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"The Holy Spirit and Truth"

Bishop Sheridan's Homily at Mass of the Holy Spirit on Convocation Day

(Fall 2006 Newsletter)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Once again we have the joy and privilege of coming to the altar of the Lord to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We do this at the beginning of a new academic year at Thomas Aquinas College. In this Mass we will call upon the Holy Spirit to pour out again in abundance His sevenfold gifts:

Wisdom: The power to judge and order all things in accordance with divine norms;

Understanding: The power to more deeply penetrate the divine truths held by faith;
Counsel: The power to judge one’s acts as good and therefore to be done, or as evil and therefore to be avoided;

Fortitude: The power to overcome difficulties or endure pain and suffering with strength, as well as to resist evil and persevere in doing what is right even to death;

Knowledge: The power to make correct judgments regarding the things of earth in relation to the things of heaven;

Piety: The power to worship God with reverence and love and thus to treat all people as children of the same Father, i.e., with respect and justice; and

Fear of the Lord: The power to avoid sin and attachment to created things out of reverence and love for God.

The Gospel passage of today’s Mass is taken from Jesus’ farewell discourse to His apostles on the night before He died. As He was about to leave this world in His earthly body, the Lord promised to send the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit would guide the apostles to all truth. The need for this gift of the Holy Spirit is explained by the words that precede these: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.” Jesus’ time on earth with His apostles was brief, and He knew well that these men were limited in their ability to comprehend the fullness of the divine teaching. It would be the Holy Spirit, given to the apostles and, indeed, to the Church at Pentecost that would bring to completion the work of revelation. It is this “deposit of faith,” then, that the apostles handed on to their successors and to all future generations of the disciples of Christ.

In his catechesis on the Holy Spirit of May 17, 1989, Pope John Paul II said this: “To remain in the truth and to act in the truth is the essential task of Christ’s apostles and disciples, both in the early times and in all succeeding generations of the Church down the centuries.” In whatever circumstances of life we find ourselves, it is fidelity to the truth that must always be the foundation of all that we do and say.

The Holy Spirit of Truth is Christ’s irrevocable gift to His Church. In the same catechesis Pope John Paul went on to say: “‘[The Holy Spirit] will bear witness,’ that is to say, He will show the true meaning of the Gospel within the Church, so that She may proclaim it authentically to the whole world. Always and everywhere, even in the ceaselessly changing events of the life of humanity, the ‘Spirit of Truth’ will guide the Church ‘into all truth.’”

The Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus and bestowed at Pentecost, empowers the Church, the Body of Christ, until the end of time to preserve and pass on the deposit of faith to each successive generation. This power is bestowed in different ways. It is for the pope, and the college of bishops in communion with him, to teach authentically and infallibly the one true Faith. But it is for every member of Christ’s Body, laity as well as clergy, to hear the Gospel, to live the Gospel, and to teach the Gospel in its fullness.

In a subsequent catechesis on the Holy Spirit Pope John Paul went on to teach that “Christians, therefore, having received the Holy Spirit, the anointing of Christ, possess in themselves a source of knowledge of the truth, and the Holy Spirit is the Sovereign Teacher who enlightens and guides them” (May 8, 1991).

It is the same Holy Spirit who teaches and the same truth that is taught. But these days the very notion of “truth” is challenged from every quarter. The challenge comes not only from outside the Church, but from her own members as well. Have we learned so well how to live in this world and to fit in with our culture that we have forgotten how to stand for the Truth of God when that truth is questioned or denied even by our own Catholic family members? The great writer and convert to the Catholic faith, G. K. Chesterton, once said: “The trouble with Christians is that they’re not killing enough of them.” Our age calls for new martyrs, men and women filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit—especially courage—men and women who will live and die for the truth of God. And lest we think that this is merely a call to an ideology, remember that the Truth of God is not an idea. The Truth of God is Jesus Christ Himself.

Scripture tells us that we are made in the image and likeness of God. For this reason, our deepest moral convictions also must be made in and for the truth of Jesus Christ, the truth that is preserved and handed on by His Body the Church. Again the words of Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae come to mind: “[W]e need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception. In this regard, the reproach of the Prophet [Isaiah] is extremely straightforward: ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness’” (#58).

I take this very privileged opportunity to call all of you to continue to take up the banner of Christ, the banner of truth—and to do so in the power of the Holy Spirit. We Catholics must dare to challenge the gravely sinful, but often fashionable, ideas of abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research, even when doing so means that we will be persecuted—called judgmental, close-minded, and intolerant. Again, it was Chesterton, I believe, who said that it is easy to be tolerant—if you believe in nothing.

We should not be surprised that in taking up the truth of God, which is the mission of the Church, we will suffer in the cause. But for those willing to die, the reward is nothing less than eternal life. The words of St. Paul still ring in our ears: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” (Romans 8:16-17).

Dear friends in Christ, your years at Thomas Aquinas College will, I am confident, prepare you well to speak the truth and to live the truth. The Holy Spirit of Truth will empower you with His gifts so that you will not weary of the truth. And all of this is the work of love. It is the work of the One who is Love. In his encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI teaches us that the authentic content of love is to want the same thing and to reject the same thing as the beloved. “God’s will is no longer for me an alien will, something imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it is now my own will, based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply present to me than I am to myself” (#17).

If we look to the Cross, we will see God’s love for us revealed most fully-—a love that is completely sacrificial and self-giving. This is the love that we are called imitate. This is the love that is re-presented in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The love that is found in the Eucharist can transform us and make us more like Christ each day. United with Jesus in the Sacrifice of the Cross, we pray that our weak and sinful hearts will be made to be like Christ’s, so that with Him we will always speak the truth in love. Amen.

-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2006