BLOWING WHERE THE SPIRIT WILLS

Some days ago, I was sent a text asking, “…how do you perceive the Holy Spirit as a PERSON of the Trinity?” It took me some time to respond since NO ONE from the dawn of Christianity has ever been able to make logical sense of the Trinity at all, except for the sisters teaching in my grade school. Their answer: “It’s a mystery!”

Since it seemed to me that the person was asking for a theological explanation, I referenced St Augustine when he wrote that from all eternity the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father; the Holy Spirit is the eternal actualization of that love.

But this was not satisfactory for my interlocutor. The follow-up question was for my own perception. And that is the trigger for this essay.

Monday a week ago I was in Destin (Miramar Beach, actually) for a bit of R&R. I’d just come back from a very solid 4-mile walk on the beach road, and my plan was to shower, relax just a bit more, and then head out to lunch at a favorite restaurant. But when I got back into my room from the walk, there was a voicemail message waiting for me. It was from the daughter of a woman I’d known some years ago, through Cursillo and spiritual direction, so I called her back. Her Mom had had a severe stroke, and there was extensive brain bleeding. She was non-responsive. There would be no recovery.

I said that I would not be back in Mobile until late Monday, and that beyond Mass Tuesday I had the special Holy Hour of Adoration and Rosary for Peace, so I could probably get to the hospital late Tuesday morning.

But something (Someone?) was nudging me, whispering that my plan was not so good. I decided to pass on lunch and head back to Mobile immediately. I dropped off my bags at the rectory, picked up the anointing oils, and headed to the hospital, arriving around 1:30. Gathered there already in ICU were her husband, two daughters, and a brother. They gave me some of the backstory of her health issues of the last few years (none of which I knew). We all gathered around the bedside as I anointed her.

Later that afternoon I got a phone call from the daughter; her Mom had died about 2 hours after I left.

In “Cursillo talk” we might have referred to this as a “close moment with Christ.” In the language of St Ignatius Loyola (in his Consciousness Examen) he would have said it was an awareness “in retrospect” of God’s activity. For myself, then, I simply say it was the working of the Holy Spirit blowing where and when and as the Spirit wills—perhaps this time with the “still, small voice” that alerted Elijah to God’s presence (I Kings 19:9-13), perhaps another time with the spiritual equivalent of the 19 mph gale from the north that had impacted my beach walk that morning. No matter. This time I was docile. And I continue to pray that those in the Synod are also docile to the Spirit—no matter how or when or in which direction the Spirit moves. -Fr. David