Recognizing Spirits

The texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today explore how we can be led by the Holy Spirit on our journey to greater intimacy with Jesus. Paul proclaims the origin of the Holy Spirit as the Divine essence, the Spirit of God. Our spiritual nature is open to resonance with the Holy Spirit. The Christian community in Corinth, according to Friar Jude Winkler, was being influenced by proto-Gnostic ideas of special knowledge. Some in the community had that indicated that the spiritual being was of God and human flesh was inferior to God and the source of evil. Paul exhorts all people to be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit which is given and revealed to the spiritual heart of all. Father Robert Barron asserts in his teaching, “the body matters to Catholics”. The Gospel of Luke illustrates an episode in the battle between good and evil waged by Jesus. The evil spirits are aware of the Presence of the Spirit of God. The body of the possessed man is in slavery to the spirit of evil. The body is free when the evil spirit is replaced with the Spirit of God. The “mind of Christ” which Paul explains is our gift in the Spirit and the nature of the God of steadfast love and compassion praised in the Psalm is the life force through which we can choose to be empowered to push out our temptations and addictions to self satisfaction which are pathological to our Life in the Spirit.