The Holy Spirit and the Divided Heart
I remember meeting someone who claimed to be a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. It caused some cognitive dissonance because these two teams are in the same division. It doesn’t make sense to root for two teams that are competing directly against each other. However, that is what we often do regarding our interior life and our pursuit of holiness.
As we draw towards Pentecost, the Church invites us to reflect more on the Holy Spirit, the first gift of God to us. By virtue of our baptism, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, as part of the Blessed Trinity. Through the sacrament of confirmation, we are sealed in the Holy Spirit. Yet often, many of the things we are seeking and trying to possess are opposed to the Holy Spirit. Consequently, we wonder why spiritual progress does not come easily.
The difficulty is not that the Holy Spirit is absent, but that our hearts are divided. To understand this better, it helps to reflect on the nature of love itself. To love someone is to possess that person to a certain extent. We see it in romantic relationships. “I love you” means “I want to have you.” To love someone is to desire union and communion with that person. There is a desire for mutual belonging that becomes real through the sacrament of marriage. Contemplating romantic love helps us to understand our relationship to God more clearly. Through our baptism, we possess the Holy Spirit.
Possession is not the same as using someone. Unfortunately, many human relationships confuse this point. Possessing is not grasping. Possessing does not mean using the other person for one’s own pleasure or profit. Rather, it means being in love. In the same way, we are called to possess the Holy Spirit in a way that allows him to possess us.
“Possession is proper to love. In its first stage, it is a desire of possession; perfect love is the joy of possession, and love that is consummated is the abyss of possession” (Mons. Luis Maria Martinez, True Devotion to the Holy Spirit). Like the way a young man feels something stirring inside him when he decides to pursue a young woman, we should desire to possess the Holy Spirit more perfectly.
Our love becomes perfect when we enjoy abiding in the Holy Spirit. He takes hold of us when he inspires us to good and virtuous acts, and we respond promptly and courageously. When we abide in him, we enter a divine intimacy that is more real than anything we can experience in human relationships. It leads us to authentic spiritual life.
“The spiritual life is the mutual possession of God and the soul, because it is essentially their mutual love” (Mons. Luis Maria Martinez, True Devotion to the Holy Spirit). God invites us constantly to grow closer to him, and he does this principally through his Holy Spirit. He is the first gift of God, and he is the one principally responsible for our growth in holiness. The spiritual life has a rhythm to it: learning to move with the inspirations of the Holy Spirit rather than the noise and distractions of the world.
Prayer and seeking holiness become a refuge, a silent place where we encounter God and ourselves. Holiness is not an imposition or a threat to our happiness. Rather, it is the necessary condition for leading meaningful lives rather than getting trapped by the world's deceptions.
Look at your own life to see the distractions, especially sins, that pull you away from possessing the Holy Spirit. They make it impossible to grow in holiness and cause the sadness and distress you experience in your soul. Resolve to cut them out of your life, so that you can give the proper importance to the Holy Spirit, the “sweet guest of your soul.” It is always fascinating how the Holy Spirit comes as a guest. He comes and knocks softly at the door of our souls. He enters, however, only if we let him in.
Allow him to enter and invite him to enter every corner of your soul. He is the best ally you could hope for in building a life that pleases God and leads to true happiness. Get rid of the contrasts and contradictions of your life, like the poor Bengals and Steelers fan. Give the Holy Spirit room to direct your life, and you will discover an adventure both demanding and beautiful.