From My Temple to Yours

I've been wondering about being the temple of the Holy Spirit.

It's been a topic of interest for a long time, coming at me from all sorts of perspectives. I contemplate what it means in relation to healing prayer for others, what it means on a molecular level, what it means about Mary, what it means about the two becoming one...

So many questions.

Lately, I've been trying to figure out if there was a point scripturally which indicates a shift. Perhaps at Pentecost, perhaps elsewhere. But a point before which we were not temples, and afterward when we are.

If you can offer any suggestions for research or reference, I would appreciate it. Along with your own thoughts.

Holy Bible as Graven Image?

I have been puzzling something for the last few days, and my puzzler is nearly sore.

I'm interested in what you, faithful reader, thinks. Here's the question.

Is it possible for the Holy Bible to become an idol?

Recent interactions have made me realize that some people appear to equate the book with God Himself. As if the two are one.

But the two are NOT one. They aren't the same thing.

Jesus left us a church. The church eventually pulled together Jewish scriptures, gospel documents describing His life, and letters describing how to run that church. The church decided what documents were inspired and which were not. The church cooperated with the Spirit to develop the Bible, then published it, protected it, and promulgated it.

Jesus tells us that we are members of His body, the church. He says His body is the church.

Nowhere does it say that He is the Bible. It is an unbiblical premise. He is THE word, and the Bible is His inspired word. But those two are not the same things.

They disturb me, these recent conversations; the gesturing toward the Bible when speaking about God Himself. The comments about feeling hunger and longing, and finally realizing that what was hungered for was God's word.

The speaker was hungry for God. She explored who God is through the Bible, and that exploration of Him appeased the hunger.

The book didn't, He did.

The two are not the same.

We should not worship the Bible, nor any other graven image. And I think that in some cases, this is exactly what is happening.

What do you think?

The Resurrection: Third Eucharist

Last week at mass the idea sprang into my mind that there is a connection between the empty tomb and the consecrated Eucharist. I wasn't sure what that meant because the connection is not immediately obvious. It only became clear after I'd taken some time to meditate about it.

In both cases, there is nothing divine present at first. All we see are the accidents of linen wrappings, of bread and wine. Then suddenly there is more. Suddenly He is present again, present in resurrected Body.

For some moments in the tomb He was there only as an empty shell, a mere husk, a hollow image of His fullness. Then suddenly, in a silent moment like that at the annunciation, the miraculous happens again. The Holy Spirit returns as Animus and the Word is re-made into resurrected, glorified flesh to dwell among us.

At the consecration it happens again. The Holy Spirit acts, carrying the laws of nature beyond their constraints into fulfillment to transform the Word once more into His bodily presence.

I've concluded that this miraculous generation takes place three times in the Gospels.

First at the annunciation, when the Holy Spirit falls upon Mary, and Christ becomes flesh for the first time.

Second, at the last supper, when the Holy Spirit transforms the bread and wine into His Body and Blood. When Jesus initiates the sacrament, and instructs His apostles to Do This in remembrance of Him.

Third, at the Resurrection, when the Holy Spirit re-animates Christ into His new bodily form.

After this, the apostles take over, following Jesus' instructions. And so it continues even now, at each mass, when the Holy Spirit descends again to perform the miraculous transformation.

I am so blessed to be Catholic, to recognize how the central reality of our faith is present through each of these key Gospel accounts and to participate as the blessed Trinity continues to re-present this reality to us at each Eucharist.

Amen credo. Amen credo.

Thank you mother

Thinking about Mary's relationships to the Trinity last night made me consider the power of her intercession in a new way. She not only asks her Son to do what she asks (ala the wedding at Cana), she also asks her husband, and her Father.

That's pretty powerful stuff.

Cover your ears young man

I am blessed during this season to be in a home in which dinner table discussion often centers around the readings of the day, or a mystery of the faith. Part of tonight's conversation was about the wedding at Cana. DiDi wondered what Mary's conversation with God must have been like.

How strange it would be to be Mary.

How strange her relationship with the Trinity. If it weren't for the reality of the three persons, it would seem nearly incestuous.

Three persons, one God.

The concept of three persons helps explain the mystery, but barely. To one person, the Father, she is daughter. To one person, the Spirit, she is spouse. To one person, Jesus Christ, she is mother.

How then would a conversation take place during her prayers?

Did she speak to one and ask Him to fill the others in?

How did the Father or the Spirit guide her as she considered urging Jesus to turn the water into wine?

Was the Son listening?

Did she do what we mothers do when something comes on TV that we don't want our kids to see; ask them to cover their eyes? Could she have asked Him to cover His divine ears to her prayers?

The Word happens

While at the church in Jacksonville, I prayed in tongues while trying to pour His spirit up and out of His temple.

