Five Signs of the Holy Spirit - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, we come to the sixth Sunday of Easter, which means we're coming to the end of the Easter season, which means we're coming toward the great feast of Pentecost, which after Christmas and Easter is the most important feast of the church year, the feast of the Holy Spirit. And that's why the church gives us now, as we're approaching Pentecost, these little hints, little anticipations of the Holy Spirit. You know, if you talk, especially to our Eastern Christian friends, they'll chide us in the West because we tend to underplay the Holy Spirit. And there might be some truth to that, you know, and there are a lot of reasons for it. But it certainly is not warranted in the scriptures. The scripture is filled with insight and celebration of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, this Easter season, I've said to you before, the whole of the Acts of the Apostles is all about the Holy Spirit. The risen Christ, the ascended Christ, now sends the Spirit into the church to continue his work. What we see now in all three readings today, this marvelous manifestation of the Spirit, the signs of the Holy Spirit, I think is good for all of us because, look, this is still the era that we're in.

1:09 We're in Act 5 of the great Theodrama. We're in the final act of the Theodrama, which is the age of the church. So what's true of the first Christians is true of us. So what do we find out about the Holy Spirit? Well, we hear in the Acts of the Apostles of Philip and his missionary work. And here's something I think really important and interesting about it. See, it's how Christians read what happens to them. Because of the persecution in Jerusalem, so the early church is being persecuted. And, you know, your first instinct is to say, it's just terrible. It's just a horrible thing. why is God visiting this persecution upon us? But look what happens because of it. Philip and others then flee from Jerusalem, and they go around the Holy Land, and they begin to proclaim. So it becomes a sort of happy fault. The persecution led to missionaries going out like seed all over first the Holy Land and then the world. So anyway, he comes to Samaria, and we hear that he proclaims Christ to them.

2:19 Now, just stay with that for a second. He proclaims Christ to them. We're never meant to keep Christ to ourselves. I know our etiquette in our Western societies is a privatizing etiquette. We tend to say, no, no, your religion's fine. That's good for you, but keep it to yourself. We don't want you making a public display of your faith. That's repugnant to the Bible, everybody. That's repugnant to the nature of Christianity. Jesus said, go and proclaim, preach to all the nations.

2:53 One of the marks of the Holy Spirit, therefore, is bold speech. Let me say that again. One of the marks of the Holy Spirit in the church, broadly speaking, and in your life is bold speech. Now, think from the apostles through the great missionaries and evangelists. up to Billy Graham and John Paul II, bold proclamation of the Lord is a sign of the movement of the Holy Spirit. Now, again, I know you're tempted to think, well, all right, the apostles and Billy Graham and John Paul II, professional evangelizers. That's not me. I'm just trying to make my way in the world. No, no, no. But if you're baptized, maybe you won't be a professional evangelist like John Paul II, but if you're baptized, you have the task of prophecy.

3:48 You have the task of declaring Christ boldly, unapologetically, with joy and enthusiasm. I mean, to what degree do we—and I'll accuse myself here—do we succumb to the etiquette of our kind of modern Western culture, treating our religion as a kind of private hobby? No, no, no. That means the Holy Spirit is not in you. Okay, so there's the first one, bold speech. Here's the second one. It says, the people heard Philip preaching, and then, for unclean spirits crying out in a loud voice came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed or crippled people were cured. Now, again, I know in our context, we probably look askance at this sort of language. We think, oh, that sounds kind of superstitious, and a little bit crazy and demons and people being cured.

4:42 But like it or not, from the Bible all the way through the great tradition to the present day, this is one of the marks of the Holy Spirit. Our amazing signs, especially now in the order of healing. So the Spirit is not just going to do magic tricks for us. Let me show you something amazing. No, the driving out of demons, that's a spiritual healing. and then the curing of physical ailments. It's one of the marks of the Holy Spirit, of the miraculous. Again, if you doubt me, I might have mentioned this to you before. There's a great book by a guy named Craig Keener. He's a Protestant biblical scholar, super smart fellow. And this is a two-volume, it's a big fat thing like this, two-volume account of miracles taking place today. So not long ago, but really, really strange, amazing, marvelous miracles, mostly of healing, that take place today.

5:45 It's one of the marks of the Holy Spirit. You know, as I record these words, I'm standing, what, on a two-minute walk from the main building of the Mayo Clinic, the greatest hospital in the country, one of the greatest in the world. Does Christ, usually in his providence, arrange that he works through secondary causes? Yeah, Christ heals through the genius and the skill and the knowledge of surgeons and diagnosticians and so on. Yeah, and that's great. That's of the Holy Spirit, too. But are there some times when, especially, I find, when the gospel is being proclaimed in a new place, or maybe there's a special need of some kind, that the Holy Spirit, in a remarkable way, manifests himself? Now, if you're a Catholic, you think of a place like Lourdes. Yes, Christ usually heals through the instrumentality of secondary causes, but sometimes he does so in this remarkable way.

