP, in Holy Ghost, Our Greatest Friend, narrates that when officiating Mass or distributing hosts at the holy communion, Saint Philip feels an unexplainable happiness that shakes his whole body, even the altar, too. Sometimes, he cries out, “I cannot bear such joy! Stop, please, Lord, or I shall die.”
Gifted with a very special sense of humor, the Vatican II Weekday Missal, affixes The Saint of Joy after his name.
Origen, one of the most learned Fathers of the Catholic Church, reminds Christians: “Our souls are little heavens because God is really there.”
Undivided unity
The Holy Spirit, or Advocate, is the last of the three persons of the Holy Trinity to be revealed. And Jesus Himself, made the prophecy on Pentecost Sunday.
Without the coming of the Advocate, there would be no Mother Church, no sacraments, no scriptures. The scriptures do not only tell us what God did on earth. Also, how He wants all men to live a life worthy of Heaven by still doing for mankind, numerous and marvellous manifestations no matter how ungrateful and sinful men are. He even assures them, “I will be with you always to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Saint Augustine of Hippo, bishop and doctor of the church, declared: “God in His Omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom, knew not how to give more, in His riches had not more to give than Himself.” Blessed Fulton Sheen, in his book The Life of Christ, emphasized: “Natural truth is on the surface of the soul, but Divine truth is in its depths. To know the Father, one must know the Son, to know the Son, one must have the Spirit, for the Spirit will reveal the Son who said: I am the truth” (John 1:4-6).
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons