Watching little children develop and grow is a fantastic thing to witness. Noah will be two years old in July and Leo one year old in August. Their milestones and progress help you realise how much we all develop from a tiny and utterly dependent infant into a toddler who wants to do everything themselves. Then to a child and before you know into a fully formed adult.
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| Noah & Leo, 27 June 2022 |
There are things babies and toddlers do not fully understand, and they need to go under the guidance of their parents. This can be a difficult phase for the toddler and parent as you both learn to understand each other and develop a new form of communication. At first, what we tell Noah or Leo may not make sense, but with time they begin to build awareness. For example, Noah loves blowing out candles but understands he should not touch the flame. He will say: "Wow, it's fire, eina," and for the non-South African reader, "eina" is an expression of pain or trouble.
In the early days, the first disciples and Christians alike are not so different from a little toddler. The gospels are filled with various instances of miracles and prophecies that the disciples did not fully understand at the moment. We can think of the multiplication of loaves, walking on water, or interpreting the meaning of Jesus' parables. We sometimes must follow Our Lord's words without fully understanding the true sense.
Only at Pentecost, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, could the disciples fully understand the meaning of Our Lord's words. The Holy Spirit strengthened their weaknesses and granted them the grace of understanding the truth. However, the Holy Spirit's action was not some one-time event. He continues to act and is present in our lives. The early Church's growth was instrumentally formed by the work of the Holy Spirit, with 3,000 people becoming Christian on a single day as the apostles spread the truth they had received. Today we continue to see how the Holy Spirit holds the Church together, growing from one generation to the next.
How does the Holy Spirit work in our lives?
(1) We are a temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells within us.
We are created by God in his image and likeness. We read that when God created man, he breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). At the moment of the conception of a child, the cooperation of husband, wife, and the Holy Spirit (God himself) makes the life of a new person possible. "For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13).
God breathes his very life into us and imparts a soul to bring life to our bodies; without our soul, our bodies are lifeless. We are a person by being body and soul, which is why we are not ranked in the eyes of God by physical beauty but by inner beauty.
(2) The Spirit sanctifies us and gives us life.
At baptism, we are freed of original sin, which is the sin passed down the generations from Adam and Eve. Our baptism provides us the sanctifying grace to participate in the divine life of the Trinity. Baptism marks our soul with the permanent seal of Christ that can never be removed. Lastly, in baptism, we receive the highest virtues of faith, hope, and charity, along with the gifts of the Holy Spirit (CC, 263).
We are a temple of God by which the Holy Spirit dwells and is ever-present. As such, we have the grace to sanctify the most ordinary circumstances. Simply put, we can make holy the most simple things in our lives by doing them with an intention that gives glory to God.
It takes effort to wash dishes, change nappies, deal with a problematic colleague, handle the pressures of family life, or endure challenging situations. However, what if that effort were not in vain, and we could take all that struggle and make it holy by offering it all to God? The change of heart and mind says I choose to accept this difficulty as small sufferings to offer to God. Perhaps, I choose to do something I dislike in my work or studies with the intention of someone in mind asking me to pray for them.
The question that may come to mind is, how is this possible? Our Lord talks about offering your gift at the altar with a clear conscience (Matthew 5:23). This leans to something pivotal that we can offer our most ordinary circumstances in life as prayer intentions on the altar of sacrifice as a gift to God. Every time the Mass is celebrated (which is the re-enactment of the sacrifice of Calvary where Jesus died for our sins), the Holy Spirit unites our prayers, intentions, offerings, or interior gifts of thanksgiving with Our Lord's most perfect sacrificial love. It transforms it into gifts worthy of being heard and answered by God the Father.
(3) Spirit distributes gifts to us, inspires us, and provokes affections and decisions in our hearts.
The power and action of Holy Spirit is seen when men who lost hope in God regain their sight, when men lame and crippled by their passion forget how to love regain their freedom, when deaf men who do not want to know God regain hearing, when mute men unable to acknowledge their defeats begin to talk, and finally when the life of dead men is destroyed by their sin come to life again (Christ is Passing By, 131).
The Holy Spirit helps us discern between being tempted and giving into temptation. We discern by asking through prayer for the will of God in a situation and the strength to carry it out. The Spirit helps us realise that temptations to eat fruits with desirable colours, tastes, and smells are actually fruit rotten to the core and dead.
Unknown to the eye of the parent but only seen with time. The growth of the infant is the result of daily development and progress. The work of the Holy Spirit is no different and can go by relatively unnoticed. Hence the Spirit goes by the name of the Great Unknown.
"Children find everything in nothing; men find nothing in everything." - Giacomo Leopardi
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