Strengthened by the Spirit

What is the experience of being strengthened by the Spirit? The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary offer some food for contemplation of this in our lives. The Acts of the Apostles tells of the encounter of Paul with some disciples who were apparently unaware of the Spirit. This seems paradoxical to an understanding of the call to belief being related to a stirring or resonance of our indwelling Spirit with the Spirit of God. We need to hold on to this paradox as we consider that the “Life of the Spirit” is not experienced at a constant high level in our lives. Some would argue that our humanity cannot exist at the full level of Spiritual connection to the Divine. The invocation of the Spirit is a response of our being to the need to be in deeper communion. As Acts indicates, this deeper communion is marked by detectable increase in courage, wisdom, knowledge, compassion and prayer. The psalmist shows a response of people who become aware of the Presence. Praise is the outpouring which can be spontaneous and uninhibited when the encounter is deep and overwhelming. In John’s Gospel, Jesus hears the movement of the Spirit in His disciples at an initial level of communion. They witness to the clarity they are experiencing about the Nature of Jesus. Jesus is advising them that they will abandon Him and they should be reassured of His relationship to the Father which should give them peace and to anticipate continuing support from the Spirit even through a time when they will flee and desert their ties to Him.