Father Randy Koenigsknecht
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In this Advent reflection, Father Randy explores the theme of joy and the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. He invites us to see how the Spirit transforms the deserts of our hearts, reminds us of our identity as God’s beloved children, and sends us out to live with boldness and faith.
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This weekend is probably the best one for our preaching series simply because the theme, the Advent theme of this week, is joy. And that lines up very well with this third part of our preaching series on the Holy Spirit. The clearest sign of the Spirit at work in our lives is often joy. A supernatural sense of joy that is able to endure through difficulties because it reveals that God is present among us.
And the Holy Spirit is God working through us. And of course, all the readings for this week also line up with that message quite nicely. That is a great blessing for me as the preacher, to be able to turn directly to the readings that we heard at Mass for this homily.
When the Creed speaks about the Holy Spirit, it is a very short paragraph. It says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”
Most of that little section is dedicated to conveying one simple thing: the Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Trinity. Father Chaz talked about this last week with Jesus. Is Jesus kind of like Superman, like an alien? Is he half God and half man? Not really. Is he fully one and partially the other? Is he kind of like an angel? No. The Creed keeps affirming again and again that Jesus is fully God and fully man, the second person of the Trinity.
It is the same for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. He is the third person of the Trinity, and in many ways the most mysterious one.
On a human level, we can struggle with this. We can naturally approach the person of the Father because we have our own experiences of fathers in our lives. We have parents and authority figures who help reveal something of who God is. We know how to talk to him because we know what it is like to be sons and daughters.
The same goes for Jesus. He became one of us. We hear him speak in the Gospel. We hear him weep. We hear him rejoice. We know we can bring all of that to him because he shared our experience.
With the Holy Spirit, we can feel a little lost. The number one symbol for the Holy Spirit is a bird. And I do not know about you, but my relationship with parakeets, pigeons, and the occasional dove does not translate very well into my relationship with the Holy Spirit. That symbol does not always help us connect.
What does help is focusing on what the Holy Spirit does. He is active. He is probably the person of the Trinity that we are most engaged with in our daily lives, often without even realizing it.
He is the one who dwells in us. Just as at Jesus’ baptism the Holy Spirit descended upon him, the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. He connects us to God the Father, empowers us to live like Jesus, and enables us to do the things that he did. That is why the Creed calls the Holy Spirit the Lord, the giver of life.
That title brings to mind two scenes. The first is from Genesis, when God forms man from the dust of the earth and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. That is the first reception of the Holy Spirit. The second is after the Resurrection, when Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
When we take in the breath of God, the Holy Spirit becomes this animating principle, this divine life within us. We receive God’s own life. We are united with him and transformed from within.
There are two main things the Holy Spirit does. The first is interior work. The second is sending us outward.
The interior work is beautifully described in Isaiah’s prophecy about the desert. For the Jewish people, the desert was a place of death, isolation, and separation from God. Nothing could live there. And yet Isaiah prophesies that the desert will bloom with flowers, that rivers will flow, that life will spring forth. It becomes an image of the Garden of Eden, a place where God dwells.
In our own lives, we have deserts too. Places of sin we have made peace with. Wounds inflicted by others. Areas of shame, fear, and isolation. Those are the deserts of our hearts.
And those are precisely the places where God wants to bring freedom. When we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” he enters those places of greatest shame and isolation. He transforms them from places of death into places where God’s love is revealed.
They become places of connection, intimacy, and abundant life. Places we can return to and say, “This used to be a place of death, but God transformed it.” They become signs that God’s power is greater than our sin and our suffering.
From that place of life and joy, we are then sent out.
This is what happens in Jesus’ life. At his baptism, the Spirit descends upon him and the Father’s voice declares, “This is my beloved Son.” Jesus already knew who he was. He did not need the Spirit’s power to perform miracles. But he chose to rely on the Spirit so that we could follow him.
At our baptism, the same thing happens. The Spirit dwells within us, and the Father declares, “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter.”
The Holy Spirit makes our faith experiential, not just intellectual. He cries out within us, “Abba, Father.” He teaches us to receive God’s love.
Only after Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit did he begin his public ministry. He did this so that he could say to his apostles, “You will do the works that I have done, and even greater ones.” The same Spirit given to Jesus is given to us at baptism and poured out more fully at confirmation.
So why do we not see this more often? One of the biggest reasons is that we do not ask. We do not pray boldly. Often our prayers are timid and fearful. But that is not how the prophets prayed. They prayed with boldness and expectation because they knew who they were: sons and daughters of God.
Children do not hesitate to ask their parents. They ask boldly because they trust. That is how we are meant to pray.
Maybe the first time you pray for healing nothing happens. Maybe the hundredth time nothing happens. But that one time when it does, when someone is healed or restored, it confirms that God is at work and that the Holy Spirit is alive.
Whether the healing is physical or whether God gives peace and strength, you have done what you were asked to do. You have prayed.
So let us take on that mission. Holy Spirit, work through me. Transform me. Send me out.
It begins with the prayer the Church has always prayed:
Come, Holy Spirit.
If you are dry or weary, pray for renewal. If you are trapped in sin or doubt, pray for freedom. If you struggle to believe that God is your Father, pray for that grace.
Come, Holy Spirit. Teach me. Guide me. Show me who to reach out to today.
As we welcome the Spirit into our hearts, we are empowered to live like Christ, to do what was once impossible, because we are living in him. Let us pray for the Spirit today and throughout this week.