Divine Indwelling

These past couple years I have been experiencing and learning more about the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit dwells within us in a most profound way. As I have grown deeper in faith and closer to the Lord, the Holy Spirit has become more alive within me and I have begun to see how the Lord desires to work through us all by way of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the continued mission of Jesus Christ on earth until the end of time. Through the Spirit we are able to participate, in a most unique way, in the life of Christ on earth.

When we look at humanity’s relationship with the Holy Spirit, we must look first to Our Blessed Mother in order to clearly see the example of holiness and the fullness of the Spirit made manifest in the human person. Mary was immaculately conceived, which means she was saved from original sin at her conception. The Holy Spirit dwelt within Mary in a complete way. This truth reveals to us that where we are void of sin, the Holy Spirit dwells, but it also shows us that where sin exists the Holy Spirit is unable to remain. This is why and how sin separates us from God. For through our Baptism we have been given an internal inheritance of the Holy Spirit, but through sin we block the Spirit from living in and through us. What this means for Mary is that although she was a fully human person, the fullness of the Divine indwelling of the Holy Spirit was made manifest in her through her Immaculate Heart.

Mary then is the perfection of created humanity through the power of the Holy Spirit. As a human being who was created by God, but with the fullness of the Holy Spirit dwelling within her, Mary is the Created Immaculate Conception; while the Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception. These terms come from St. Maximilian Kolbe who pondered the words of Our Lady of Lourdes who told St. Bernadette “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Notice that Mary didn’t say she was immaculately conceived, but she said she is the Immaculate Conception. What St Maximilian Kolbe realized was that Mary is the image of the Holy Spirit in human form, in the created form. In this truth alone we realize that we have a lot to learn from Our Lady. Everything she did, everything she continues to do, is able to enrich our understanding of the Holy Spirit in our own lives. We can learn so much by reflecting on her character and her words, especially as she continues to appear through various apparitions throughout the world.

As the third person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit was not created but always existed. The Spirit has no form, but is the spiration of the eternal love between the Father and the Son.

“The common teaching of the great theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the will or from the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Accordingly, there is a special relationship between the Holy Spirit and acts of the will, especially the act of love which proceeds from the will and not from the intellect.”

From http://icucourses.com/pages/025-08-spiration-of-the-holy-spirit

What St Maximillian Kolbe understood so well was that Mary is the created image of the eternal love between God the Father and Jesus the Son. Mary shows us what this Spirit of Love looks like in created human form. This was possible for Mary because she was without sin and thus her will was perfectly united with the will of God. Mary, although she was fully human, through her Immaculate Heart, was able to be filled with Divinity through the power of the Holy Spirit. In this, God reached down from Heaven and touched mankind in the most intimate way through Mary. This action of God reveals to us His desire to do the same for us. Unlike Mary we struggle with sin and death, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, we are able to be freed from our sins and share in the Divine nature of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is Mary who reveals this ultimate union with the will of God to us in its fullness, although we may only participate in it in part.

Finally, Mary shows us what it means for the Divine Gift of the Holy Spirit to be given freely away in love. The Holy Spirit was given to humanity freely through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We follow Mary in that we do not earn this Gift, but it is freely given to us. To the measure in which we rid ourselves of sin and desire the Spirit to dwell more fully in us, is the measure to which we receive the Gift and actually unwrap it in our lives. Since Mary was able to fully receive and unwrap the Gift of the Holy Spirit, she was also then able to fully and freely give it away. The Holy Spirit both dwelt within her and was given away to the world in a most complete way. This mystery of God’s love does not compute with how the world works. For in the world, when we give it means we will have less. But in the currency of grace, when we give, we are never left with less, we are instead poured into even more so that the Divine Gift can flow through us and we can become better conduits of God’s Grace.

If we look at these actions of the Holy Spirit in the life of Mary, we can see that we have a lot to learn from her relationship with the Holy Spirit. Mary reminds us of the incredible Gift that the Spirit is to each one of us. She reminds us how to say “yes” to that Gift, even when it is not easy. She reminds us that remaining pure and void of sin is where the life of the Spirit is able to be fulfilled in us. She reminds us that the Holy Spirit is able to do great things in us, even when we aren’t seen as anyone great in the eyes of the world.

God the Father is pursuing each one of us. He wants nothing more than to capture our hearts. The Lord desires this so much so that he humbled himself and came into this world through the womb of Mary, so that we could find our way back to His Heart. The intimacy that Mary shared with God the Father is for each one of us as well. The Lord is calling us closer to his Divine Grace so that we may be purified of sin and able to live more freely in the Spirit. When we look to Mary as a model of this union with the will of God, we will find a path to holiness that we can ponder and step out in as we go through our own lives.

*Image is of the Ave Maria wall at the University Catholic Frassati House in Nashville, Tennessee