Holy Spirit and Power
One
2 Peter 1:3-4
We are meditating on the greatest of Catholic truths that God comes to live in our soul so that sharing in His divine nature, we can share in His divine activity.
Saint Peter speaks of this, “By his divine power, he has given us all the things that we need for life and for true devotion, bringing us to know God himself, who has called us by his own glory and goodness. In making these gifts, he has given us the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come: through them you will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world that is sunk in vice.”
Through baptism, the Father, Son, and Spirit begin to live in us, giving us a real share in the divine nature, enabling us to live in a completely new way, the divine way. We do not merely imitate Christ by our weak human power. We live from His life and act from His power.
Two
Holy Spirit and Power
Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” Acts 1:8. What do Jesus and the Spirit enable us to do? They give us the power to really live in a divine way. By the gift of faith, to know truths that can only be known by sharing in God's knowledge. And it's why people who don't have the spirit can't see what you see
By the gift of hope, we can desire what God desires. By the gift of love, we can love the way God loves: selflessly, generously forgiving everyone and even loving our enemies. And we received the seven gifts of the spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord.
I mean, how in the world does Saint Maximilian Kolbe, when the commandant in Auschwitz was picking out ten men to die of starvation and Kolbe is spared, how does he step out of the ranks and give his life for another man?
Kolbe can do it because God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit were pulsating through him. When almost all men would curse God and man in that starvation bunker, the guards later testified that they saw pure light radiating from Kolbe’s body each day. God, who is pure light flowing through him, enables him to do what is beyond human power.
Jesus said we will receive the Holy Spirit and power, and we really do. But I don't think we know the power that resides within us.
Three
Collaborating with God
In 1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
Paul is unambiguous: God chooses to act with human collaborators, not apart from them. The Father saved the world through the Son in the Holy Spirit, and now that same Son and Spirit live in us and save people through us.
There are people around us who still need to encounter the love of God and be saved, and God chooses to reach them through human lives that have been transformed from within by His own divine life. The Son and the Holy Spirit do not merely assist us from the outside; they live and act in us. Through our families and friendships, our words and example, our prayer, our work, our joy, and even our suffering, God Himself operates through us, making us true collaborators in His saving work.
When we say yes to God and cooperate with His grace, He truly acts through us for the salvation of others.
Four
The Holy Spirit is the Primary Agent in Prayer
Again, Paul tells us, “The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means...” Romans 8:26-27
Prayer does not depend on our skill, our feelings, or our ability to concentrate. Prayer begins with the Holy Spirit already living and acting within us. It is the Spirit who prays in us and through us to the Father. And paradoxically, it is often precisely in our weakness, our dryness, distraction, confusion, or suffering, that the Spirit’s prayer is most powerful, because then it is most clearly His work and not our own. As Jesus says, “My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Nothing, no dryness, distraction, confusion, or suffering, can stop the Holy Spirit from praying within us. Our part is simple but real: to show up, to set aside the time for prayer, to ask the Spirit to pray in us, and to remain there in trust. When we do this, God Himself carries the prayer, and His power is at work in us even when we feel nothing at all.
Five
We Must Play Our Part
In the second part of the Scripture passage we started this meditation with (2 Peter 1:5), Peter tells us that we share in the divine nature, God is operating within us, but we have to do our part.
“But to attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have, understanding to your goodness, self-control to your understanding, patience to your self-control, true devotion to your patience, kindness towards your fellow men to your devotion, and, to this kindness, love. If you have a generous supply of these, they will not leave you ineffectual or unproductive: they will bring you to a real knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
How can we unleash the power of the Spirit in our lives? The simplest way to do this is through daily meditation and a resolution. This is where we hear the word of God, think about it seriously, apply it to our lives, see what the Spirit is inspiring in us, and then practice some good action that day to make it a habit, a virtue. This is how we allow the power of Jesus and the Spirit to operate through us and for us to truly collaborate with God as His sons and daughters.