A Hidden Mystery Inside You

“After Jesus was Baptized, He came up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open for Him.  And He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon Him.  And the voice came from the heavens saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’.”  It must have been very striking for John the Baptist and other people there to have these manifestations, which were revealing who this man Jesus really was.  And in this revelation, there’s also a revelation of who you are, the mystery that is hidden in you, a mystery, which is very encouraging.  And whenever we want to, we can turn to that mystery.  But first of all, let’s look at what happened first.  First of all, God sends John the Baptist.  And John the Baptist is preaching a message and performing a Baptism, of what, of repentance.  His role is to make the people aware of their sins, and their need for conversion and repentance.  So that’s the first step. That’s the bad news. But it’s important to be aware of the bad news, though, to be aware to recognize realistically, the sin that’s in me.  But there’s something more than just my sin.  There’s more bad news, because Baptism frees me from original sin, but it doesn’t free me from all the consequences of original sin.  And there’s the consequence, which is called concupiscence.  And that’s kind of a complicated name, but it’s something we deal with at every moment. Because what is concupiscence?  Concupiscence is, that since original sin, there’s something always pulling us down.  There’s an inclination and each one of us to evil, kind of like gravity is always pulling us down.  So, this concupiscence is always inclining us, there’s a tendency in us to evil, and in our own lives, and in all our world, we see this all over, we see all over the effects of this.  St. Paul says, “we know that the lie is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.  I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self.”  So, he’s talking about this tension between what’s deepest in him, in his inner self, which delights in the law of God.   “But I see in my members, another law at war with the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin, which draws my members.”  So, what he’s saying is that he senses a war going inside himself.  You know, a lot of times, people say I don’t, I’m not really sure what I want.  Well, that’s normal, because there’s all sorts of conflicts going on inside of us.  There’s this war going on inside of us, but he says, His inmost self, and then this law of sin, what he says this law of sin and its members, which is this inclination, in our wounded humanity to evil.  So, and that we’re going to be struggling with our all our life.  And that inclination is not my fault, but it’s something that I still have to deal with.  It’s this war. But if there’s a war going on inside of me, that’s also a good sign.  Because if there was just evil in me there wouldn’t be any war. Right?  If there’s a war, that means there’s something besides that evil, which Saint Paul is speaking about, and that’s the good news.  What do we see in the Gospel today?  What is happening?  What did the people see happening?  They saw a dove coming down and rest on Jesus.  And that’s that simple, visible sign, is we feel this great mystery.  And what is the mystery?  The mystery is the Holy Spirit, normally can’t be seen.  But this was a sign of His presence.  And it’s a sign of the Holy Spirit coming down, the Holy Spirit manifesting His presence in Jesus life, and that in Baptism and the Baptism which comes from the cross of Jesus Christ.  The Baptism that most of us received when we were very little, we don’t remember it.  But what happened, the Holy Spirit came down into your soul. That’s the great mystery.  That’s what happens at Baptism, the Holy Spirit comes down into your soul.  That’s why scripture talks about that Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes down to dwell within us.  And so, St. Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”  I don’t know if you feel like a new creation, especially like maybe like during cedar fever season here, a lot of people don’t feel to new creation.  But so, what does he mean that we’re new creation, if we don’t fear or, if we’re still sinful, if we still get old and so what he means is that, yeah, there’s all that there’s all those human problems.   But there’s something that has happened in our depths.  There’s something new that has happened, something new that is from God.  So, when Jesus says, unless you become like a little child, and we could say, well, fat chance, right?  Because I’m not, I’m not young anymore.  I’m not innocent anymore.  It’s not going to happen.  But in Baptism, it has already happened. Because that’s this new creation, but this child of God that the Holy Spirit has created in you.  And so that there is a new creation, even though there’s sin in us, there’s also a new creation.  And so, Ezekiel, the scripture talks about this a lot, Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel, And the prophet Ezekiel says, He’s talking about His sinful people. But then He says, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you.  And you shall be cleansed from all your uncleanness. And from all your idols, I will cleanse you.”  Notice what the Lord is saying, He’s saying, He’s going to do it, something that we can’t do, He says, I am going to do it, I God, I’m going to do this, you could never do this.  And then what does He say?  He says, “a new heart, I will give you and a new spirit, I will put within you.  And I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh.”  That is a heart capable of loving.  “And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to observe My ordinances.”  So, what has happened is the Lord says He will give us a new heart and a new spirit.  And that’s what happens at Baptism.  We are given a new heart and a new spirit.  We’re not always aware of that.  An example I’ve often used is here at the mission, we don’t have big springs of water, we don’t have a nice stream of water flowing through the mission. The mission is most of the time, very dry.  