A new creation
Dear People of St. Boniface,
Continuing from last week’s blog…
I am passionate about the Holy Spirit because I am passionate about Jesus Christ [my Letter to the Romans, chapter 8].
My most deeply-held belief is that the Holy Spirit continues in us the work which Christ once performed on earth. So, if we follow the promptings of the Spirit, we are “set free from sin and death”, because that is what Christ did. The Holy Spirit raised Christ from death, breathing life into him in the tomb, and likewise it gives us a moral rebirth, a new identity – now!
I believe that all creation is longing for the Spirit – not just human creation, but all creation. This is because Christ’s Resurrection has caused a new creation to come about, and the nature of everything is to want to share in it.
The Holy Spirit guides us especially through our conscience [Romans 9:1]; this is God’s call to us ‘from a distance’, which came to me on the road to Damascus. And if we follow our conscience, the results are obvious, as I told the Galatians [5: 17, 19-22] when I list the fruits of the Spirit which are opposed to the fruits of selfishness.
The Holy Spirit enables us to distinguish between the “Spirit of God” and the “spirit of the world” [1 Corinthians 2:12]. We call this the ‘discernment of spirits’ and centuries after my time, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in that Spain which I always longed to visit, was to make it a pivot of his teaching – challenging us to discern: what is our deepest intention behind any decision?
My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL.