Cardinal Donald Wuerl - Open to the Holy Spirit: Living the Gospel with Wisdom and Power

Open to the Holy Spirit

Living the Gospel with Wisdom and Power

Open to the Holy Spirit

Living the Gospel with Wisdom and Power

Cardinal Donald Wuerl

Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division

Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.

Huntington, Indiana 46750

The Scripture citations used in this work are taken from the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (RSV), copyright 1965 and 1966 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.

English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana. English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica, copyright 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Quotations from papal and other Vatican-generated documents available on vatican.va are copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Every reasonable effort has been made to determine copyright holders of excerpted materials and to secure permissions as needed. If any copyrighted materials have been inadvertently used in this work without proper credit being given in one form or another, please notify Our Sunday Visitor in writing so that future printings of this work may be corrected accordingly.

Copyright 2014 by Cardinal Donald Wuerl. Published 2014.

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ISBN 978-1-61278-735-0 (Inventory No. T1445)

eISBN: 978-1-61278-336-9

LCCN: 2014945983

Cover design: Lindsey Riesen

Cover image: Renata Sedmakova / Shutterstock.com

P RINTED IN THE U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA

Contents

INTRODUCTION

The Spirit Effect

In the time after Cardinal Jorge Bergoglios election to the papacy, the media were much abuzz about The Francis Effect. That was the broad term the pundits used to describe the excitement generated by the new pope. He had established himself, right away, as a man with a style all his own. He spoke informally, acted spontaneously, and lived simply. No one could deny that he was having an effect, and everyone (except the most committed curmudgeons) agreed that the effect was good.

But not everyone agreed on what the effect was.

The media understood it in terms of sound bites, photo ops, statistical upticks, and other observable phenomena.

Pastors spoke hopefully about fuller pews and longer lines for the confessional.

Francis himself seemed singularly uninterested in attributing any effect to himself as the cause. Instead he pointed to another person a divine person, the Holy Spirit. The media noticed this, too, and they dutifully reported his lively quotes.

The Holy Spirit upsets us, he said in one homily, because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to move forward.

The Spirit pushes us to take a more evangelical path, but we resist this.

Why do we resist? Because, Pope Francis explained, we want to tame the Holy Spirit, and that is wrong.

It makes for good copy. And the truth is that his counsel makes for a good life. The Holy Father knows that people cannot live a supernatural life apart from the Holy Spirit, and yet so many people live in ignorance of the Spirit.

Some people today say they are spiritual, but not religious. Pope Francis calls all Christians to demonstrate, with their lives, that these are not mutually exclusive categories. They are, in fact, dependent upon one another.

The Spirit is everywhere in Franciss papacy in his teaching, his preaching, his letters, and his off-the-cuff comments to the press. In his most extended discourse on the Spirit, the Holy Father said: When we say that a Christian is a spiritual being we mean just this: the Christian is a person who thinks and acts in accordance with God, in accordance with the Holy Spirit.

Thats religion. The word religion comes from the Latin religio, which means I bind. What binds us as Christians is the Spirit of God. We are held together with the very bond that unites Gods people on earth. We are bound with the very bond that unites the Blessed Trinity in heaven! We are spiritual in so far as we bind ourselves freely to the Holy Spirit. If we want to be spiritual, we must also be religious. If we are truly religious Christians, we will inevitably be spiritual, too.

Pope Francis himself seems eager to tell us that everything good in his preaching can be traced back to the Holy Spirit. If the Francis Effect moves us to love the poor, it is because the Holy Spirit is, in Catholic tradition, the Father of the Poor. If the Francis Effect moves us to be inclusive and welcoming, it is because the Spirit blows where it will (John 3:8). If the Francis Effect makes us want to evangelize, its because Christ came to set the earth on fire with the Spirit, and we live in the time of a New Pentecost, when the tongues of flame are falling again.

The Holy Spirit is an inexhaustible well of the life of God in us, the pope has said.

Pope Francis believes it will be good for people to get to know the Holy Spirit. That, by itself, is good enough reason for a bishop to take up the task of writing a book on the subject or a Christian to take up the task of reading a book on the subject.

Such a book has been a long time in coming. In the fourth century, a great scholar-saint complained of the dearth of studies on the Holy Spirit. Yet, in the twenty-first century, a great scholar-pope could still describe the Holy Spirit as the Unknown God. While it is unlikely that one small book can remedy this age-old deficiency, perhaps Open to the Holy Spirit can be a starting place for one bishop and for those who choose to meet him in these pages.

The beginning chapters deal with the scriptural, doctrinal, and theological foundations of the Churchs faith in the Holy Spirit. Later chapters will apply those basic principles to our spiritual and devotional life the life in the Spirit we live as individuals and share in common as the Church. Finally, we will examine the Holy Spirits role in our witness and in our friendships in short, in the work of the New Evangelization.

It is my prayer that, in the end, we can rejoice in the Holy Spirit, as Jesus did and then take that joy to the world.

Together, then, we can watch for the Effect.

CHAPTER 1

Making the Connection

Air travel is a blessing of modern life. Airliners, these great birds, whisk us from home to distant places, enabling us to work with people who would otherwise be strangers to us. Airplanes can power our plans and projects with jet fuel. Families can reunite as often as their members can save up for a round-trip fare.

We can forget these blessings when confronted with long lines in airport security, delays at the gate, missed connections, and other inconveniences. Its good for us, however, to appreciate what we have and make the most of it even of its downside. The delays and interruptions, too, can bring unexpected blessings.