So, the only way we can live here, the only way we can receive people here for like for retreat is what?  What do we have to do?  We have to dig, dig deep down.  And that’s difficult.  And that’s expensive.  You have to know where to dig.  But, we did that and we found lots of water.  And so that’s why we’re able to be here.  What does that mean that in our life, we can just remain that superficially, but to find this mystery, we have to dig, we have to dig deep into ourselves, so that this water, this living water can flow, this living water of the Holy Spirit.  And sometimes we sense this is often hidden from us.  But sometimes we sense it when we sense a good inspiration in us.  Because we know we all feel the inclination to evil.  We all feel our pride, our envy, our greed, our lust, our anger and all those things.  But sometimes we’re able to sense something very different. Something that is seeking God, something that is humble, something that is unselfish, something that is generous, that is pure, something that is simple and godly.  Where is that coming from?  It’s coming from the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.  And that’s what the special moments help us to become aware of His presence in us.  So that when God calls us to love, He’s not trying to force us to do something artificial.  He’s revealing what your soul is trying to tell you what your heart is trying to tell you.   The deepest part of your heart, beyond our superficial feelings, is wanting to love.  That’s why St. Paul says, “God’s love has been poured into our heart, through the Holy Spirit, who has been given us.”  He doesn’t say God’s love will be poured into your hearts, he says, has been by the Holy Spirit.  So, it’s already there, it’s already there.  But we have to do that digging, that frees it, it permits it to come out.  And so, this is a very encouraging message, because we realize that we’re not alone.  For me, I always, it’s always very encouraging for me to reflect on this.  So, this is how many, maybe more even for you. But because we often feel that we’re kind of alone in this battle, that I have to do this by myself.  I have to be faithful to Jesus, I have to follow His path by myself.  But this is revealing to us that the Holy Spirit has been given to us.  And He has the bigger role.  Like what St. Paul says about prayer.  He says, “the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, because we do not know how to pray as we ought.”  That’s St. Paul saying that.  We don’t know how to pray as we ought. But it doesn’t say just so we just give up.  He sends the Holy Spirit to help us.  He says the Spirit Himself intercedes for us, with the sighs, too deep for words.  So, this is a prayer, which is not a complicated prayer.  It’s the Holy Spirit. He even says, another translation is groaning within us, the Holy Spirit’s that that desire of the voice of places in us the desire for God, the desire to be united to God.  And so, He’s revealing to us that the Holy Spirit is already active in us, since Baptism.  But for the Holy Spirit to fully act, He needs your cooperation.  So, Baptism places within you an infinite potential, in you, there’s an infinite potential.  But it depends on your cooperation.  So, let’s imagine to try to understand this, let’s imagine there’s a you had, your house is a huge house like a mansion.  And so that represents you, and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in your house.  And so, you show Him to a room, let Him in a room. And then you just forget about Him, you ignore Him.  And so even though He’s still there, in the house, in your big house, He’s in a part that you never go to.  And so, you live your life as if He wasn’t even there.  That’s one possibility.  Another possibility is that you manifest the Holy Spirit, that you don’t want Him anymore, you kick Him out, you reject Him.  And so, He leaves your house.  That’s what happens in mortal sin.  In mortal sin, we reject the presence of the Holy Spirit. And so that’s why mortal sin is so serious.  And so, He leaves.  Let’s take another possibility that you don’t kick Him out. You don’t completely forget about Him. Occasionally, once in a while, you visit Him.  So once in a while you remember Him, you spend a little bit of time with Him once in a while, that’s much better.  Or you begin to spend a lot of time with Him. You start talking to Him, you come to Him, you talk to Him about all that you’re going through, you share with Him your problems, you share with Him, your desires, you bring Him all the heavy things that you’re carrying, you talk to Him about your projects, you discuss with Him your decisions that you have to make. You spend time listening to Him, learning from Him just in a sense, hanging out with Him, and He begins to rub off on you.  And so little by little He begins to enter, you begin to enter into a deep friendship with Him.   And that friendship begins to inspire you, to strengthen you, to give you new ideas, to transform you.  And that’s what we see for instance in the lives of the saints, someone who has spent time with the Holy Spirit who has developed the friendship with Holy Spirit, or is that the Holy Spirit, transform them, and communion in friendship.  That’s what we see in our Blessed Mother, and St. Joseph.  And so, St. John the Baptist makes us realistic about our ongoing struggle, our ongoing war with sin.  But this feast of the Baptism of Jesus reminds us of the grace that you received, the infinite grace, the Holy Spirit coming to dwell within you, is sanctifying grace.  And by becoming aware of Him and spending time with Him, you can let Him begin to inspire and transform your life.  And so, you can do that right now, at this Mass, right now, we can turn to the Holy Spirit.  So, let’s, I’ll just invite you to close your eyes for a few moments, and with St. Joseph and our Blessed Mother, with St. John the Baptist, become aware of the Holy Spirit dwelling right now in your heart, in your soul.