CHARIS SLC | Pneumatology | Dr. Mary Healy - EN

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[Music] the beginning of the second vatican council pope john xxiii led the church in praying for a fresh outpouring of the holy spirit renew your wonders in this our day as buy a new pentecost a few years later seemingly as a result of john the 23rd prayer for renewal a significant event took place that would forever change the lives of millions of catholics and the church itself on a week in retreat these catholic students prayed that

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in some way they too might discover a renewed sense of pentecost in their lives those who prayed for the experience that came to be known as baptism in the spirit had experiences similar to all the others a new depth of prayer love for the scriptures a devotion to the eucharist a heart for evangelization a call to conversion and a life of holiness on pentecost sunday in 1975 cardinal sunans and 10 000 individuals who had this charismatic experience

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met with pope paul vi we are pleased to see signs of this vineyard long life for the charismatics it is my firm hope that the holy spirit will find more and more fruitful welcome in the hearts of believers so that the culture of pentecost so necessary in our time 50 years ago and gave rise to an institution

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no no a question an organization no no to a current of grace [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] ah [Music] is [Music] [Music]

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we [Music] my soul come away to hunger to seek to first [Music] come away [Music] you did

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[Music] [Applause] [Music] come wake me from my sleep blow through the caverns it's to see [Music] this come away

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[Music] first [Music] come wake me from my sleep [Music] oh

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[Music] this place [Music]

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this place spirit comes and let your glory now [Music] with this place [Music] faith [Music] so spirit of the

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living god come full afresh on me come wake me from my sleep glow through the caves of my soul pouring me to overflow to overflow [Music] i wanna run over [Music]

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so come let us return unto the lord is written [Music] come let us [Music]

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he has wounded [Music] and he will come he will come to us [Music] he will come to us like rain spring rain so come and let us

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yes come let us return unto the lord oh come let us return unto the lord yes come let us return unto the lord

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for he has [Music] for he has wounded us [Music] like rain springs he will

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he will come to us like rain spring he will come to us like rain springs [Applause] [Music] and if we ask he will come [Music] he's

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[Music] he will come to us like rain spring rain he will come to earth [Music] lord

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for every child needs rain spring rain [Music] for every child needs rain spring rain [Music] springs send the reign of your spirit send the

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reign of your spirit send the reign of your spirit lord [Music] um let it rain let it rain open the floodgates of heaven let it rain let it rain open the floodgates of heaven

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let it rain let it rain [Music] let it rain [Music] let it rain [Music] open the fly of heaven

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will come like who come like [Music] gates of heaven let it rain

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[Music] rain oh come life let it rain [Music]

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heaven hi everyone i'm dr mary healy welcome to this charis course on the holy spirit let's begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen holy spirit breath of god come to us now come and open our minds to the fullness of truth that jesus came to reveal to us come holy spirit make us holy as he is holy

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come holy spirit pour out on us new gifts that we may be fully equipped and inspired to carry out the mission that the lord has for us we ask this in the name of jesus amen mary spouse of the holy spirit pray for us in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen well welcome again to this course on pneumatology

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of course pneumatology could easily be an entire year course which we are going to try to pack into 45 very densely packed minutes i'm going to begin by talking about how the holy spirit has sometimes been called the forgotten person of the holy trinity and then we're going to look at the holy spirit in the old testament era and then the holy spirit in the new testament in the life of jesus and then the holy spirit in the life of

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the church well the holy spirit has sometimes been called the forgotten person of the trinity and there are some reasons for that for example if you look at the several centuries of church history before the 20th century books about the holy spirit were nearly non-existent and even many works of spirituality which is all about life in the holy spirit actually

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mentioned almost nothing about the holy spirit there was a lot about god about christ about mary and the saints about prayer but really very little on the holy spirit who is the sanctifier the source of our sanctification the divine praises that we pray at exposition and benediction with the blessed sacrament actually had no mention of the holy spirit until pope paul vi added blessed be the holy spirit the

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paraclete a neglected feast day was the feast day of pentecost the birthday of the church the culmination of the liturgical year of the church so we celebrated christmas in a big way with the octave of christmas and easter in a big way with the octave of easter but pentecost was something anticlimactic and in fact after vatican ii even the octave of pentecost was eliminated and perhaps one of the reasons for that