In the past, I had always thought that charismatics prayed in tongues to call Him down upon them. Asking Him to fall. And that is what many (most? all?) are asking.

But as I prayed in this way, focusing on pouring Him out while letting prayer pour from my lips, He explained that this is a way of further unleashing Him from within. It is a way of speaking the Word wordlessly.

In some situations, He chooses to take over further, and it turns from our prayer to His. He speaks.

The Word speaks.

And in these charismatic gatherings, when warrior temples pray in tongues and the Spirit seems to fall, I think that it is more than falling. He rises within and speaks and His power is made manifest.

When God speaks, things happen.

Creation happens.

Destruction happens.

Healing happens.

Deliverance happens.

The Word happens.

Sometimes, when we pray in tongues, the Word happens.

Amazing.

The sound of joy

My church's mid week discipleship program started up again last night. The session this time focuses on joy. I'll be teaching in a few weeks, on joy in and through suffering; my favorite topic!

The first class talked a bit about what joy -is-, and what it is not.

During this discussion, someone asked about holy laughter, perhaps in response to the stories that DiDi and I have been telling from our trip.

I thought about this laughter, the sudden unleashing of inexplicable joy that bubbles up uncontrollably, pure gift from the Holy Spirit. A quick taste of the joy of heaven.

And I wondered if Joseph and Mary's household was given this gift. Did Jesus' home ring with the sound of this infectious joy?

Joy to you and me

I spent a blissful five days in Florida this past week, basking in 70 degree weather and the presence of awesome love. It would be impossible to catalog all of the ways in which God moved during this trip, but I'm going to try in a series of posts.

First, about the church service we attended.

It is always interesting to compare other services within the same communion (ICCEC) as ours. Some are higher church, some are more charismatic, some are close to us in the style of worship. In this case, the style was pretty similar. Several prayer teams were available after the Eucharist, and DiDi urged me to ask for prayer about a physical condition. The Holy Spirit was heavily present, and I stood behind her for the prayer -she- was receiving, because she was swaying with the weight of it.

When it was my turn, the woman prayed for the physical stuff, and after pausing, prayed that God would remove the little scrap of sorrow from me and replace it with joy. I had my eyes closed, but DiDi reported that when she spoke the words, her hand flung out toward me first as if to pluck something from my chest, and then whipped back as if slamming something in.

Joy immediately bubbled up within my chest, and a giggle snuck out of my mouth. At the same time, both DiDi and the prayer warrior also began to chuckle, and gradually, the laughter grew and grew between the three of us until we could not control it. We laughed until tears ran down our cheeks and our stomachs ached. We laughed as the recessional music played and the dismissal was announced. And through our laughter I heard the laughs of people behind us. DiDi later told me that when she looked around, she saw the whole congregation laughing.

The church was filled with His joy.

It was an awesome gift, delivered before what was to be a hard afternoon and evening. A profound gift of joy and laughter, not only for us, visitors to this far-away church, but also for His family who regularly gathered there. And for the woman who stood in obedience to pray for those who come before Him, seeking.

Hypostatic Reunion

Mass yesterday was powerful.

Weekday evening masses attract a small group, and BP's homilies in this setting tend toward the dialogic rather than the didactic. They are intimate; more family dinner than holiday feast.

It was in this setting that I sat, having just received the Eucharist, savoring His body melting into the precious blood in my mouth, and willing my taste buds to perceive beyond appearances.

It was then He made me to know that in coming to me, in entering my mouth, He experienced joy.

It was a holy reunion. Holy completion.

His body and blood were reunited with eachother, and with the Spirit residing within me. His body rejoining His body. A hypostatic reunion of the human and the divine.

It swept me off my feet, and to my knees.

And it is still sweeping me now.

(John 6:56)

Tsunami please...

More on the spirit coming forth rather than falling...

I thought about how some people seem to be channels, to be conduits of the Spirit's power. The physician/surgeon who leads our healing ministry at church is one such soul. People love to receive prayer from her because the Holy Spirit's presence is often very tangible.

You can feel it.

In certain charismatic settings the Spirit often acts powerfully. Our teens recently attended the Joshua Revolution in Niagara Falls, and came back with stories about people being knocked off their feet. I've seen it happen at retreats myself; people falling as if a wave strikes and takes them all down in a swoop. And I wondered about that. Why there and then?

I think He can and does choose times and places to fall, particularly when they have been set aside for the purpose of worshiping and experiencing Him.

But I think it may also have to do with those who are praying, even if they are not aware of what they are doing.

I think that some people, like our healing team leader, are able to draw the Spirit up and out of themselves, to unleash it on the people there for prayer. In a larger setting, like at Joshua Revolution, a bunch of people with these gifts are all in place, and so it happens on a broader, grander scale.

He probably also chooses to fall at these moments. I'm not discounting that. But I can't dismiss this new idea, this idea that He is rising up from them, and then from many of the attendees as well, till He swells like an ocean wave, and crashes in among them...

