Trust in the Holy Spirit
'26When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to your from the Father, the Spirit of truth who come from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27you also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.'
As well as believing in Christ, I am asked to believe in his Spirit.
If I believe in the Holy Spirit, then I believe in that which the Spirit can accomplish not only in others but also in me.
There is no more room then for being pessimistic about myself.
Do I know how to love with the selfless love spoken of the Gospel?
Isn't my selfishness too strong?
Am I not going to come across it continually, masked in my seemingly best intention?
Trapped by these questions, some people wear themselves out trying to prove to themselves that a new life has begun within them.
Being able to see, feel and experience that the Spirit lives in me is not required of me.
What is asked of me is that I believe in the Holy Spirit,
that I trust in him, that I abandon myself to him.
Far from being yet another demand made on me, this call to faith sets me free.
Yes, joyful renunciations do exist. Am I really able to love?
I don't know, I accept not knowing and give up my desperate attempts
to assure myself of it.
I will take seriously the promise of Christ:
'I will not leave you orphaned' (John 14.18).
The Gospel does not forget human limitations. It wants, however, to substitute trust in the Holy Spirit for the worry which they cause. In this way,
I can have the courage to be myself.
From this moment onwards,
I can start to live out the little that I have understood of Christ.
My words, clumsy though they may seem, can be used to express my faith.
My actions and words will come from me and yet Someone else,
without my knowing how, will enable them to be a reflection of Christ.
And it is precisely what is best in them
that I will probably be unaware of.
How does trust in the Holy Spirit give me the courage to be a witness to Christ and to be myself?