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neglect of the holy spirit at least in the last few centuries was because the holy spirit is the most hidden person of the holy trinity and even his name holy spirit is less of a name than a title and it uses terms that are true of the father and the son as well both are holy both are spirit so the holy spirit is in a way less easy to come to know

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and the symbols of the holy spirit wind fire water oil conveys something of his elusiveness and so as one theologian has said in the trinity he is the mystery within the mystery and to some extent we can represent the father and the son to ourselves they have a likeness in the faces of earthly fathers and sons but the holy spirit is so to speak

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faceless so for those reasons and and other reasons the holy spirit was in certain respects forgotten until the 20th century and really it began in the 19th century when a saint now a saint named mariam balwardi of the holy land sent a petition to pope pius ix asking him to cultivate a greater devotion

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to the holy spirit in the church and then a few years later blessed elena guerra did the same writing letters to pope leo the 13th and asking him to cultivate greater devotion to the holy spirit and sure enough the pope did that at the instigation of sister elaine aguero he called for a special novena to the holy spirit to be prayed between the feasts of the ascension and pentecost and he wrote an encyclical on the holy

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spirit the venus and in in that encyclical he directed the whole church to a deeper appreciation for the holy spirit and his gifts and and pope leo perhaps had an intuition that the whole church would be in in some way under attack in the 20th century and so at the recommendation of sister elena he opened the new century by singing

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the ancient hymn veni creator spiritus in the name of the whole church well as you know the 20th century became the century of the outpouring of the holy spirit now fast forward to vatican council 2 in the 1960s pope john the 23rd directed every count every catholic during the council to pray daily lord renew your wonders in this our day

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as by a new pentecost and so millions of catholics were praying that prayer during the council later pope john paul ii said this whenever the spirit intervenes he leaves people astonished he brings about events of amazing newness he radically changes persons and history this was the unforgettable experience of the second vatican council during which the church rediscovered

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the charismatic dimension as one of her constitutive elements so pope john paul ii recognized the second vatican council as a kind of new intervention of the holy spirit in the history of the church a few years after that pope paul vi was asked about what does the church most need and his answer was this what do we feel is the first and last need of this blessed and beloved church of ours

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the spirit the holy spirit the church needs her perennial pentecost she needs fire in her heart words on her lips prophecy in her outlook pope john paul ii wrote a magnificent encyclical on the holy spirit which i highly recommend it's called lord and giver of life dominum at vivify contempt and in it he he presents such beautiful such a beautiful summary of the doctrine

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concerning the holy spirit and the role of the spirit in the life of the church and then in 1998 at the international meeting of all the ecclesial movements in saint peter's square he cried out today i would like to cry out to all christians open yourselves docilely to the gifts of the spirit accept gratefully and obediently the charisms that the spirit never ceases to bestow on us

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pope benedict continued that kind of passionate prayer he said in his visit to the united states let us implore from god the grace of a new pentecost for the church in america may tongues of fire combining burning love of god and neighbor with zeal for the spread of christ's kingdom descend on all present he prayed a similar prayer at world youth day in sydney australia he prayed a similar prayer in africa and again and again he

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expressed the need for a new pentecost pope francis similarly in his encyclical on the joy of the gospel he wrote spirit-filled evangelizers means evangelizers fearlessly open to the working of the holy spirit at pentecost the spirit made the apostles go forth from themselves and turned them into heralds of god's wondrous deeds capable of speaking to each person in his or her own language

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so we see that the past century particularly since vatican council 2 for catholics has been a century of the rediscovery of the holy spirit so now let's look briefly at what scripture reveals to us about the holy spirit well beginning already in genesis chapter 1 we see that the spirit of god was present and active in creation the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep

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and the spirit of god was hovering over the face of the waters it's the holy spirit who transforms what god has created from chaos into cosmos into a beautiful and ordered world that god has made as a a place for human beings to dwell to flourish and to come to the destiny that he intends for them when he will one day dwell in our midst as saint irenaeus

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said god's son and his spirit are the two hands by which god created the world now of course at this time in history the holy spirit was not yet understood as a person distinct from the father nor was the son revealed but even in genesis there are already hints and foreshadowings of a plurality of persons in god genesis 1 verse 26 god said

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let us make man in our image after our likeness notice the plural later when god appeared to abraham he appeared in the form of three men in genesis 18. [Music] and later still when god instructed his people israel how to build his dwelling place where he would be worshipped the desert tabernacle to a desert tent the holy spirit inspired the

