by Paul O'Reilly, SJ
"I saw the Spirit coming down on him from heaven like a dove and resting on him."
I think I saw that happen once.
When I was at school, there was a boy in my class that none of us liked. He gossiped. He made up stories about people. He sucked up to people who were stronger than him. He bullied people who were weaker.
He told tales to the teachers that were mostly untrue and got people into serious trouble that they did not deserve. But the most annoying thing was that whatever you said to him - even something as harmless as "hello", he always had a crude sarcastic remark ready to cut you down to size. And when someone does that to you, pretty soon you start to feel that you don't want to speak to them at all.
Then one day, I passed him in the corridor and said "hello". And he said "hello" back. And not just "hello", but "HELLO!"
I was a little surprised, but I said nothing and walked on. Later in the day, a couple of my friends asked me: "Have you noticed what's happened to Peter? He's so strange!"
And for the next few days, we noticed that he seemed to have changed completely. He smiled; he was pleasant; he told brilliant dirty jokes. He was a pleasure to be with. We could not understand what had happened.
Then after a few days, I found out. I was walking home and there on the road in front of me was Peter walking hand in hand with a very nice young lady from the nearby girls' school. So his secret was out and we all understood exactly what had happened. He was in love.
But, when you're 17 - or even, I have been told, when you're 77 - these things don't always last. After a few weeks they split up. And Peter was very upset about it, even though he realized that it was just that they weren't just quite right for one another.
And we were sad about it because we thought, "Oh no, he's just going to go back to being the way he was." But he didn't. His first experience of love may not have lasted too long, but its effect was permanent. It touched him and changed him forever. Even in just a short time, that girl managed to see something in him and make him feel loved and that released in him the person God created him to be.
Peter taught me something: he taught me that most often when I come across people who are rude, hostile, aggressive, most often the reason is that they are afraid. They generally don't look afraid: they look hostile aggressive and potentially violent. But they are afraid, not so much of what I or anyone else is going to do to them, but they are afraid to reveal who they really are. Because they do not love themselves. That is what their experience of life has taught them. Love can be expressed only by those who have experienced it in their own lives. And for that you have to be loved first. And you have to be given the God-given grace to love yourself. And only then can you obey the Lord's command and love your neighbor as yourself.
That is the gift of the Spirit - to know yourself to be loved by God and by the people of God and to have released in you the confidence to face the world and show yourself as God created you to be. That is what it is to be a child of God, fully human and fully alive.
That is the grace we ask for and receive in baptism when we are welcomed into the community of love; and in confirmation when we become adult members of that community. And it is when we receive that Spirit that we become - as Isaiah says - no longer God's servants, but his Children. That is when we become the light of the World - the presence of the Spirit in <Pentonville prison > or wherever we happen to be. That is what makes us, as St Paul says, the Holy people of the Lord Jesus. It is only when the Holy Spirit has come down and rested upon you that you can go and baptize others with that Spirit. That is what the Christian church exists to do. And that is what converts people like Peter into being Rocks on which Christ is building His Kingdom.
Let us stand and profess our Faith in the Spirit of God.
Mount Street Jesuit Centre,
114 Mount Street,
London SW1K 3AH.
ENGLAND.
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