Various
Lots of insights at Mass yesterday. A fisherman’s boatload!
Jesus blessed, broke the bread and became that bread. This is no more astonishing a feat than that the Trinity can live in us. That God can appear under the appearance of bread might be scandalous to those followers who left him (see John 6) but it is no more scandalous than Jesus blessing, sanctifying, breaking us that we may become in some sense Him. Certainly it would make little sense that Jesus said it would be best for us that he not be here so that he could send the Holy Spirit if the reason were not that the Holy Spirit makes “little Christs” of us all, thus spreading the gospel farther than Christ in the flesh did.
When Paul wrote that “Jesus was made sin” it is expressed perfectly on the Cross. Where Adam crouched naked in the garden, hiding his shame, Christ hung naked for all to see. Both were vulnerable because they were weighed down by the guilt of sins (in Christ’s case it was our sins).
When I become convinced of my hopelessness, I acquire a sense of hope because that hope is no longer mine, but hope in God.
The Holy Spirit displays our sins but is also the curative. I’ve been running Spybot software. It first finds the spyware that lurks in your computer and then fixes each problem individually. Just as I am glad that Spybot finds the spies, so I should be glad the Holy Spirit points out my sins.
I must remember and “cherish in my heart” insights given at Mass or in prayer. I know that I will lose these insights - at least in the sense that soon they will be known only intellectually and not in my heart. And the knowledge that these insights are temporary hurts but that doesn’t release me from treasuring them and holding them to the best of my ability. Alcohol is called “spirits” because the effect is temporary and yet we do not think any less of alcohol. Similarly, the Holy Spirt blows when and where He will and creates a blessed dependence because we have not control.
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