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craftsmen craftsmen who built that tabernacle to make furnishings that were beautiful and worthy of the worship of god god says see i have called by name bezalel the son of uri son of her of the tribe of judah and i have filled in with the spirit of god with ability and intelligence with knowledge and all craftsmanship to devise artistic designs to work in gold silver and bronze in cutting stones for setting and

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carving wood for work in every craft so already there's a sense that the spirit of god is the one who inspires artists and especially all of those who are involved in preparing for the worship of god then when that tabernacle was finished it says at the end of exodus then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the lord filled the tabernacle and moses was not able to enter the tent

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of meeting because the cloud abode upon it and the glory of the lord filled the tabernacle throughout all their journeys whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle the people of israel would go onward but if the cloud was not taken up then they did not go onward so god was visibly present to his people in the form of the glory cloud the cloud that was a sign of his presence actually the cloud at one at the same

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time it both revealed god and it concealed him it revealed him because whenever they saw the cloud they knew god was present in their midst and yet it concealed him because when they saw the cloud they didn't see god they saw the cloud that hid him and that cloud was what led them on their whole journey through the desert for many years to the promised land that cloud is a symbol of the holy spirit

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and so for us how will we be guided on our journey through the desert wilderness of this life home to the promised land with the father only by the holy spirit who is our guide our teacher and then it says throughout all their journeys the cloud of the lord was upon the tabernacle by day and fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of israel so it appeared to them both day and night by day they could see the cloud by night they could see the fire and

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they knew god was present to them wherever they went then when moses was getting overwhelmed with the responsibilities of leadership and he needed some help to lead the people and judge them god took some of the spirit that was upon him and put it upon the 70 elders and as soon as the 70 received the spirit they began to prophesy so early on there was a recognition

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that it's the holy spirit who brings the ability to prophesy that people are able to prophesy to speak god's word and to to see into heavenly things and and to see into the future to see god's perspective by the inspiration of the holy spirit now two men named eldad and maydad were not with the others but they were among the 70 who had been chosen they were in the camp but they got the

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holy spirit too and joshua the son of nun ran to moses and said my lord moses forbid them they weren't here they weren't with the right group at the right time but moses said to him are you jealous for my sake would that all the lord's people were prophets that the lord would put his spirit upon them how can you be disturbed that two more people have the spirit and are prophesying

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god's will god's desire is that the whole people receive the spirit and the whole people become prophets back then that was kind of difficult to even imagine because it was only a very few specially chosen people who got the spirit of god but moses in his his recognition of god's heart had that desire that the whole people received the holy spirit

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then many centuries later when god chose david as king and the prophet samuel anointed him god's spirit came upon him samuel took the horn of oil and anointed david in the midst of his brothers and the spirit of the lord rushed upon david from that day forward david needed that power of the holy spirit in order to carry out faithfully his responsibility as

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king over god's people and then as the centuries went on it was god's spirit who inspired the prophets god sent prophet after prophet to his people and he inspired them to speak his word by his holy spirit and through those prophets god promised that one day the messiah would come the anointed one and on him the spirit of god would rest

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spirit of wisdom and understanding spiritual spirit of knowledge and of counsel spirit of piety and fortitude and fear of the lord so so isaiah gives this kind of portrait of the messiah as the spirit-filled man also over time as god's people failed again and again to keep his covenant god promised that he would pour out his spirit on the whole people

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in a way that would enable them to love god trust him and obey him and live according to his will in a way that they were incapable of doing at that time without god's spirit through ezekiel god said 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 and i will

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put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances what an amazing promise that the people would be filled with the whole people would be filled with the very spirit of god transforming them from within and that ezekiel had a vision of a valley full of dry bones symbolizing the people who are spiritually

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crushed and oppressed by their exile in babylon and god tells him to prophesy to the bones and he does and flesh comes on them and sinners come on them and and the bones come together but one more thing is needed god tells him to prophesy to the wind now that word wind in hebrew ruach also means spirit and also means breath so he told ezekiel

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prophesy to the spirit breath wind and that spirit breath wind comes into them and they live and they stand up on their feet and the prophet joel through joel god promises that what moses had wished for way back on that day in the desert when the spirit came on the 70 including eldad and maydad god promises it will come about i will pour out my spirit on all flesh

