“Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)
Having crossed through the halfway mark of Lent, the Holy Mother church gives us a preview of Resurrection Sunday in all the readings today. As I was reading and reflecting on this, the one verse that the Holy Spirit reminded me was not from any of the readings today but from Galatians 3:3, “Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?”
You may ask why? The answer is in John 3:8 ‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” No one knows the work of the Spirit, and I mean When and not How.
How
We do not know when the Spirit will act, but reading through the Holy Scriptures, we do know How the Holy Spirit acts, and I am referring to the life of the Holy Spirit in our personal lives. One of the predominant names given to the Holy Spirit is ‘Sanctifier’. We hear St Paul often using the term ‘Sanctification’. Now, what is Sanctification? A very basic definition for this term is purification, dead to sin, alive to God. We should always ask ourselves this question: Is the Spirit Alive in my Life? Sometimes we pacify ourselves by saying, ‘Yes, the Spirit is Alive, but I don’t feel it.’ Do not give in to that excuse. When was the last time you went to witness your favorite game, be it in a stadium or watching at home with your family and did not get excited when your team scored? Never! If this is true, how come you don’t feel the work of the Holy Spirit in your life in a tangible way?
Let’s go back to Sanctification, we said ‘dead to Sin Alive to God’, correct. Let’s go a bit deeper. Alive to God means you have come to hate the Sin which you once cherished. I have come to hate the Sin that I once cherished; that’s Alive in God! CCC 1431 Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed.
Sanctification
Do I have a repugnance towards the evil actions which I have committed? If the answer is Yes, then Sanctification has started, the Spirit is Alive, and I cannot but live a fully animated Christian life inside and out. There is no more ‘Yes the Spirit is Alive, but I don’t feel it’ talk. No! He is Alive in Me. Wow, is this what Christian freedom feels like? This is exactly what you and I are called to, my dear Brother and Sister in Christ. All that we need to do is let the Spirit work, let the Spirit do his part – Sanctification.
Once the Spirit starts Sanctification, you and I will understand better this verse:
Proverbs 26:11 ‘Like a dog that returns to its vomit
is a fool who reverts to his folly.’
Right now, you may read this verse and say, ‘That is unimaginable, but that is exactly what happens in my Soul and yours when we don’t allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify us. We see the sanctification work of the Spirit written all over in the readings today.
Ezekiel 37:12: ‘Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.’
The Spirit will bring us from the grave (Sin) back to the land of Israel (Alive to God)
Romans 8:9 ‘But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit,[a] since the Spirit of God dwells in you’
Not in Flesh (Sin) in the Spirit (Alive to God).
John 9: 9-10: Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.”
Walk at night, stumble (Sin); Walk during the day (Alive to God)
Prayer
Now, how do I open myself to the Holy Spirit to sanctify me? Start with this prayer after the confession: ‘Holy Spirit, my Sanctifier, give me a strong hatred /repugnance towards all the evil actions that I have just confessed’.
At that point, the work of Sanctification has begun in your Soul! Amen. May you and I walk sanctified the rest of our Lenten Journey as we eagerly await Resurrection Sunday (Dead to Sin, Alive to God).
