Inconceivable

Allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts

06/09/2019

John 14:15-16, 23B-26 Jesus said to his disciples: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always. "Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Those who do not love me do not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. "I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you."

There was a poor pastor who had a crumbling church, badly in need of repair. One day a man brought his dog to the church and asked the priest to baptize it. The priest was understandably shocked by the request and said: “Sir, we cannot baptize a dog. But maybe one of the other churches down the street could help you.” The man turned to leave and said, “Well, I was going to leave a little donation for the church.” The priest’s ears perked up and the clergyman quickly added: “Oh, really?” The man replied: “Yes, just $5,000,000.” The priest exclaimed: “Oh, well why didn’t you tell me it was a Catholic dog?” The priest went ahead and baptized the dog. But weeks later the priest’s conscience was troubling him, and he could not sleep. He finally decided to go and confess his mistake to the bishop. The bishop listened carefully and said: “Well, my son, that’s understandable. We’re all human and can make bad judgments. For your penance, though, have the man contact me when he wants the dog to be confirmed.” Now, those are all the wrong reasons to get the sacrament of confirmation, so let me tell you the right reasons to receive Confirmation.

Today is Pentecost Sunday, and who would deny that this is the quintessential feast of the Holy Spirit? The priest and deacon wear red vestments to symbolize the great event when the Holy Spirit descended as flames of fire on Mary and the holy Apostles. Likewise, no one should deny that Confirmation is the quintessential sacrament of the Holy Spirit. What do I mean? Well, baptism orients us toward God the Father because we become his adopted sons and daughters. We are born again as children of God. Holy Communion configures us to God the Son because we consume the Body and Blood of Christ. After all, you are what you eat, and Catholics become other Christs. And when we are Confirmed we receive the power of God the Spirit who makes us one in spirit with the Father and the Son. We think like God, we love like God, we live like God. The feast of Pentecost and the sacrament of Confirmation are closely correlated because they both accentuate the activity of the Holy Spirit.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland on August 14, 1941, made an astounding comparison between the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He said that Mary was the “created Immaculate Conception” but the Holy Spirit was the “uncreated Immaculate Conception.” In other words, the Holy Spirit is the eternal exchange of love of the Father and the Son, and is in a sense “conceived” as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, when we are Confirmed and receive the Spirit, we, too, can conceive of things that come from the heart of God, things that would normally or naturally not occur to us. Do you remember the movie “The Princess Bride” and Vizzini, who always said: “Inconceivable!” Well, the Holy Spirit makes the inconceivable conceivable because he is the uncreated Immaculate Conception. That’s why we receive the sacrament of the Holy Spirit called Confirmation and that’s why we celebrate the feast of the Holy Spirit called Pentecost, not because we hope to get $5,000,000.

The scriptures also speak about how the Holy Spirit helps Christians to conceive the inconceivable. On the original day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago, in the Acts of the Apostles, the Spirit touched the hearts of all present with the ability to understand foreign languages. People from different countries ask in amazement: “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?” Those foreigners were able to conceive the inconceivable, and through a diversity of tongues one language was heard, the language of love, the language of heaven. That was a hint of heaven, where we will speak multiple languages and all be perfectly understood. You don’t have to learn Spanish in heaven!

In the gospel of John 14, Jesus makes the work of the Holy Spirit explicit, saying: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” In other words, the Holy Spirit is better than any mnemonic device we have to jog our memories, like to remember people’s names. Why? When the Spirit comes to us in Confirmation, he remind us we are children of God by baptism and strengthened with Christ in Communion, and that is the most important thing – and really the only thing – we need to remember. In a sense, you can forget everything else that seem so important to us today, like $5,000,000. Just remember you are a beloved son or daughter of God; that’s what the Spirit reminds us.

Can I quickly share how the Holy Spirit helps me conceive of the inconceivable in my daily life? Maybe it will help you. First, I always say a prayer to the Holy Spirit before preparing my homilies. I am convinced the Holy Spirit helps me conceive the inconceivable in reading and reflecting on the scriptures. Sometimes, the Spirit helps me remember a good joke. The second example of the Spirit’s work is in counseling others. Often my words only reach people’s ears – usually going in one ear and out the other! But the Spirit touches the heart and helps people conceive the inconceivable and makes possible the impossible. Pray to the Holy Spirit when you have to engage in a tough or touchy conversation: his words reach the heart, our words ring in the ears.

On this feast of Pentecost, let us praise the Father, the Son and especially the Holy Spirit. In baptism we are born again as children of God, in Communion we are strengthened by the Son of God, and in Confirmation we are inspired by the Spirit of God. And filled with the Holy Spirit, we no longer have to say, “Inconceivable!”

Praised be Jesus Christ!