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your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions even on the men servants and maidservants in those days i will pour out my spirit in other words an absolutely indiscriminate complete pouring out of god's spirit on men and women old and young slave and free nobody will be left out nobody will be without

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the very spirit of god and also during this time in their history israel came closer to an understanding of the holy spirit as a person even though that was not yet fully recognized in isaiah it says that the people of israel had rebelled and grieved god's holy spirit well a force can't be grieved a mere power can't be grieved only a

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person can be grieved and so isaiah is recognizing that the the sins of god's people are not only a violation of the law but they they grieve the very spirit of god well let's come now to the new testament the holy spirit kind of explodes on the pages of the new testament already from the annunciation and the birth of jesus we see the holy spirit

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first at the annunciation when the angel says to mary the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you therefore the child to be born will be called holy the son of god the holy spirit will come upon you the power of the most high will overshadow you overshadow is the same word that was used at the end of exodus when the cloud of god's presence

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the glory cloud overshadowed the tabernacle in the desert and so mary is the new tabernacle the new dwelling place of god and of course she is that as representing the whole church the church is now the living tabernacle in which god wanted to dwell and mary herself is the ark of the covenant which was the the holy

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sacred box in the in the in most room of the tabernacle where god was present well then there's a long silence about the almost complete silence about the first 30 years of jesus's life but then he begins his public ministry it begins with his baptism john was baptizing people in the jordan river with a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins and jesus comes to be baptized by john

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that was kind of a surprise because jesus didn't have any sins he didn't need to repent for anything and yet he submitted to john's baptism as an act of total humility and obedience to the father that he would be the messiah who counted who was counted among sinners who was in complete solidarity with sinners who identified himself

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with sinners and by choosing that baptism he was choosing the cross so if this is jesus's yes to the father's plan well he came up from the waters and what happened immediately the heavens opened and the holy spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove so jesus himself was baptized in the holy spirit was was filled with the holy spirit in his human nature and

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notice the gospels don't say and then the heavens closed up again so the implication is the heavens stayed open above jesus that from that moment on jesus lived under an open heaven because now as man he has access to all the blessings and the glory and the healing and the mercy and the forgiveness and the grace of heaven so that he can distribute it on earth

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and that's what he will do for his whole mission and he heard the father's voice you are my beloved son in you i am well pleased the father speaks to us as well in the same way on the day of our baptism my beloved son my beloved daughter in whom i am well pleased we as soon as we're baptized we are filled with the holy spirit and we become sons and daughters in the son in jesus

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so that's the beginning of jesus's public ministry and it was from that day forward not before that jesus began to minister in power with healings and miracles and casting out demons and teaching in the anointing of the holy spirit luke tells us that after his baptism he was full of the holy spirit and he went in the power of the spirit into galilee to begin his ministry

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though he is the son of god he chose to live as man dependent on the holy spirit for everything he did well the first thing the holy spirit led him to do was to go into the desert and to face the temptations of satan why would he face satan the evil spirit right after he received the holy spirit because now he has the power of the holy spirit to resist satan

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jesus he could have resisted satan in his divine nature but that wouldn't have been a fair fight he would have just obliterated annihilated the evil spirit but he fought satan in his weak human nature anointed by the holy spirit he's the model for us how do we resist temptation how do we say no to the the subtle seduction of the enemy only by the holy spirit

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and that was very important for jesus before he began his public ministry that he he said a decisive no to all the temptations of satan to be a messiah other than that willed by the father well then the gospel of luke tells us that he went to the synagogue at nazareth and he gave his first sermon which sums up his whole mission and he chose a passage from the prophet isaiah

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it's another passage where isaiah speaks about the spirit anointed messiah isaiah 61 the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor or evangelize the poor he has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim a year acceptable to the lord and jesus then declared today

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the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing he's speaking about what had just happened the spirit of the lord is upon me that's what happened at his baptism god has anointed him now through the holy spirit for his mission as the anointed one the messiah so god the father is the one who anoints jesus the son is the one who is anointed and the holy spirit is the anointing and jesus explains here in this passage

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that he has been anointed and empowered by the holy spirit in order to be able to go into all the darkest places of human bondage captivity to sin captivity to the devil sickness poverty misery unforgiveness guilt oppression to be able to go into this fallen human world to preach the good news of the kingdom

