2222AFC060322 – Who ya gonna call?
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Psalm 104:29-30 – 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created;
and you renew the face of the ground.
1 Corinthians 2:14 – 14 Those who are unspiritual[1] do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Our title has a familiar ring to it. We’ve had that question from “Ghost Busters” several times (↔ Click Link) before, but never answered the question. Today, that is what we will focus on – Who ya gonna call? There’s a bunch of Scripture here, so here we go!
I am led to begin with a personal story. On Labor Day, 1999, I became very ill. I was on call for drug testing at the hospital where I was the laboratory manager. We had a contract with the local casinos just outside of Phoenix for testing their employees. I was called out to collect the specimens used for testing. I did not realize it, but I had a very high fever. Perspiration from my head and chest actually soaked the forms I was filling out. The next day I went to see my doctor. He thought I had Valley Fever and gave me medicines for that. I got worse. I went back to the doctor and X-rays were taken. There were signs of a serious pneumonia which might have been Valley Fever but did not act like that. I felt some better when prescribed antibiotics, well enough, in fact, to take a trip to Kauaʻi for Christmas week. When I got back I was getting even more congested, weak, and feverish. They sent me to see a pulmonologist. He accurately diagnosed me with a very serious and advanced infection that was destroying the middle section of my right lung. He put me on some powerful medications and sent me to bed-rest. Over the next several weeks I lay in bed, feverish, sweating, and coughing. We had to put a liner under the bottom-sheet to keep the mattress from getting wet. I lost 25% of my body mass. Finally I recovered enough to go back to work – light duty, half days only. I had a great many hours to think and to pray. During that time my heart and soul prompted me thus: “Get to know the Holy Spirit. You have time, now, so make Him your Friend.” Surprisingly, this illness was not one of my three round-trip excursions down that long tunnel with the bright light at the end.
Many hours during the day and night I asked the Holy Spirit to come to sit with me on the edge of the bed and to hold my hand. I held out my hand to accept his touch. Even to this day, I am surprised to be able to say, “It worked.” In fact, the Holy Spirit became my greatest friend, and I talk with him, work with him, pray with him, listen to him as much as I can. Sometimes I do not listen as well as he wants, and I get a not-so-subtle reminder to wake up and pay attention. Every time I sit down to write one of these posts, I start by using this prayer:
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle 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.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, instructed the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
I cannot claim to have any extraordinary piety because of this relationship because there is, in fact, nothing extraordinary about it. Everyone who has been properly baptized and confirmed has the Holy Spirit dwelling within and around them. In baptism – as instructed by Jesus himself – a person is baptized “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” and the Holy Spirit is conferred upon the new member of the Church through the laying on of hands after anointing with chrism (a sacred oil), the bestowing of a white garment, and the Ephphatha – the opening of the ears to receive the Gospel and 
the mouth to proclaim the Gospel. Baptism produces an indelible mark on the soul of the baptized. It is permanent and cannot be eradicated. Not only does this mark make your heart and soul a place of sanctity, but also it serves as a warning sign to the Devil that we have been claimed for God in Christ Jesus. Here’s an example of that.
We are further gifted with the presence of the Holy Spirit at Confirmation. Ideally baptism and confirmation should be chronologically close. There was a period in the Church when confirmation was deferred until high school age, but many dioceses have returned to the “normal order” of baptism followed by confirmation when the Bishop or presiding Priest says “Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit.” In the epistles of the Apostle Paul and other letter-writers, that is how it happens – baptism and then confirmation in the Holy Spirit. Now, why go into all this detail about something that most of us generally overlook? I want us to refocus on the F.A.C.T. that we are all Following All Christ Taught, and one of the most important things he taught was that His Father would send to them “Power from on High,” the Holy Spirit who would teach them all things and remind them of everything he had told them. See Luke 24:49 and John 14:26 (← Check it out!), I’ll wait. What are we supposed to do with that information? It’s simple – PRAY.
