2nd Sunday, Ordinary Time, 2023- Fr. Leo
‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ (Jn 1:33)
John the Baptist gives witness to the Holy Spirit who descends on Christ. That moment symbolized Christ’s sharing in the life of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit was the essence of his being as God’s son and is what worked through him in all he said and did in the Father’s name until he surrendered his Spirit in his death on the Cross.
In Pentecost, this same Spirit is given to all believers, and our own Baptism in Christ, Confirmation and Eucharist, makes each one of us sharers in the life of the Trinity. God dwells in us. We share in the divinity of God as we become even more Holy by the grace of God. It is this Holy Spirit that descends on Jesus that descends on each of us.
Living in the fullness of the Spirit is God’s will for each of us and the hope of every believer who seeks the fullness of life here and in eternity. In our prayer this week, let us pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit with sincere hearts, and do all we can do to live in the presence of God in every moment. This is the striving of the mystic which each of us must become. Seeing God in every beauty and wonder that surrounds us, changes our experience of time because in beauty there is a timelessness that is also the experience of God. In those moments we are still and know that God is our God. For this we long and pray.