If we want to be saints, we need the Holy Spirit. He comes in two movements. First, He comes into our lives to clear out the mess of Sin and distraction, then He goes out from us into the world so that the whole world might be renewed in love.
Most people will be familiar with the story of a professor beginning the university term by taking out a large glass mason jar and filling it with large rocks, before asking his students if they thought it was full. When many of them answer affirmatively, he then fills it with smaller rocks, which get into the crevices between the larger rocks. Again he asks them if the jar is full. When they answer affirmatively again, he pours sand into the jar, which fills up every recess between the large and the small rocks. Again he asks them if the jar is full, and this time they are confident that it is - there seems to be no more space left in the jar. It’s at this point the professor pours in several glasses of wine - over and over again, until the sand can abosrb no more - now the jar is full.
The secular moral of the story is that the big rocks represent the really important things, the little rocks represent the somewhat important things, and the sand represents trivial things - that we should make room for what’s important and not for trivialities. The wine is the punchline: no matter how full or busy your life seems, there’s always room for a few glasses of wine.
Perhaps, we might think about it in a different way - imagine that the jar is your soul and the wine is the Holy Spirit. A Saint is someone whose jar is filled with Wine - right to the brim - someone utterly intoxicated with the Holy Spirit. But most of us aren’t saints, and we find all kinds of ways to fill up our jars - with the heavy rocks of sin, of grave sin and venial sin, and with the sand of trivialities, all the petty concerns and the little things that stand between us and God - the thousand-and-one distractions of every day life that keep us from being Saints. We fill our jars up with rocks and pebbles and sand and then for good measure, to squeeze out the last drops of the Holy Spirit, we pour in glass after glass of vinegar - the vinegar of a sour attitude, of the grudges we bear against one another, of despair, or pride or lust. We fill our jars up with everything but the Holy Spirit and then we wonder at how messy and how sour our lives have become.
Each one of us is supposed to be a Saint. Jesus says to His disciples that when the Spirit of truth comes you will be my witnesses - you fragile men, you violent, cowardly, weak-minded, quick-to-judge, and ignorant men, will be my witnesses to the whole world. This is the power of the Holy Spirit, that He perfects the love of Christ in us and remakes us into images of Christ in the world - so that although it is we who speak, the words belong to Christ, so that although it is we who are sent it is Christ that people see in us.
Not for nothing, Jesus doesn’t immediately give them the Holy Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t just appear the moment Jesus is taken up into heaven - they spent nine days in prayer with the Blessed Mother, in a quiet place, before the Spirit descended on them, on this glorious day of Pentecost. Why did they spend nine days in prayer? Was the Holy Spirit lost? Was He reluctant to come? No: they spent nine days in prayer because the jar must be emptied of all the dirt and detritus before it can be filled with good wine! The disciples needed to be prepared, spiritually ready, for the descent of the Spirit - so that the gifts Christ promised could fill them up, so that every inch of their being could be freed up to receive the New Wine Christ promised.
If they, who had witnessed the wonders of God worked in Christ Jesus, who had received His instruction and been entrusted with the Church, needed nine days of prayer before they could be fit witnesses to Christ - how much more do we need prayer if we are to fulfil our calling to be Christ’s witnesses?
If we want the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and drive out everything standing between us and Sainthood, we must imitate the Apostles in prayer. Devote ourselves to it, hand ourselves over to it, let it reach deep into our souls and pull out the mess of rocks and sand. Note also - the Apostles were not alone in their prayer. They were gathered together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Unlike them, Mary already had what they had been promised, Mary was already full of grace, Mary didn’t need that time of intense prayer to be purified. She is there, praying for them. She is there as an anchoring presence - a powerful link to Christ Jesus and a strong intercessor with them. So if we want to imitate them in prayer, we too must be in the presence of Mary, our mother, our guide and helper, seeking her prayers and asking for her help. As you seek to be saints, pray especially her most holy Rosary.
If we want the vessel of our soul to be filled up with the new wine of the Holy Spirit, we must pray, and we must pray in the presence of Mary. But there is a trap, a risk we run, that we make our Faith about the wrong person. Your faith is about the wrong person if your faith is just about you. If it’s just “Me and my God” and not “We and our God.” The New Wine is not the kind of wine you can bottle up, put a stopper in, and leave in the wine cellar for a lifetime. The New Wine is meant to be passed around and drunk, it’s meant to be shared, it’s meant to intoxicate. If we put a cork in our faith, and cut it down so that it’s just a ‘personal’ thing, it putrifies, and the wine turns into vinegar.
The Apostles didn’t stay in the upper room. They didn’t receive the fire of the Holy Spirit only to say, well thank God I’m a Saint now, time to retire! They went out into the street, they shared the Good News. So enthusiastic were they to share the truth that the bystanders thought at first that they might be drunk! Pray, that the Holy Spirit has the same effect in your life. Don’t bottle it up, don’t over-personalise it, don’t make it all about me: let the Spirit of God intoxicate you, and through you let it be poured out for others to taste. Not a fake intoxication, not childish arm waving and eye closing and clapping, and babbling nonsense - but a real, intoxicating love. The New Wine Christ pours out for us is the Spirit of love, of generosity, of self-sacrifice.
The Holy Spirit has these two movements. An inward movement, asking Him to come into our lives and clear out the Mess, and an outward movement, asking Him to spread through us to the ends of the earth:
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.
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