Catholic Sensibility

Universi Domenici Gregis, the apostolic constitution that covers the election of the next pope, says, “From the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, where they will assemble at a suitable hour in the afternoon, the Cardinal electors, in choir dress, and invoking the assistance of the Holy Spirit with the chant of the Veni Creator, will solemnly process to the Sistine Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, where the election will be held.” Meanwhile, we are to be “supporting the work of the electors with fervent prayers and supplications to the Holy Spirit and imploring for them the light needed to make their choice before God alone and with concern only for the ‘salvation of souls, which in the Church must always be the supreme law.’” Well, what are we (and they) praying for? What would it mean for the Cardinal electors to receive “the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit” as they vote? Are we talking about a magical force? Perhaps just a state of complete sincerity? To answer these questions, we first have to ask a rather basic question: What is the Holy Spirit? This is a good question to ponder as we approach Pentecost (May 15). On Pentecost, we will remember when, “There appeared to [the Apostles] tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim” (Acts 2:4). Throughout our meditation, I will be indebted to an article by the Benedictine monk Kilian McDonnell (Theological Studies 59 [1998]). Fr McDonnell tells us that when we speak of the Holy Spirit, we really must speak of the Trinity. And we can’t just rest content with mumbling something about “threeness.” We must speak of an actual “Trinitarian dynamic.” “God reaches through the Son in the Spirit to touch and transform the Church and world and to lead them in the Spirit, through Christ, back to the Father.” In St Paul’s words, Jesus Christ “came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:17). It is only in the light of this Holy Spirit that we can see Christ and come into the presence of the Father. The Spirit is the “how” of faith. But this does not mean that the Holy Spirit just is an instrument, nothing beyond a supernatural set of binoculars. The Spirit is “together with the Father and the Son” – in Fr McDonnell’s words, “The Spirit is the Great Insider.” And if we are “in the Spirit,” we are then brought to the “inside” ourselves - to fellowship with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit thus realizes that striking patristic dictum, "God became man so man could become God." This is why St Paul will go so far as to say that Jesus died on the cross just “so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Gal 3:14). Through that “Great Insider,” the Holy Spirit, we really experience what the Greek fathers called theosis or divinization, and the Scholastics more scholastically termed “supernatural elevation.” “For,” as St Paul says, “those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Rom 8:14). And once we appreciate the sheer gravity of what it means to be adopted, we can grasp why the Orthodox Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia has said that "the whole aim of the Christian life is to be a Spirit-bearer, to live in the Spirit of God, to breathe the Spirit of God." This might seem like a bit much. And some of the Greek Fathers and (I think) all of the Syrian Fathers distinguished between what we might call a “full” and “less full” possession of the Spirit. While the “less full” possession comes with our baptism, “fullness” only comes when we begin to lead lives of real self-emptying. The Syrian Father Philoxenus of Mabbug even said, "You have two baptisms. One is the baptism of grace which arises from the water; the other is the baptism of your own free will" (Discourse 9.276). Of course, Philoxenus did not mean that one should get baptized on multiple occasions; he was simply suggesting that our baptisms need to be unfolded at a future moment when we decide to engage in serious discipleship. This might make for an interesting point of dialogue with our Evangelical friends who insist on the necessity of being born-again. The Spirit also reminds us of political concerns. When Jesus begins his ministry, he says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” (Lk 4:18), and goes on to proclaim very good news indeed for the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed. The Holy Spirit also reminds us of the environment, because we, with the “firstfruits of the Spirit … groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies,” “and all creation is groaning in labor pains” with us (Rom 8:22-23). The Holy Spirit also reminds us of the importance of experience. Now, many of us fear any appeal to experience and distrust subjectivity, preferring the supposedly more ironclad objectivity of carefully constructed arguments and authority. But St Hilary of Poitiers writes, "We experience intense joy when we feel within us the first stirrings of the Holy Spirit." And the late Orthodox priest John Meyendorff told us, "The conscious and personal experience of the Holy Spirit is ... the supreme goal of the Christian life in the Byzantine tradition, an experience which presupposes constant growth and ascent." Christianity is, among other things, an inner experience. So what are we praying for when we ask that the Cardinal electors receive the “enlightenment of the Holy Spirit”? We ask that they share in nothing less than the fellowship in love of the Holy Trinity even as they deliberate in the Sistine Chapel of the Apostolic Palace. We ask God that this happens as they receive the “fullness” of the Spirit through deciding to lead lives marked by a Christlike purity and generosity. We ask that, “led by the Spirit,” their vote proclaims good news to the poor and oppressed and that they consciously wait for redemption with all of creation. We ask that they experience intense joy through the stirrings of the Spirit. This is more than praying for a magical force or for simple sincerity. But nothing is impossible for God.