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and to visibly demonstrate that good news by actually healing people and actually setting people free actually forgiving people so we see here the gospel is not good news without power without power it wouldn't be good news but it is good news because it comes with power to bring about what it announces

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and jesus here attributes all the mighty deeds that he is about to do throughout his three years of public ministry not to his divine nature as son of god but to the anointing of the holy spirit upon his human nature he's the model for us because we his disciples receive the same holy spirit that he did and so our mission is to be a mission like his

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in the anointing of the holy spirit later in the gospel at the transfiguration there's a reappearance of the holy spirit in a subtle way we see the father speaking to jesus we speak we see jesus the son with his his divine glory revealed where's the holy spirit the cloud jesus enters the cloud enters the the glorious presence of the holy spirit

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and and it's um and he's speaking to moses and elijah representing the old covenant and his three closest disciples are there peter james and john and they they become witnesses to the divine glory of jesus turning to the gospel of john for a moment jesus in his conversation with nicodemus in chapter 3 explains to him that to enter the kingdom of god one has to receive the gift of the holy

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spirit which is linked with water baptism amen amen i say to you unless one is born of water that's referring to baptism and the spirit that's referring to the gift of the spirit at baptism he cannot enter the kingdom of god we need that actual physical right the sacrament but we need what it conveys which is the very spirit of god and then in chapter four jesus speaks to

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the samaritan woman at the well and he tells her that the living water he gives will quench her deepest thirst will be the fulfillment of her deepest desires and will even become a spring within her everyone who drinks of this water coming from the well will be thirsty again but whoever drinks of the water that i will give will never be thirsty again the water

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that i will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life jesus promises her and us not just water but a spring welling up from within that never runs dry as long as we don't deliberately separ separate ourselves from the holy spirit now later the gospel of john explains very clearly what is that living water that jesus is talking about

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on the last day of the feast the great day jesus stood up and cried out now the feast that john is talking about there is the feast of tabernacles and that was the feast when the jews commemorated their time in the desert and specifically the time when they were thirsty and they cried out to god and moses told god told moses to strike the rock and water gushed forth miraculously from

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the rock so in the time of jesus they commemorated that great event with a procession of priests and levites who gathered water from the pool of siloam in bowls and they then they brought them to the temple and they processed around the altar and they poured out the water on the altar so think of this as the context the background for what jesus says right here if anyone thirsts they're all

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remembering the israelites thirsty in the desert if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water and then john explains for us in case we don't get it now this he said about the spirit which those who believed in him were to receive for as yet the spirit had not been given

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because jesus was not yet glorified so the rock is jesus and the living water that comes from that rock is the holy spirit how is that rock struck we see it in the passion account after he had died one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance and at once there came out blood and water from jesus's wounded side flow

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forgiveness of sins symbolized by the blood and divine life the holy spirit symbolized by the water given to us through the sacraments in a particular way through baptism also symbolized by the water and the eucharist also symbolized by the blood now john tells us again john 7 39 as yet the spirit had not been given because jesus was not yet glorified so the holy spirit couldn't come until

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until after jesus was glorified meaning after he went through his passion why is that only his passion death and resurrection makes the giving of the holy spirit possible why because we were cut off from god by sin caused a gulf between us

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and god we could not receive the holy spirit until sin had been dealt with even the great figures of the old testament patriarchs and prophets and kings who received the holy spirit they had the holy spirit empowering them in some sense coming upon them but not dwelling in them that's only possible after the passion

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and resurrection of jesus do we realize how much more we have been given than even the greatest saints of the old covenant at the last supper jesus again promises that he will send the holy spirit and now he calls him the paraclete is a word that means several things at once it means the advocate the counselor the comforter the helper you could even translate it defense

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attorney jesus says if you love me you will keep my commandments and i will pray the father and he will give you another paraclete another one because the first paraplate is jesus to be with you forever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you so you

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you see even the disciples during the earthly life of jesus had the holy spirit dwelling with them but only after his passion and resurrection could the holy spirit dwell in them we have something that the disciples didn't have even the disciples during the earthly life of jesus now that word paraclete defense attorney implies that in a certain sense christians are those on trial

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we are constantly being accused and the accuser is the evil one constantly attacking us constantly reminding us and reminding god of our sins and the holy spirit is the one who defends us and brings us assurance that we are forgiven he defends us not by saying oh well you know she's really pretty good he means well um his good deeds really outweigh his

