The Prevailing Spirit Leads to Success or Failure As a human being you are composed of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. Your body gives you a physical presence; your soul gives you your intellect, will, and consciousness; and your spirit is the dimension of your soul that enables you to commune with God and with others. Your spirit is always influenced by either the Holy Spirit because you either follow Jesus or Satan’s spirit because you follow the world of which he is king. Thus, examining your spirit as to which spirit is influencing you is very important. St. Ignatius of Loyola emphasized the importance of discerning the dominant spirit in a person’s life. Is it the spirit of God or the spirit of evil, the spirit of consolation or desolation that is influencing your spirit? Discernment is very important because the evil spirit disguises himself as a good spirit. It’s easy to be fooled. Someone said, “Be careful who you trust, salt and sugar look alike!” The dominant spirit within us determines to whom we’re attaching ourselves. The Holy Spirit unlocks the rich depths of what God has given you, while a selfish spirit directs you to what’s convenient or easy. Every football coach knows the importance of his team having a winning spirit. To be part of a successful team it’s essential for every member to be motivated by a winning spirit. There’s a saying that goes, “If you think you can, you will. If you think you can’t, you won’t.” The same is true for any group striving to achieve its purpose. The Holy Spirit leads the creature to the Creator who is the source of his or her strength, which is necessary for success while an evil spirit leads the creature away from the Creator, which brings failure and a loss of happiness.What’s Necessary to Belong to Jesus?
Jesus’ Church warns us that, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Rom 8:9). To be Christian is to belong to Christ made possible by being initiated into His Church in the Sacrament of Baptism. That requires adhering to His teaching, obeying His Commandments, and practicing His Beatitudes. But we can’t belong to Jesus unless we freely choose His Spirit to influence ours. Productive human relationships require the mutual acceptance of one another’s spirit through which we communicate and achieve unity with one another. Similarly, relationship with Jesus requires us to freely allow our spirit to be led by His Spirit since “… no one can say: ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3). To reject a person’s spirit is to reject the person and what he or she stands for in terms of his or her principles. Rejecting a person’s spirit closes you off to his or her soul since the spirit is the dimension of the soul that makes communication possible with God and with one another.What’s Necessary to Act Like Jesus?
We should constantly ask God the Father to send us the Holy Spirit so that we can daily embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior of our life and welcome Him to dwell in our soul with His Father and the Holy Spirit. To embrace a person’s spirit is to allow oneself to be influenced by him or her. We know we’ve received Jesus’ Spirit when we act like Him. Therefore it’s important to know how Jesus acted. Actions express your values; values express your habits (virtues or vices); habits express your character; character expresses your identity. Christian actions express Christ’s values, especially the supernatural virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity along with the natural virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. Practicing these virtues create good habits, which create good character, which create a Christian character. Over 500 years prior to Jesus’ birth the prophet Zechariah foretold Jesus’ values: “See, your King shall come to you; a just Savior is He, meek, and riding on a donkey … He shall banish the chariot … the warrior’s bow, and He shall proclaim peace to the nations” (Zec 9:9-10). God’s Spirit inspired the Psalmist to reveal that, “The Lord is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all His works. … The Lord is faithful in all His words, and holy in all His works, the Lord lifts up all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down” (Ps 145:8-9, 13-14). Jesus is God-in-the-flesh, now resurrected from the dead but still present in His Church’s teaching, in her Sacraments, and community through the power of the Holy Spirit which He bestowed on Peter and the other Apostles and their successors. When your spirit is led by the Holy Spirit you act like Jesus by practicing what He values, namely meekness, humility and peace, mercy, anger controlled by charity, kindness, compassion, faithfulness, goodness, holiness, helpfulness toward the weak, and prayerfulness. So when we uphold these values and practice these virtues we know that Jesus’ Spirit is influencing our spirit and that we belong to Him as members of His holy Church.Inviting the Holy Spirit to Influence Your Spirit
We should begin each day asking the Holy Spirit to guide our spirit throughout the day by praying, “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in them the fire of Your divine love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructed the hearts of the faithful, grant that by that same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.” Receiving Jesus’ Spirit gives us a hopeful future, based on His promises and not on wishful thinking. “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through His Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). It’s the Holy Spirit that enables us to trust in Jesus’ assurance of help in our trials when He bids us to, “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt 11:28-30). Jesus’ yoke is submission to His Father’s will. God’s will is never a burden because He doesn’t ask us to do anything without giving us the necessary grace for its accomplishment. As Christians we never have to carry our burdens alone. Through the Holy Spirit we are empowered not by our learning and cleverness but by becoming like little children trusting in Jesus. Christ’s Spirit is God’s love in action in our lives purifying our communion with Him and with one another. Therefore, in Mother Teresa’s words: “Today recall the love of God for you and for me. His love is so tender. His love is so great, so real, so alive that Jesus came just to teach us that------namely, how to love.” That love becomes real and effective in us when the prevailing spirit guiding our spirit is Jesus’ Spirit. The influence of the Holy Spirit over your human spirit is the key to Christian living. Being a Christian doesn’t create Heaven on earth, but it does point the earth towards Heaven and towards the height of human happiness. Let the Holy Spirit be the prevailing Spirit in your life, enlightening, encouraging, enlarging, and enhancing your soul so that you can make more room for Him to work in you and through you. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, welcome Jesus Christ as the honored Guest of your soul on a daily basis through fully participating in His Church where He meets all your spiritual needs in the reception of her Sacraments, especially in the Holy Mass. The spirit of the creature is fulfilled only in the Spirit of the Creator. Amen! (fr sean)
Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1830854 times)