The Abiding Presence Of The Holy Ghost In The Soul

THE NEWMAN BOOKSHOP Westminster, Maryland

NIHIL OBSTAT A. R. P. RAPHAEL MOSS, O.P., S.T.L. R. P. AELRED WHITACRE, O.P., S.T.L. ARTHUR J. SCANLAN, D.D. Censor Deputatus IMPRIMATUR: A cross JOHN CARD. FARLEY Archbishop of New York March 21st, 1918 Printed in the United States of America...

16 minute read

Read Chapter

PREFACE

In English-speaking countries the Church has been at a disadvantage in the way in which she has had to expound her doctrine, for she has been forced for many years to limit her attention just to those parts of her teaching wherein the Protestant bodies parted company from her. Without any desire to stir up barren controversy, she has naturally in self-defence been at pains most precisely to define those portions of her gospel most likely to be misunderstood. This has resulted, unfortunately, in

2 minute read

Read Chapter

LEO XIII, POPE

1 This translation is the official form that appeared in the London Tablet , June 5, 1897. VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION That divine office which Jesus Christ received from His Father for the welfare of mankind, and most perfectly fulfilled, had for its final object to put men in possession of the eternal life of glory, and proximately during the course of ages to secure to them the life of divine grace, which is destined eventually to blossom into the life of heaven. Wher

30 minute read

Read Chapter

GOD'S PRESENCE

1. Scripture is very full of the idea of the nearness of God to His creation, the Old Testament is alive with that inspiration, for there is hardly a chapter or verse that does not insist upon that truth. Naturally the New Testament, teaching so tenderly the Fatherhood of God, is even more explicit and more beautiful in its references to this intimate relationship. To the Athenians, St. Paul can develop no other point than this, and he finds in moving accents an eloquent appeal voiced by the tou

2 minute read

Read Chapter

DEGREES OF GOD'S PRESENCE

1. God is intimate with all creation because He made it, for creation implies that God remains within, supporting, upholding. God is within everything, and therefore He is everywhere. But while we thus believe that God is wholly everywhere, we also believe something which seems the exact opposite, for we believe that God is more in some places than in others, more in some people than in others. How is it if God is wholly everywhere that He can be more here than there? To understand this we must

2 minute read

Read Chapter

GOD'S SPECIAL PRESENCE IN THE JUST

1. While God is in everything in creation, He dwells in the just by grace. Scripture quite noticeably uses the word dwelling when it wishes to express the particular way in which God is present in the souls of the just. He is in all things; in the just He dwells. The same word actually is applied to the presence of God in the souls of those in grace as is used when speaking of God's presence in the Temple. But here again it is necessary to say that God's dwelling in the Temple never implied He w

3 minute read

Read Chapter

NATURE OF THIS PRESENCE

1. We have taken it for granted that God then is present somehow in the soul by grace. We have now to consider what sort of a presence this really is. Do we mean absolutely that God the Holy Ghost, is truly in the soul Himself, or do we, by some metaphor or vague expression, mean that He is merely exerting Himself there in some new and especial way? Perhaps it is only that by means of the sevenfold gifts He has got a tighter hold of us and can bring us more completely under the sweet dominion of

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THE MODE OF THIS PRESENCE: OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE

1. The fact, then, of this presence has been established and its nature explained. It is a real presence, a real union between the soul and God the Holy Ghost. We have, however, a further point to elucidate, the mode whereby this presence is effected. Now this is twofold in so far as this presence of the Spirit affects the mind and heart of man. First, then, we take the knowledge of God that by this presence is generated in the soul. By natural knowledge we can argue not only to the existence of

3 minute read

Read Chapter

MODE OF THIS PRESENCE: OBJECT OF LOVE

1. There is something that unites us more closely to our friends than knowledge does, and this is love. Knowledge may teach us about them, may unlock for us gradually throughout life ever more wonderful secrets of their goodness and strength and loyalty. But knowledge of itself pushes us irresistibly on to something more. The more we know of that which is worth knowing, the more we must love it. Now love is greater than knowledge whenever knowledge itself does not really unite us to the object o