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bad deeds no the holy spirit doesn't defend us that way he defends us by saying he or she is covered in the blood of jesus cleansed forgiven made righteous in the precious blood of jesus so accuse her be gone in his name so we cooperate with the holy spirit when we stand against the accuser of the brethren the holy spirit at the same time counsels us he shows us where we have

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turned away from god where we may have embraced idols in some way or even worshiped false gods he shows us ways that that we have become attached to earthly things so that we can repent and be cleansed and forgiven and he's our helper because he helps us live life in christ victoriously and walk in the victory that christ has for us so you know if you ever think like i've

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sometimes thought you know i sure wish so it would have been nice to have seen and heard jesus like his first disciples did the truth is that our union with him is deeper it's greater it's more intimate than what they had before pentecost so we we have uh nothing to be jealous of we have in christ in the holy spirit we

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have everything so now we come to the crucifixion of jesus what happened at his death when he loved them to the end well it says in the gospels each of the four gospels says in a different way that at his death he yielded his spirit especially in the gospel of john he handed over his spirit so at his death jesus gave everything he had to give on one level

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that means he gave his breath he gave his very last breath for us but on a deeper level it means he gave his divine spirit so that we could be filled with his holy spirit father kantel mesa says something beautiful about this he says when we invoke the spirit we should not so to say look up to heaven or anywhere else the spirit comes not from there but from the cross of christ he is the spiritual rock

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from which living water pours over the church to quench the thirst of believers as the rain and its season falls abundantly from the sky collecting in the rocky recesses of the mountains until it finds an outlet and becomes a spring gushing continuously so the spirit came down and collected entirely in jesus during his earthly life on the cross it found an outlet

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a wound and became a fountain gushing to eternal life in the church amen to that well then jesus rose from the dead and before he ascended into heaven he gave his disciples the great commission go make disciples of all nations go preach the gospel to the ends of the earth preach it in the way i did he says at the end of the gospel of mark with

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healings and casting out of demons the accompanying signs just as when i preached the gospel there were accompanying signs of healings and miracles so to preach the gospel well how is that possible how are we mere fragile human beings supposed to carry out this incredible commission jesus reveals the secret at the end of the gospel of luke he says stay in the city until you are clothed

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with power from on high now remember these are the guys and women who had the best formation ever the best study of the bible ever the best preparation for mission the best catechesis anyone ever got three years with jesus so they they had orthodox teaching they had good formation they had it all

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and yet jesus said you don't there's one more thing you need you are not ready for your mission there is still one thing missing in fact we can see that because after his ascension they're still huddled behind locked doors they're on lockdown in the upper room filled with fear jesus says you need one more thing to be clothed with power from on high and he says it again in acts he charged them not to depart from

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jerusalem even though he just said go to the ends of the earth but wait for the promise of the father for john baptized with water but before many days you shall be baptized with the holy spirit you will be baptized with the holy spirit now when we hear baptized we tend to think of the sacrament but before it became a sacrament and a christian word it was an ordinary word in daily use and

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to baptize meant to plunge in water immerse soak dunk drench inundate saturate and so that's why when john was plunging people into the jordan river in his ministry people started calling him john the plunger john the dunker that's what his name means so jesus says

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you are going to be plunged into saturated with the holy spirit that's the culmination of my mission and that's what will get you ready for your mission so the apostles and mary and the other woman 120 disciples all together gathered in the upper room and they prayed and as pope john paul ii said the presence of mary was particularly significant there as

01:06:07

the one who had already received the holy spirit she too awaited a further gift of the holy spirit she too needed to be clothed with power from on high in order to carry out the new mission the lord had for her which he gave her on the cross behold your son the mission to be mother to all the disciples of jesus throughout the world it's immense she needed

01:06:38

a further empowerment and anointing of the holy spirit in order to carry that out jesus's promise was fulfilled on the day of pentecost the holy spirit fell on them something totally new happened they were filled with the holy spirit does that mean concretely well saint paul explains it so well two things really that sum up what happened when

01:07:10

they were filled with the holy spirit first the holy spirit gives to the heart of the believer a revelation of the father of the father's love god's love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit who has been given to us god's love was poured into their hearts we see it from that point on in acts that to be filled with the holy spirit it's not just a doctrinal fact that you