Let's pray for a tsunami.

Let God Arise!

I am exulting in the action and presence of the Spirit in recent weeks. Since confirmation He has showered me with His presence and power.

My church is both liturgical and charismatic, offering validly consecrated Eucharist, healing prayer teams, and everything in between. While my own leanings have been toward the sacramental end, I have had quite a bit of exposure to charismatic worship and prayer.

What I have traditionally seen in charismatic settings is for the one who prays to "call down" the Holy Spirit, asking it to fall.

But we may have this backwards. Or if not exactly backwards, we may be missing a vital opportunity:

We should be asking the Spirit to come forth from us. To come out from the temple. We should be asking for it not to simply fall, but also to arise.

Such a fundamental thing to overlook; that we are God's temple, and that He dwells within us. We say it and believe it without actually understanding it. We forget that He is there, and that He wants to act in and through us. He loves working through His creation. He formed us in His own image and likeness, to do His work.

He wants to breathe on the world as He breathed on the disciples, sending out His Spirit through our very breath...

More on this to come.

More on growing the Spirit

Thomas Howard says that is in the nature of union to produce fruit. Our procreative ability and process is an illustration of this aspect of our God.

The growth of the Father

I stole a few moments to think more about whether or not the Holy Spirit expands, and He jumped in to lead my thoughts.

In the post linked above, I thought about the love growing between my dearest of friends and I, and how the Spirit seems to be making Himself known more and more obviously to us through that friendship.

If the Spirit is (as Augustine claims) the love between the Father and the Son, can it also proceed from the love of us for God and for each other? Could He expand and increase through that love?

When conveying this question to my BP, he reminded me that the Spirit is also a person, and so I brought this into my pondering.

And it occured to me that persons grow.

Bodies grow, and Jesus has a body which grew (and is growing?). We are the body of Christ, and the body and it's members grow.

And love grows.

This all leads me to think that the Spirit Himself can and does grow, and one of the ways He does so is through our love of eachother and for the Father.

But then I wondered, if the Son and the Spirit both grow, does the Father as well?

This one was harder.

He must grow, because the Trinity is one nature. If one grows, all must grow.

And yet He is unchangeing. Immutable.

It is relatively easy to contemplate the Son's growth. And we understand the way that love grows, and can apply that to the Spirit. But how is the Father's growth manifested?

How is One who is unchangeable changing?

It stumped me for a minute, until He stepped in.

And then it occurred to me; perhaps the Father's growth is not in His essence but in His production.

Perhaps it is in the very expansion of the cosmos.

Perhaps the increase of our love feeds the very force of the Father's creative power, and out shoots matter and energy and liturgy and ritual and order and beauty and passion and endurance and hot, molten, burning, unconquerable love.

And so the stars and the planets dance, and the bees and the ants dance, and the church and its liturgy dance, and we dance.

We dance.

We dance.

on the Spirit

I've been thinking about the Holy Spirit being described by St. Augustine as the love between the Father and the Son.

If this is the case, what does it say about us, given that we are part of the body of Christ, and children of the Father?

What happens as we expand and broaden our love for Him and for eachother? Is there some corresponding procession of Spirit?

Does the Spirit increase?

O Let it Freely Burn

From the Forward Day by Day devotional, for May 31, 2009:

Here am I, O Love divine.
I rise, I dress, I eat, I work, play sleep, and rise again.
It’s not a bad life, and yet it leaves a cold and empty place within me.
So come down, O Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down!
Seek thou this soul of mine, for I cannot seek thee.
I know neither where nor how to look.
Seek thou this soul of mine, and visit it with thine own ardor glowing.
Warm the cold and fill the empty place with thyself, for thou thyself art warmth and thou thyself art fullness.
Thou art all compassion; pure unbounded love thou art.
O Comforter, draw near.
Nearer and nearer draw to me till thou art nearer than the breath in my lungs and the beat of my heart.
Within my heart appear—be seen be felt, rule.
And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing, until my heart burns with holy fire.
Then let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming, with a flame no ocean can quench.
Unhindered, unchecked, O let it freely burn!

Imaginatio divina

At my beloved priest's invitation, for a few weeks I have been practicing what I am calling imagiplation or imaginatio divina; the use of the imagination for experiencing God.

It has been an amazing adventure, one which I need to document in greater detail in future. For now I'll limit myself to telling you about His gift to me this morning.

I approach Him in a particular setting which He created for me, and I climb into His lap. Normally I cuddle in like a child. This morning however, I turned my face up to Him as a woman, not a child. He bent His head to meet me and we kissed a kiss of lovers at rest. And as we kissed, He began to blow His breath into me.

I entered His presence heavy of heart and mind. I left at peace and in wonder.

He is so very generous...