The Holy Spirit is that fire of love that remains lit under the ashes of our sins: if you want, he can set evil on fire and heal you in a flash!
In work, in life, in love… when we really put all of ourselves into what we do, when we really believe in what we build with our hands, that’s where the best of us comes out and that’s exactly where our existence it can be transformed into a masterpiece. But when the rhythm of our life flows at such convulsive levels, intense sensations and deep emotions can jolt us and push us now towards immense joy and now towards acute pain. How many times do we say: “joys and sorrows”? This is what Jesus announces to us: life, with Him in our heart, becomes a masterpiece of love. But, like every great love, it brings with it impetuous joys and stinging pain. It’s like rafting in a river of emotions that flows around us. “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, and the world will rejoice. You will be saddened, but your sadness will be changed into joy.” (John 16.20).
Emotions are essential components of our lives: they push us, they often motivate us, but sometimes they discourage us. Saint Ignatius of Loyola teaches us that the good Spirit, the Holy Spirit, God, encourages us, strengthens us and gives us peace, while the bad spirit, evil, saddens us, creates impediments, upsetting us with false reasons to keep us from going after you.
Here’s the difference! God wants to spur us on and motivate us with positive emotions, while the devil opposes us with negative ones. Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians: “The fruit of the Spirit, however, is love, joy, peace, patience, benevolence, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5.22). Thus the joy that comes from being with God, from walking with Him on the streets of the world, is “dirty” precisely because we live in the world, where we coexist with that “serpent” who deceived Adam and Eve.
It is the shadow of Original Sin that saddens us. And so, that intense joy that we feel when we are more in communion with the God who loves us, is sometimes taken away from us, torn away by a demon who hates us. A demon that threatened the apostles themselves and the first Christians. A demon that still threatens all persecuted Christians in the world today. But we have one certainty: our sadness will be transformed into joy.
Certainly this will happen at the end of time, when man’s destiny will be fulfilled, and the Son of Man will call us to Him, then we will be able to be, like Him and together with Him: pure and authentic love. And our joy will no longer be disturbed. Why “there will be no more curse” (Revelation 22,3) and God “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there will no longer be death, nor mourning, nor lament, nor worry, because the former things have passed away”, because: “There will be no more night and they will no longer need the light of the lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will enlighten them and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 22.5). But we can try to live with joy already here, now, on this earth. To do this we invoke the Holy Spirit, ask him to enter us, to shape us from the inside, to burn our sin and ignite the fire of love. From time to time the spirit of evil will reach us to disturb this balance, but if we are assiduous in prayer and strong in love, the spirit of evil will not have an easy task.
The Holy Spirit is that fire of love that remains lit under the ashes of our sins. It is that energy of good that is stronger than all evil. It is that ability to resist, even in the face of the pain of the Cross; because we know that, behind the shadow of every cross, however dark, the light of the Resurrection stands out. The Holy Spirit has extraordinary strength: breaks down barriers built by prejudices and misunderstandings; it frees us from pride and vainglory; it makes us people capable of listening and welcoming; it puts within us that desire for the infinite that only God can appease.
Let us then force ourselves to rise again, even here, even now, today, as we read these lines. Let us chase away from us the sadness and worries originating from evil by placing all our worries in Jesus. Let us burn them on this embers fueled by the Holy Spirit, let us allow the Spirit of God to breathe on us and remove the ashes of sin and bad thoughts from us . Because like wind it enters our soul and cleans it of every evil encrustation and gives us the strength to get back on our feet and smile at life again. God can. God wants it.
Source: La Buona Parola, Alessandro Ginotta’s blog https://www.labuonaparola.it
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/AlessandroGinotta
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/alessandro.ginotta