01:07:44

know in your head it's not just a theological statement you've received the holy spirit it's a fact of experience it's unmistakable it's very clearly perceptible when god's love is poured into people's hearts there's kind of an explosive joy it's not always explosive we don't want to reduce it to an emotional experience for some people it's very quiet and peaceful

01:08:14

but it's life-changing when the father's love is poured into our heart as ezekiel prophesied the heart of stone is shattered and it's replaced with the heart of flesh by which we love god and the holy spirit moves us from within to love god in return for his love with divine affection saint paul says when we cry abba father it is the spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit

01:08:46

that we are children of god so the holy spirit moves us in our hearts to know god as father and to love him with a filial love as a son or daughter with divine affection it's the holy spirit who convinces us we are not just disciples we're not just servants we're not just creatures of god we're not just slaves of god but sons and daughters beloved

01:09:19

heirs of god with christ and the second thing that the holy spirit does when he is poured into our hearts is that he gives to the heart of the believer a revelation of the lordship of jesus so the holy spirit reveals the father and he reveals the son saint paul says no one can say jesus is lord except by the holy spirit only the holy spirit can give us that conviction that jesus truly is

01:09:53

lord over all things that's what happens when somebody is baptized with the holy spirit filled with the holy spirit so on this day as the catechism says the holy trinity is fully revealed three divine persons in one god that's why the coming of the holy spirit is the crowning moment of jesus's whole mission why did he die for us on the cross and rise from the dead

01:10:24

not just to forgive us our sins not just to undo the effects of the fall and reconcile us to god but ultimately to divinize us to make us share in his own divine life in a way that will be fully revealed only at the end when we are raised up with him and utterly pervaded by transfigured by the spirit of god

01:10:57

begins in this life but it's completed only on the last day well when the 120 disciples receive that gift of the holy spirit their lives are turned upside down everything changes now they get god's plan for a crucified and risen messiah which they didn't get before when jesus had predicted his passion peter had turned and rebuked him didn't make any sense to talk about a crucified messiah a suffering messiah

01:11:30

to the to the fleshly mind the gospel makes no sense but now he gets it they all get it now the love of god is burning within them fear goes out the window and they are filled with a holy boldness to bear witness to christ to proclaim the glorious good news of the gospel they can't keep it in anymore they're burning to tell the whole world about it

01:12:01

and we see that change especially in peter peter who was even afraid of a servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest just a few weeks earlier now boldly proclaiming the gospel to a crowd of thousands even including the highly educated religious leaders and he stands up in that uh pentecost he gives that pentecost speech and he proclaims what you're seeing and hearing right now

01:12:31

this is it this is the fulfillment of everything god promised this is what the patriarchs longed for it's what the prophets prophesied it's what the psalmist sang about this is the fulfillment of everything that god has promised to us and from that moment they listened to him three thousand are baptized that very day now it's time for them to leave the upper room and go to the ends of the earth

01:13:05

compelled by the burning love of christ that is now in them and the early christians did exactly as jesus had instructed them they went out in all directions and they proclaim the good news with accompanying signs and wonders healings and miracles and gifts of prophecy and tongues and all of the equipment both the the more dramatic and the more ordinary supernatural dynamism that the holy spirit gave

01:13:36

gave them so from that day forward until now the church is only herself when she's alive in the holy spirit the holy spirit is the soul of the mystical body of christ what's what's a body without a soul we call it a corpse sometimes if the church in certain times and places looks more like a corpse

01:14:07

maybe it's because we've once again forgotten the holy spirit and i'll end with this beautiful prayer of uh an orthodox metropolitan ignatius of latakia who said this actually it's not a prayer it's it's a declaration without the holy spirit god is far away christ stays in the past the gospel is a dead letter

01:14:39

the church is simply an organization authority a matter of domination mission a matter of propaganda the liturgy no more no more than an evocation christian living a slave morality but with the holy spirit the cosmos is resurrected and groans with the birth pangs of the kingdom the risen christ is there the gospel is the power of life the church shows

01:15:11

forth the life of the trinity authority is liberating service mission is a pentecost the liturgy is both memorial and anticipation human action is deified come holy spirit do [Music]

01:17:42

do [Music] [Music] you

CHARIS SLC | Pneumatology | Dr. Mary Healy

CHARIS SLC | Pneumatology | Dr. Mary Healy

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