Getting Our Heart Around the Corner

Many years ago, when I was teaching in a Catholic high school in Oklahoma City, my co-teacher, Maxine Stank, had a wonderful 7 or 8 year old son, Tommy, with bright red hair and freckles. Maxine told the story of asking Tommy one evening to wash his hands before dinner, explaining that this was necessary so that he didn’t get sick. Begrudgingly, Tommy went and washed his hands, and when he returned, Maxine asked to inspect them, after which Tommy was sent back to wash them a second time, exclaiming loudly all the while: “Jesus and germs...that’s all you hear about and you can’t see either one of them!”

There was a similar longstanding attitude in the Church regarding the Holy Spirit, I think, until about 40 years ago when the Charismatic Movement became popular, and sort of helped to reeducate mainstream Christians to rediscover a personal, as well as community, relationship with God the Holy Spirit.

In John’s Gospel today (14:8-27), Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit: “...I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth...You know him, because he abides in you...” The Greek word used for Advocate or Counselor is parákletos, = someone who hears one’s crying and comes to help; an intercessor; a comforter. Those terms are somewhat general and can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.

Missionaries in foreign lands have often, in the past, found it difficult to translate the Bible into a local dialect because often there are no equivalent terms. The Miao, an ethnic group, which includes the Hmong, and  which is recognized by the People’s Republic of China lives primarily in southern China. A story is told that among the Miao the translation of John’s Gospel was delayed because no word for comfort or Comforter existed. Then one day a missionary heard a tribesman say that he was going to visit a woman who had lost her son. The image he used was that he was going to help her “get her heart around the corner.” And so, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, was then translated as “the One who helps you get your heart around the corner.”

Not only did Jesus promise to send the Advocate, the Spirit: He delivered on his promise. “When the day of Pentecost had come,” says Luke, “they were all together...and...all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit...” The name Pentecost derives from the Greek pentekosté, the 50th day or seven weeks after Passover. The Jewish Pentecost was called the Feast of Weeks, then one of Judaism’s three great feasts. It celebrated the gifts of the first fruits, as well as the gift of the Law to Moses. For followers of Jesus, this Jewish feast became the occasion for an outpouring of the Father’s first fruits: viz., the gifts of God’s Spirit. Through the gift of the Spirit, God empowers Jesus’ followers to speak his Word to all people and to be understood by them. The Acts of the Apostles notes that, through the Spirit’s inspiration in St. Peter’s preaching, a sizable community of faith came into being. It was a permanent group, one which, according to Luke, devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. He says further that they shared a common life, sharing “the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed...”, and that their witness “made a deep impression on everyone.” (Acts 2:43 & 45)

As spiritual descendants of that first community of faith, you and I have received from the Father, through Jesus, the gift of God’s Spirit, our Advocate and Comforter, the one who helps us “get our hearts around the corner”. The secret of a good gift is that it’s practical, something which the receiver can put to immediate use. Jesus‘ gift to that first community of faith changed people: they became people supportive of one another in the faith, telling the story of the Good News, being sensitive to human needs, sharing gladly and generously, continually praising God, and making a difference in their local communities.

The Spirit-Gift is given to you and me most notably in the sacramental signs of Baptism and Confirmation. The Spirit is a gift eminently practical and usable, for the Spirit brings us peace, knowledge and power. Peace = shalom, in Hebrew, means perfect well-being, which is really to say God. It is God’s very presence: complete harmony, such as exists when you and I are in right relationship with ourselves, with one another, and with God. There’s only wholeness, no fragmentation. Paul says in Romans: “...to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6) Moreover, God’s Spirit enables us not only to have Christ’s peace, but to become senders of the Spirit to others, beautifully summarized in The Prayer of St. Francis: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace...” The Spirit also enables us to discern and to know our purpose, our direction in life. Paul again, in 1 Corinthians, reminds us that “...we have received...the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God...” (1 Corinthians 2:12) 

In the Christian Scriptures, the greeting of peace, uttered by those whom Jesus sends, is a word of power. Jesus was conceived as “the power of the Most High”. He is the Word of the Father: God’s presence and power embodied and spoken within people’s hearts. The disciples on the road to Emmaus describe Jesus as “mighty in deed and word before God and all the people”. Jesus’ words and deeds bring Life to people. The gift which the Father and Jesus send at Pentecost is, according to Luke, “like the rush of a violent wind”; all are “filled with the Holy Spirit”. Once empowered, people are gifted to preach, to witness, to heal, to be hospitable, to take others in, to teach, to be discerning, to show mercy: and all of this is for one purpose: “...to equip the saints for the work of ministry,” as Paul says, “for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ...” (Ephesians 4:12-13) That’s a description of how the peace, knowledge and power of the Spirit enables you and me to help one another to “get our hearts around the corner”.

Maggie Daniels, a friend of mine many years ago, shared with me one of her lovely poems, entitled Transparency. It describes the faith, hope and love with which God’s Spirit clothes each of us in Baptism and Confirmation: 

What does it mean

to wear a transparent cloak?

and love like a veil

and faith like invisible wings.

To kneel

hidden and revealed

at the same time

Before the Face of One

who sees.

And how is it that

when the cloak’s edges

fall on the grass

It does not hide the grass

And when it lays on a root,

It does not cover the twistings

But is itself

susceptible to snags and tears?

What good is such a cloak?

of what use is it?

And why?

A transparent cloak

is the loveliest cloak of all

Because it wraps

the treasure without hiding it,

Covers without duplicity,

Avoids familiarity without rejection.

Enhances without falsifying.

And one thing more:

When it enfolds a gift

it grants the receiver

the pleasure of beholding

without denying him

the delight of unwrapping.

It is good for a [person]

to wear such a cloak,

woven of rain and mist,

spun with threads of sun.

But it is difficult

to wear well

for many reasons.

Only a [person] in love can bear it.