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THIS PRESENCE IS OF THE SAME NATURE AS THAT IN HEAVEN

1. This union, then, between God and my soul, effected by grace, is real and true. It is something more than faith can secure, a nearer relationship, a deeper, more personal knowledge, a more ardent and personal love. Indeed, so wonderful is the union effected that the teaching of the Church has been forcibly expressed in Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical , by saying that the only difference between it and the Vision of Heaven is a difference of condition or state, a difference purely accidental, not e

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THIS PRESENCE COMMON TO THE WHOLE TRINITY

1. So far it has been taken for granted that this indwelling is proper to the Holy Spirit, but it must now be added that indeed it is really an indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. It is true that very seldom does Scripture speak of the Three Persons as dwelling in the soul, still less of Their being given or sent. But every reason for which we attribute this to the Holy Ghost would hold equally well of the other Two Persons. By grace we are made partakers of God's Divine nature; He comes to us as

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THIS PRESENCE HAS CERTAIN EFFECTS

1. It is very clear that so tremendous a presence as this indwelling implies must have tremendous results. If, as I believe, Father, and Son, and Spirit, are always within me by grace, the effect upon my soul should be considerable. To begin with, the very nearness to God which this indwelling secures must make a great difference to my outlook on life. To have within me the Ever Blessed Trinity is more than an honor, it is a responsibility; it is more than responsibility, for it is the greatest

3 minute read

Read Chapter

FORGIVENESS OF SIN

1. To understand this first and great effect of grace I must know what sin is, and to grasp sin in its fullness I must comprehend God. To see the heinousness of what is done against Him I must first realize what He is Himself. I have to go through all my ideas of God, my ideas of His majesty, His power, His tenderness, His justice, His mercy. I have got to realize all that He has done for man before I can take in the meaning of man's actions against God. I have to be conscious of the Incarnation

3 minute read

Read Chapter

JUSTIFICATION

1. There is something in the forgiveness of sin which implies an element of positive good, and this is called justification. It means that the attitude of God towards forgiven sin is believed by the Catholic Church to be no mere neglect or forgetfulness of its evil, but an actual and complete forgiveness. At the time of the Protestant Reformation a long controversy was waged over this very point, in which the Reformers took up the curious position that forgiveness implied nothing more than that

3 minute read

Read Chapter

DEIFICATION

1. This very strong expression is used by St. Augustine and many of the Fathers to describe one of the effects of grace. By grace we are deified, i. e., made into gods. Right at the beginning of all the woes of humanity when, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve first were tempted, the lying spirit promised that the reward of disobedience would be that they should become "as gods." The result of sin could hardly be that, so man, made only a little lower than the angels, can at times find himself

3 minute read

Read Chapter

ADOPTED SONSHIP

1. Here again we have to realize that the sonship of God is no mere metaphor, no mere name, but a deep and true fact of huge significance: "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called and should be the sons of God!" (1 John 3). We become the sons of God. St. Paul very gladly quotes the saying of a Greek poet that men are the offspring of God, making use of a particular word which necessarily implies that both the begetter and the begotten are of the sa

3 minute read

Read Chapter

HEIRS OF GOD

1. One of the conditions of adoption is that the newly chosen son should become the legal heir of the new father. Without this legal result or consequence adoption has no meaning. Merely to get a boy to enter a family circle does not imply adoption, for this last has a distinct meaning with a distinct purpose. If, then, we are the heirs of God we are really possessed of a right to His Divine Inheritance. Heaven has been made indeed our home. We speak of it in our hymns as patria , which we can t

3 minute read

Read Chapter

GUIDANCE IN SPIRITUAL LIFE

1. I have God the Holy Spirit with me. He comes to me in order that I may surrender myself to Him. Of course I cannot merge my personality in His to the extent of having no power of my own, but God has such infinite dominion over the heart of man that He is able to move the will, without in any sense whatever violating its freedom. In the liturgy of the Church there are two or three prayers which speak about God "compelling our rebellious wills." Now for anyone else to "compel my will" would be

3 minute read

Read Chapter

GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

1. To live the spiritual life to its fullness we need the instinctive governances of the Holy Ghost. All day long, and even all through the hours when consciousness is asleep, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us in many ways. He is offering us His heavenly counsel, enlightening our minds to an ever more complete understanding of the deep truths of faith, and generally imparting to us that deep knowledge without which we cannot make advance. Reason and common sense have their own contribution to ma

