Homily for Friday, 23 May 2014‒ Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

This homily was given at the convent of the Holy Child Sisters, Oxford, United Kingdom

Readings of the day: Acts 15:22-31; Psalm 59:8-9, 10, 12; John 15:12-17

How often do we pray to the Holy Spirit?

Pope Francis asks us this very question in his homily this morning. The pope had been reflecting on our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles in which the first “Apostles and elders” of the Church seek the will of the Holy Spirit and of “the whole Church” in making two important decisions. First, Judas and Silas are sent to serve in Antioch alongside Paul and Barnabas. Second, the new regulations imposed on the Christians of Antioch are to be only those minimally necessary for the good of the Christian community: “Abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.”

We hear in our first reading that the people receive these teachings on food and marriage and their messengers, Judas and Silas, with joy. The Christians of Antioch are joyful because these teachings and the choice of Judas and Silas to proclaim them are clearly the fruit of prayer to the Holy Spirit. “It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us” is “the message to be proclaimed in Antioch “by word of mouth.”

But how, then, is it possible for us to know that decisions we make and teachings we interpret in faith are the fruit of attentive prayer to the Holy Spirit? How often do we pray to the Holy Spirit, perhaps even unaware that the Holy Spirit is working through our prayer to teach us, to console us, or maybe to encourage us?

As distinct from the Father and the Son, the Spirit is difficult if not impossible to capture in an image, so how might we pray to the Spirit? When I was a seminarian in Toronto, Canada, I also prepared children for first communion at my religious congregation’s parish there, St. Basil’s Church. One of the activities the children would do during their preparation for first communion was to write down or draw the first images that came to their minds when they thought of the Father; the Son; the Holy Spirit. Almost invariably, on the sheets of paper that the children returned to me after this activity, there would be drawings of an old man in the sky for the Father and a young man on land for the Son. The Spirit almost always proved more difficult to image. The children would draw a dove, fire, or sometimes something more creative…

My point is that, if we take for granted that to capture the Holy Spirit in a concept or an image is next-to-impossible, how can we expect to pray to the Holy Spirit? How often do we pray to the Holy Spirit?

Perhaps the answer to this question is that we pray to the Holy Spirit more often than we are aware. Our invitation to pray to the Holy Spirit in today’s readings and in Pope Francis’ homily may be simply an invitation to allow the Holy Spirit to work through us both in the greater decisions we may have to make, but also in our everyday living of our faith.