Peace be with you.
Friends, we come to the Sixth Sunday of Easter,
which means we’re coming toward the end of the Easter season,
which means coming close to the great feast of Pentecost,
the coming of the Holy Spirit.
So the Church gives us a kind of little foretaste
of Pentecost by talking about the Spirit.
And in all three readings we hear descriptions
of the work of the Holy Spirit.
It’s said sometimes that we overlook the Holy Spirit,
that we underplay the importance of the Spirit.
I don’t think that’s true, because certainly in the
Scriptures and then throughout the Church
there are numerous descriptions of and celebrations of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, of course, sent by the Father and the Son,
is the animating spirit of the life of the Church.
Think of the Spirit as the soul of the Mystical Body.
It’s the animating principle of the Mystical Body.
So we see its work.
We see his work all over the place.
And the readings today give us some indications.
I want to mention five signs of the Holy Spirit.
Look now at our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
We hear about Philip going down to the city of Samaria
and proclaiming Christ to them.
Now, first of all, why is he going there?
Well, because of the persecution following
the execution of Stephen.
A little lesson, everybody:
When something goes really bad, even really bad in your life,
instead of saying,
“Well, this is just awful, dumb suffering,”
say “What’s God up to?
How can I see this as a sign of God’s providence?”
Because of the persecution in Jerusalem,
Apostles and disciples were sent out to the wider world.
Watch how God can use even evil for his purposes.
But what I want to focus on is Philip
proclaiming Christ to them.
Here’s a first sign of the Holy Spirit:
bold speech, proclamation on behalf of Christ.
In our modern societies in the West,
it’s kind of our etiquette that you don’t
talk that much publicly about religion.
You better keep it to yourself.
We’ll tolerate you, but don’t come out publicly
with your religion and your views because that’s
just going to cause trouble.
So we kind of learn early on, don’t talk about religion
in the public space.
Well, he proclaimed Christ to them.
From Philip and Peter and James and John,
all the way up through Fulton Sheen and John Paul II,
people filled with the Holy Spirit
can’t keep Christ to themselves.
They have to speak.
When Paul says,
“Woe to me if I do not evangelize,”
it’s like it was this burning fire inside of him.
He couldn’t keep it to himself.
He had to proclaim Christ.
So a sign that the Holy Spirit is active in you?
So yes, the John Paul IIs and the Billy Grahams and
those who are kind of formally charged with proclaiming Christ.
But it’s everybody.
It’s you. It’s you.
Every baptized person, you’ve been filled up
with the Holy Spirit,
and so bold speech is one of your signs.
Here’s the second one.
The Holy Spirit by definition expels wicked spirits.
Remember, the New Testament is very clear about this.
Not all spirits are holy spirits.
We’re involved, in fact, in a spiritual warfare.
There are creatures, these angels,
higher realities, some of whom have fallen.
Just as there are good people and wicked people,
so there are good angels and wicked angels.
Well, these dark, malignant spirits
do their work in the world.
And I could tell you stories from exorcists that I’ve known
that would curl your toes.
But I mean, typically how these spirits work is
through temptation and through insinuation and so on.
And we all know that.
We battle powers that we can see,
but we also battle powers that we cannot see.
All right.
If the Holy Spirit is in you,
he gets rid of these dark spirits.
There’s a kind of expulsive power to the Holy Spirit.
If he takes up residence in you,
well then these other spirits have to flee.
Listen now:
“For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice,
came out of many possessed people.”
Well, that’s what happened when Philip proclaimed
boldly Jesus Christ.
When Philip, filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaims,
the Holy Spirit comes and then expels the dark powers.
One of the signs of the Spirit is the fleeing of this darkness.
Relatedly, listen:
“When they heard it and saw the signs he was doing,”
there was great rejoicing.
The signs he was doing.
The Holy Spirit produces miraculous effects.
Now, again, I’m not saying this is the everyday reality
of most believers.
It’s not.
But clearly from the New Testament to the present day,
one of the marks of the Holy Spirit
is extraordinary signs and wonders.
Paul speaks of prophecy and words of knowledge
and speaking in tongues.
And yes indeed, from Paul’s time
up to the present day, those are realities
in the life of the Church.
One of the signs of the Spirit are miraculous manifestations.
Something I’ve noticed, it’s very interesting to me
—if you look at the history of evangelization
from the New Testament to today,
very often the initial evangelization of a people or a nation
is accompanied by miraculous signs.
And you can see why.
So someone arrives in a country where they’ve never
heard about Jesus Christ, and yes indeed,
preaching is involved and teaching,
but you wonder at times, what was it
that first got their attention?
Whether it’s Patrick in Ireland,
it’s Boniface in Germany, or whatever.
When someone went to evangelize for the first time.
Or think of the missionaries that went into
parts of Africa the nineteenth century.
What was it that led the people to say,
“Yeah, I’m going to listen to this person”?
Well, there’s lots and lots of testimony
throughout the tradition of miraculous signs,
healings and wonders and so on,
that accompanied these first evangelists.
Doesn’t surprise me.
So these signs, the expulsion of dark powers,
the miraculous manifestation of the Spirit,
these are indicators.
Here’s a third sign of the Spirit,
and I’ve already kind of alluded to it.