3 minute read

Read Chapter

BEATITUDES

1. The possession of the sevenfold gifts results in the performance of certain virtuous acts, for it is perfectly obvious that if I am so blest by the gifts that I find my reason, will, emotions, made increasedly perceptive of divine currents previously lost to me, I can hardly help acting in a new way. I now discover the view about me, and the music, and, consequently, my manner of life must in some ways be different from before. The Vision has come; it cannot simply open my eyes to new things

3 minute read

Read Chapter

THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT

1. Besides the beatitudes there are other acts that follow from the gifts when properly used by the soul. The beatitudes are means which, under the light infused by God, are valued at their true worth as leading finally to happiness in its more complete sense. But when these are thus put into practice, for the soul understands the new meaning life gathers, they do not end the wonders of the action of grace. As a boy I met life and found it full of interest and dawning with the glories of success

3 minute read

Read Chapter

KNOWLEDGE

1. This gift of God illumines and perfects the intelligence. The purpose of the gifts, it has been already explained, is to make the soul more alive to, and more appreciative of, the whispered instinct of God; not to create new faculties, but to increase the power of those already existing. My mind, then, has to be supernaturalized and refined to that pitch of perception which will enable it to grasp and to understand God's message. Now the mind itself works upon a great variety of subjects. It

3 minute read

Read Chapter

UNDERSTANDING

1. There is another gift required to perfect the intelligence when it is engaged upon the principles of truth. The mind was created by God to exercise itself upon truth, primarily, the Supreme Truth; secondarily, all truths which by their essence must themselves be radiations from the Supreme Truth. These truths are of endless variety, both in their relationship to each other and in the particular line in which they operate. They are the truths of arts and science, the intricate yet unchanging l

3 minute read

Read Chapter

WISDOM

1. All writers on the gifts of the Holy Ghost place wisdom as the highest gift of all. It takes this high position partly because its work is done in the intelligence, which is man's highest power, and partly because it is that highest power occupied to its highest capacity. Like knowledge and understanding, its business is to make us see God everywhere, in the material and spiritual creation of God, in the concrete facts of existence, and in the revealed truths of faith. It produces in a soul a

3 minute read

Read Chapter

COUNSEL

1. The fourth gift that perfects the intelligence acts rather as a moderating than as a stimulating influence. The soul is often impetuous in its decisions, moved by human feelings and passions, urged by desire, love, hatred, prejudice. Quickly stirred to action, it dashes into its course without any real attention to, or understanding of, its better wisdom. Frequently in life my lament has to be that I acted on the impulse of the moment. There is so much that I am sorry for, not merely because

3 minute read

Read Chapter

FORTITUDE

1. After the intelligence comes the will which also, because of the very large part it plays in all human action, needs to be perfected by a gift of the Spirit. It is necessary to repeat that the Holy Spirit does not by His gifts bestow on the soul new powers and new faculties, but develops, refines, perfects faculties already there. It is not the creation of new eyes to see new visions, but the strengthening of the eyes of the soul so as to see more clearly and with a longer sight. The will, th

3 minute read

Read Chapter

PIETY

1. Besides our intelligence and will we have other faculties that go by a diversity of names; sometimes they are called the emotions, sometimes the passions, sometimes they are alluded to as the sentimental side of our nature; but by whatever name we may happen to call them, it is clear that they represent just those movements of our being which are not really rational in themselves, though they can be controlled by the reason. It is simplest to divide them into two classes and to realize that t

3 minute read

Read Chapter

FEAR

1. Catholics as a whole, then, we claim to be not in awe of God, but holding themselves to Him rather by love than fear; yet for all that there must come into our religion a notion also of fear, else God will be made of little account, dwarfed by His hero-followers, the saints. It is possible that familiarity with God may breed something which seems very like contempt. The majesty of God has got to be considered just as much as His love, for either without the other would really give a false ide

3 minute read

Read Chapter

GRACE

1. The indwelling, then, of the Holy Spirit is a true and magnificent phrase. It means that we become living Temples of God. Elsewhere indeed He is in tree, flower, sky, earth, water; up in the Heavens, down to the depths of the lower places, in the cleft wood and lifted stone, in the heart of all creation by the very fact of its creation. Yet the higher a thing is in the scale of being the more nearly is it after God's image and likeness, so that man by his sheer intelligence is more representa

3 minute read

Read Chapter