Saint for the day: John of Avila (c. 1500 – May 10, 1569)

 Scripture readings for today’s Liturgy:

Acts 17:15, 22 – 18: 1 – PS 148 – John 16:12-15

 “God: made in our image!” a play on the words taken from the Genesis story of creation. Still, as presumptuous as they are, they are words that ring true for many people down through the ages. People, without the Holy Spirit to guide them, will create worlds that fit into their finite understand of God. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells His disciples, “I have much more to tell you but you cannot bear it now.” The Holy Spirit, the author and giver of life, will come upon you and re-create you – in the Image and Likeness of God!

The friar who maintains this web site asked me the other day, “Aren’t you beginning to run out of things to say?” And I would have to respond that it is a challenge to make fresh comment on the repeated themes, “love me. Love one another. Be one in Me as I am one in the Father. Love, love, love!

But then we switch gears as we move closer to the Pentecost Feast: the coming of the Holy Spirit. How could we ever run out of things to say about the Holy Spirit?

From the beginning of Genesis all the way through to the end of Revelation the Holy Spirit is the life force that keeps us going. It is the Holy Spirit who brings order out of the chaos at the beginning of creation and it is the Holy Spirit who breathes life into the first humans. It is the Holy Spirit that shakes the room where the disciples are gathered in fear. But it’s the same Holy Spirit that comes to Elijah in the cave where he realizes that the Holy Spirit of God is also a still, quiet voice – or breath of fresh life.

In today’s reading from the Acts Paul admonishes the so-called sophistiaced Athenians, who think that they have contained God in their shrines and temples, that God cannot be limited in any way. He goes on to say, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” It is this Holy Spirit, the source of God’s Love that re-creates us and gives us the ability to continue our journey along the Way to Heaven. And how could we ever run out of things to say about the Holy Spirit! Amen!