It says, “There was great joy in that city”
after Philip proclaimed.
Joy is the principal flag of the Holy Spirit.
Let me say that again.
Joy is the principal flag of the Holy Spirit.
As I record these words, we just had the coronation
of King Charles III,
and when the monarch is in residence in Buckingham Palace,
they fly the standard over the building.
It’s the sign that the king, the monarch, is there.
Well, I think that’s the flag that flies over the house
of someone in whom the Holy Spirit is dwelling.
There are other signs, other indicators,
but the clearest one is joy.
Spare me from these sad and depressing and morose Christians.
They might be right about the moral life,
or they might be right about lots of things,
or they attend to the rubrics of Mass in just the right way,
and all that’s fine.
But the mark of the Holy Spirit is joy.
I’ve known some saints in my life,
a handful I think of people who are really saints.
That’s the mark.
Prayerfulness and everything else that we could name,
but the principal thing is their own joy,
which becomes radiant and contagious.
And you know what I mean.
When you’re with someone and you come away
feeling more alive,
that’s the sign of the Holy Spirit in that person.
When you’ve caught from them your own joy,
the Holy Spirit’s around.
Be attentive to that, everybody; watch for it.
Watch for it in your own life.
That’s the sign the Spirit is dwelling in you.
Here’s a fourth sign now, and I’m going to go
to our second reading, which is from the
First Letter of Peter, and it’s that great line.
I preached on it before at greater length:
“Always be ready to give a reason
for the hope that is in you.”
It’s the great exhortation toward what we call apologetics.
Much in need today, right?
When people have questions about the faith,
they’re wandering away from the Church
and they wonder, they ask questions.
Well, Peter says to his followers and to us,
“Always be ready to give a reason
for the hope that is in you.”
So you’re a Christian, you’re filled with
the Holy Spirit.
You have these various powers and convictions,
and someone asks about it.
“Hey, what’s that all about?
Where’s it coming from?”
Be ready to give a reason for the hope that’s in you.
See I think, everybody
—and I’m going to name it as a fourth sign
of the Holy Spirit—
that’s intellectual curiosity about the faith.
If the Spirit is in you,
the Spirit of Jesus is within you,
you want to know as much as you can about Jesus.
You’re fascinated by him.
You’re in love with him.
And so you’re eager to find out all you can.
That’s why John Henry Newman says that one of the marks
of doctrine as it’s properly developing is
the intellectual curiosity.
If you’re suddenly,
“I don’t care, I’m not asking questions anymore,
I’m indifferent to it,”
well then the Church is becoming corrupt.
You’re becoming corrupt in your faith.
Intellectual curiosity leading you to read and to study
and to pray over text and to understand the faith
more deeply —that’s a sign
that the Holy Spirit is at work within you.
Can I give you one more?
And I save it for last.
It’s the most important, and I’m relying here
on the great Gospel text.
During the Easter season, we often read from
the Gospel of John and these wonderful
manifestations of the Lord,
the night before he died and then the risen Lord
speaking to his disciples.
And we find this:
“Jesus said to his disciples:
‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . .
Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love him and reveal myself to him.’”
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus
sent by the Father and the Son,
the animating principle of the Church.
Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the spirit of love.
God so loved the world,
the Father so loved the world,
he sent his onlybegotten Son
so that we all might be gathered into
the love that God is.
Who is the Spirit?
The Spirit is the love that connects
the Father and the Son,
the love into which we’ve been invited.
Therefore, the mark of all the five I’ve mentioned,
the most important mark of the Holy Spirit, is love.
What’s love?
I know those who have been listening to me
over the years could probably say it, but
heck, put it on my tombstone because there’s
nothing more important that I’ve ever taught.
And I just derive it from Thomas Aquinas,
who derived it from the great tradition:
to love is to will the good of the other.
That’s it, everybody.
That’s the mark of the Holy Spirit.
Hey, you could have all the things I’ve mentioned,
and they’re all great.
They’re all great.
But if you don’t have this,
you don’t have the Holy Spirit.
That’s why Paul can say there are three things
that last, faith, hope, and love,
but the greatest of these is love.
I could have faith enough to move the mountains,
Paul says, but if I have not love, I’m nothing.
That’s it. That’s it.
That’s the mark of the Holy Spirit, is love.
I accuse myself here,
but a lot of religious people,
we can have a lot of things in us,
but if we don’t have love in us,
then the spirit dwelling in us
ain’t the Holy Spirit.
It’s some other kind of spirit.
This is the mark, willing the good of the other.
John of the Cross says,
“The evening of life will be judged on the basis of love.”
I mean, that’s what it comes down to.
What kind of life did I live?
Oh, I accomplished this and that.
I got this degree and I had these friends
and these connections.
Yeah, yeah, who cares? Who cares?
Did you love?
Was your life marked by willing
the good of the other?
That’s the principal sign of the Holy Spirit.
So how about those five?
People filled with the Spirit,
they proclaim the Lord boldly.
People filled with the Spirit often manifest signs.
People filled with the Spirit have joy.
People filled with the Spirit,
they’ve got intellectual curiosity about the faith.
People filled with the Spirit,
they will the good of the other.
And God bless you.