Who among us prays to the Holy Spirit? Do we know that we can? Do we know how? Do we know why? Let’s start with that, the “why.” In the opening prayer, have you ever heard something that sounds like this: “O God, creator and redeemer of mankind, who have given us the pathway to your heavenly Kingdom …”? Our ears momentarily want to hear “who has given us.” But God is community, Trinity – plural. We pray to God the Father, we pray to God the Son, so why not pray to God the Holy Spirit? When I first considered that question during my recovery period back in 2000, my response was, “What do I say?” Guess what happened next?! The Holy Spirit answered and said, “Anything you would say to the Father or the Son.” At that point it all fell into place. I had asked – prayed – for the Holy Spirit to sit by me, to hold my hand, to comfort me. I also prayed to Jesus and the Father, mostly for healing or at least relief and release, but I invited the Holy Spirit to be with me. It was then that I first learned the prayer “Come Holy Spirit,” and I know it is a True and Effective prayer, because he does come and he does speak. I again urge you to visit “Hearing the Voice of God” which is a one-month course of daily teachings and meditations that will help you understand and recognize that God have always been speaking to us. We’re just not listening! In fact, many of us have chosen to be deaf and blind when it comes to speaking to and hearing from God. When we cannot see or hear him we are dismayed. When we cannot access the Spirit of God, we are dead and return to the dust. When we at last do respond to his sending forth his Spirit, we are renewed in New Life. (See our quote from Psalm 104 above). As the Apostle Paul tells us, we cannot discern the Holy Spirit because his presence and Gifts are spiritually discerned, not empiracally deduced. Here are a few other clues about hearing the Holy Spirit:
Romans 8:12-13 – 12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Romans 8:14-17 – 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children[2] of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children (↔ Click Link for an image) of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
John 20:22 – 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is the Ruach (↔ Click Link) of God who moved across the face of the waters in Genesis.
I also invite your careful attention to §2670-2672 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. There you will find this excellent prayer: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Heavenly King, Consoler Spirit, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere and filling all things, treasure of all good and source of all life, come dwell in us, cleanse and save us, you who are All Good.” Our every breath is confirmation of our Creation. The Blessed Trinity are our Creators and we are their creation. All creation rightly gives them joyful thanks and praise – ALL of them. Here is another prayer that helps us hear him and willingly cooperate with his promptings:
A Prayer to the Holy Spirit by St. Augustine of Hippo
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen. And there are a couple of music links you might wish to try:
Veni Sancte Spiritus by Mozart (↔ Music Link)
Come Holy Ghost which dates back to the eighth century (↔ Music Link)
ʻŌmea, I need all the help I can get in this messy life of mine, and since the Holy Spirit is always here, and since we’ve become friends, I enjoy all the time I can spend with him – because he’s right here ALL THE TIME. With the Psalmist, then, we commend our souls, our hearts, and our love to God the Father:
Psalm 51:11 – 11 Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
Now, after all this, “ Who ya gonna call?” Call in the Holy Spirit! “Come Holy Spirit” is all it takes to get started on a friendship so vast and beautiful that we’d be foolish to ignore it. Do you see yourself in this image? Don’t call “Ghosts Busters!” Call the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus the Christ who lives and reigns with God the Father Almighty, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the Giver of Life.”COME HOLY SPIRIT!” (↔ Music Link) Be quietly confirmed and conformed in his presence. He wants you to welcome him because he’s already here.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Come, I AM is here.
Repent and believe the Gospel.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] “Natural” (psuchikos) i.e., given to carnality, of or like bestial – brutish as an animal; earthlings’ “lower nature” and given over to sensuous concupiscence as in powerful sensations of physical desire. Sharply contrasted with pneumatikós (“spiritual”) – the higher, clearly spiritual aspect of humanity that develops through faith in God and acknowledgment of the invisible realm of the Holy Spirit in, through, and by which humanity encounters the Trinity.
[2] Through Baptism and Confirmation (in which we are strengthened and established in Faith and in the FACTs and conformed to the Will of God in the Holy Spirit)
