Holy Spirit Twofold Nature

Last Thursday, Fr Cantalamessa, well known for his position as Papal Preacher, visited Singapore on his way back to Rome from Philippines. Oka, Maya, Christine, Abigail, Keenan, Lisa, Philip, and I attended the talk held by SACCRE.

These are the points that I managed to write down during the talk:

Fr Cantalamessa began by sharing about the presence of Jesus. When Jesus said that He will be here in the midst of us, He is completely present. It is not like us, most of the times we are not fully present where we are at the moment. Even though our physical body is at one place, but we are not fully present, because our minds are somewhere else.

Then he continued sharing about the twofold natures of the Holy Spirit. The first one is that Holy Spirit comes to a person, stays with the person, and transform the person completely. This is the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit. This is mentioned in Ezekiel 36:26

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

The second nature of the Holy Spirit is the charismatic Spirit. This is related to special gifts and constrained to certain period of time. By possesing these gifts, people might not be necessary more holy. We can take example of Solomon that even though he had Wisdom, he was not really doing well overall.

Usually the charismatic gifts are for the common good of the people or community and there is more emphasis on the first nature of the Holy Spirit which is the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit.

St Paul will adjust himself when reminding about Holy Spirit depending on the community. For example he will emphasis on the charisms when he spoke to Thessalonians while he will remind more about charity when he spoke to Corinthians.

The sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit is related to each one of us called to be Holy. In the second letter of Peter, there is a reminder of holy nation. There is universal call to holiness.

So what does holiness consist of?

In the Old Testament, it is more related to external appearance, such as touching corpse will be considered as unholy. In the New Testament, it is more towards internal aspects.

Jesus is called the Holy One. And to be holy is to be united with Jesus . These consists of two stages: appropriation and imitation.

Appropriation

We have the right to be holy. We receive the holiness first and then we need to act accordingly. It is not the other way around.

In other religions, it starts with the rules to be followed, telling the people what they must do to receive salvation. Here God becomes debtor and we become the creditor.

But not for Christianity. In Christianity, it is about what God has done for the people.

Just like what St Paul said that we are justified by grace and not by works. And because we have received the grace, we need to live them by our examples.

In Mark 1:15, Jesus mentioned about the need to repent. Here the word repent (metanoia) means to believe, to take a leap forward to get the Kingdom of God, to make the decision because the hour has come.

And in the Letter to the Romans, it begins by telling about the state of humanity before Christ, then it continues about grace, and then about new life and finally about virtues. It always starts with God first taking the first step towards us.

It is about Jesus died for me. So I must leave my past and go to Him.

For a lot of holy people in the Old Testament, such as Moses and Abraham, they are called the friends of God after a long period of time and penance and efforts. But for Jesus, we need only a little time to be called friends of God.

We belong to Jesus more than we belong to ourselves. Then what Jesus has also belongs to us.

In the communion, it is about exchange. In the exchange, what is yours become mine and what is mine becomes ours. So through the Eucharist, all our experiences are given to Jesus. Jesus never went through old age, Jesus did not go through marriage, and Jesus is a man. Does that mean He doesn't understand old people, married people, and woman? No, through the Eucharist, He shares all the experiences and He understands every single person.

We are homeless people with dirty rags, and through the reconciliation, it is similar to us offered place to take shower, put off our dirty rags, to be given a chance to choose the best clothes we want for free, and to start anew.

Imitation

This stage must come after the grace. To be holy is not an accomplishment but the accomplishment. The inverse of to be holy is not sinner but failure.

So if we fail in being holy, we are failure.

There are people saying that human being is rational animals. We are not fully there yet in being a person. We need the collaboration with God.

This call of holiness is opened to everyone.

According to Pascal, there are three levels to become great person.

The first one is the material aspect, such as being rich, being strong, or being beautiful.

The second one is superior to the first one and it is in the intellectual aspect, such as becoming artists, etc.

The third one is far more superior that the second one and it is about holiness, such as Jesus and Mary. This one lasts forever.

For the young people

Jesus has revolutionized the way to happiness. The world presents the way to happiness as pleasure followed by pain. But for Jesus, it is the other way around, pain followed by glory, happiness, joy.

God is never against happiness or pleasure because He invented it. Devil invented the abuse of pleasure.