6:44 That's a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Here's the third thing, and I love this in the reading about Philip and his evangelizing of Samaria. It says, the rejoicing in that place rose to fever pitch. I don't know what the Greek is. I didn't check it exactly, but I love that rendering in English. The rejoicing in that place rose to fever pitch.

7:14 The flag of the Holy Spirit, if you want to know, is joy. The flag that the Holy Spirit's in you is joy. And you see it now in the lives of the saints, many of whom led difficult lives, faced enormous challenges. Absolutely. But the joy of the Holy Spirit comes bubbling up from them nevertheless. What does God want for us? He's not there to oppress us. He's not there to be this onerous sort of burdened upon us. No, no, God, I've come that your joy might be complete. That's what he wants. He wants us flourishing, alive, joyful. And the more the Holy Spirit's in you, the more you're going to manifest joy. You know, I was reading recently a biography of William F. Buckley, the great political pundit, you know, someone that I've kind of admired for many years.

8:13 I remember watching him as a kid, being fascinated by his debating style and all that. And Buckley's kind of known for his incisive wit and his intelligence. But you know what comes through in the biography? His joy. That it was very difficult to be around him without laughter. Witness after witness will say that when they were with Buckley, there was laughter. Well, of course, he was a man of deep Christian faith, deep Catholic faith. Joy. St. Paul names it, in fact, as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, doesn't he? When I was helping young men discern the priesthood years ago when I was teaching at the seminary, I'd point to that. Is this life for me? Well, does it make you joyful? Yeah, it does. Good. That's a good indicator. Or, hey, is this life for me? Well, you seem sad all the time.

9:09 That might be an indicator this is not for you. When the Holy Spirit's in you, joy is going to reach. Now, maybe not a fever pitch every day, but joy will be a steady accompaniment of your life. I love that. So bold speech, the miraculous joy. Here's a fourth one. This is from our second reading now. St. Peter tells us in his first letter, Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope. Let me say that again. It's a very important line. He's saying to his Christian disciples here, Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.

9:56 What is it about you Christians? What is this faith of yours? Where's that joy coming from? How are these miracles being performed? What's going on with you people? Well, those questions were asked 2,000 years ago. They're still being asked today, aren't they? St. Peter says, be ready to give a reason for the hope that's in you.

10:16 Intellectual curiosity. Intellectual seriousness. Thinking deeply about the faith. St. Anselm says, fides querens intellectum, doesn't he? Faith seeking understanding. John Henry Newman says that Mary, who ponders these mysteries in her heart, is the model of all theologians. One of the marks of the Holy Spirit is an eagerness to think deeply about the faith, to read about the faith, to study it, to muse over it, to entertain objections to it, to learn how to respond to those who are opposed to it. Apologetics, theology, scripture study, all of it. Now, you know, I've railed against this for a long time, but when I was coming of age, there was a deep anti-intellectualism in the church, and it was a disaster. That was a disaster at every level.

11:08 And go right back here to 1 Peter. One of the signs of the Holy Spirit in you is a willingness to engage the faith in an intellectual way. In fact, Newman says that one of the signs that the church is properly unfolding and properly living its life is intellectual curiosity and engagement. Don't underplay that, everybody. Joy and miracles, yeah, bold speech, all that. But deep thought, that's a sign of the Holy Spirit, too. Here's the last one. I'm going to rely on the gospel, which is now all throughout the season we're reading from that high priestly prayer of Jesus, right, the night before he dies. Listen to this. On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me and whoever loves me will be loved by my father.

12:04 Now, what do we find here? This is typical of that discourse. It's this co-inherence, this weaving together. I'm in you, you in me, we in them, they in us. What's being described here, it's the heart of the Christian thing, everybody, is the father sent the son all the way out to God forsaken us that he might gather us into the love that the Father and Son share, whose name is the Holy Spirit. All of this, Germans have that lovely term, in einander, the one in the other, this circumcession, this co-inherence, that's a mark of Christianity.

12:44 What's the name for all this? Love. The Holy Spirit is the love that connects the Father and the Son. St. John tells us God is love. Therefore, when the Spirit is dwelling in you, what's dwelling in you? Love. The love that God is. The Father and the Son loving each other have drawn you into their life. That's Christianity. So the sheerest, fullest, most beautiful sign of the Holy Spirit is love. You will the good of the other. That's what it comes down to. That's the clearest sign that the Holy Spirit's in you