A Great Talk On The HOLY SPIRIT

Sermon Notes

Venerable Fulton John Sheen Archbishop & Theologian JMJ

this is a very sleepy time for a conference

it was the time we always had scripture in the seminary

and i am here reminded of a seminary a professor of scripture was asked to give a lecture in a parish

on the minor prophets there are twelve of them

he had finished three after one hour and 45 minutes

he thought that the audience was getting a bit tired and he should introduce therefore the next prophet was some degree of

histrionics and he said and now

and now where shall i place

habakkuk someone got up in the back of the halls that he can take my seat

[Music] we have a very important subject

today to discuss and i trust i can make it clear

[Music] it will be very much out of routine in its treatment

subject is the holy spirit now let me begin by saying

that i do not believe that we should just be talking about the body and soul

of man this dichotomy is not

very biblical we are not composed of body soul alone

we are composed of body soul and spirit not the holy spirit

spirit with a small s when we come to a capital s the holy spirit i will tell you

now just look at some of the passages of scripture

take for example saint paul’s letter to the thessalonians

says to the thessalonians

may god himself god of every peace

make you holy in every part keep your sound in spirit

in soul [Music] and in body

without fault when our lord jesus christ comes spirit soul and body

remember the magnificat of our lady

anima my abdominum exultavite spiritual smears rejoice my spirit in the lord

saint paul says that the word of god is a sword

separating these soul from the spirit

[Music] now since this is very new to you though

it shouldn’t be let me tell you the functions of each

and for the clergy remember the three words we had for those in greek soma was body

psyche is mind or soul and pneuma is spirit

what does the body give us it gives a sense consciousness

the world is trees its flowers what does the mind give us

reasons thought philosophy

theology science and art what is the spirit

the spirit is god consciousness the capacity that we have to know god

body gives a sense consciousness mind gives us rational consciousness and the spirit gives us

god consciousness or the capacity for it now before the fall

the spirit of man was uppermost so that adam and eve commune with god in the

garden there was that intimacy after the fall

what happened i think was that the spirit sunk down into the mind or soul

the nearest analogy that i can get for this fine for this would be alcoholism or drug addiction

in alcoholism reason is lost

the reason sinks down into the senses a man never thinks as well when he’s under the influence of alcohol as he would

without it in drug addiction the reason is lost

so when original justice was lost by our first parents the spirit sunk down into

the soul but it is always there every single person in the world

is as we appreciate he’s capable of knowing god atheism is acquired

[Applause]

agnosticism is acquired which wordsworth says

in our infancy we trail clouds of glory after us we live in the world of the infinite

so we lost this holy spirit in the fall

now when christ came to this earth he did not remain with us

why should not have our lord stayed here

i can think of a thousand reasons why you should have stayed you mothers could have brought your

children to him to be blessed you would have been inspired by the

majesty of his presence and the nobility of his words and he said it is better for you that i

go for if i go not

the spirit will not come to you capital s the spirit will not come to you

if our lord remained on this earth he would have been outside of us

like an example to be copied

but if he left and sent his spirit

then he would not be outside of us they will be living inside of us a

veritable life to be lived so we left to send us the holy spirit

capitalist to again restore the spirit

which was lost or damaged by the fall

just suppose that i had the power to give the spirit of shakespeare

think of how many of you would want it to be able to write that way or the spirit of michelangelo

the spirit of identity well what’s that compared to the spirit of christ which is communicated in

confirmation so christ left us then to send his spirit

into us and that’s the holy spirit and that lifts up our spirit

and that gives us an intimate communion with god

now the difference that we find among people in the church

too and the difference in the world is not an is not a generation gap

no that is not very serious generation gap

there’s a spirit gap those who have the spirit of christ and

those who have not

between those in whom christ’s spirit dwells in their intellect to give them truth their will to give them power and

their body is a temple and those who have the spirit of the world

and maybe even the spirit of the demonic

and the satanic which i shall speak tonight

saint paul brings this out in his letter to the galatians

he tells how the spirit of the world or the spirit of the antichrist operates

in contrast to the spirit of christ for example

he said if you are guided by the holy spirit you will not fulfill the desires of your

lower nature and anyone can see

the kind of behavior that belongs to this lower nature fornication impurity and decency

corals a contentious temper envy fits of rage selfish ambitions dissensions party

intrigues jealousies drinking bouts orgies and the light and i warn you

those who behave in such ways will never enter the kingdom of heaven that’s the spirit of the world

now the other spirit holy spirit but the harvest to the spirit is love

joy peace patience kindness

gentleness self-control and the life in other words paul cannot

stop very readily with mentioning the fruits of the holy spirit because as a matter of fact there are so very many

now if i could give you an example of what we are like

in relationship to the holy spirit it would be this our body is like an amplifier

because we radiate sounds they are the result of something that’s already inside of us

the mind is what the minds are the instruments of the orchestra

the drums and violins and so forth the holy spirit is the master musician the director

so if i made myself clear so far we all have a capacity for god

everyone every communist every atheist

if i may enlarge this for a moment in relationship to missions

i do not believe that missionaries have as their work just to bring christ

to the so-called pagan peoples we bring christ out of the people

why out is he already there yes potentially there isn’t a single person in the world

buddhist atheist communist it makes no difference who he is there

isn’t a single person in the world who does not feel it within himself the triple conflict of original sin pride

lost an avalanche everyone has it everyone

now can it be that the effects of the fall were

greater than the effects of the incarnation of the son of god

if our first parents fell and every one of us has the result of it in our civil wars

waging within our breasts shall not the incarnation of the son of

god have a greater effect i think that our missionaries are like

lawyers we’re going out to other people and we’re saying to them do you know that you’re an heir

there’s a great fortune awaiting you someone died

and he willed you a fortune see because he has the spirit the smallest

now this i know is new to you but it’s biblical

now i want to speak of in a relationship to the church

when we speak of the holy spirit we almost always think of

pentecost

this is just half theology of the spirit remember that there were two

manifestations of the spirit and scripture the first was the breathing of our blessed lord upon the apostles upon the

church breathe the spirit on them

gave them the power to forgive sins this was the first spirit

to lost to the church

the second that was functional the second pouring of the spirit was at pentecost with the apostles and the

blessed mother in the center of the hundred and twenty there there was a personal application

of the spirit so there were two outpourings of the spirit therefore if ever you hear of anyone

make a distinction between the charismatic and the institutional church drop them

they’re not sound there is no charismatic church

any more than you’ve got a mind without a body [Applause]

and as the holy father said in one of his recent letters he said i fear very much that those who are invoking the

spirit apart from the church are really having only psychic manifestations

and not spiritual ones

now we come to a few of the manifestations and effects of the spirit in ourselves

and of course this could be elaborated for hours and hours

one of the very interesting

[Music] phenomenon of the spirit is how it is related to the trinity

one might almost say this it is improper but it we must have some

picture every person of the blessed trinity hides behind another person

take the heavenly father the old testament did not know the heavenly father

they had words a word that was so sacred they wouldn’t even even not even pronounce it

so they had to use another word how do we know the father

through the sun the father was hiding before the sun behind the sun

and hence our blessed lord said to philip philip he that seeth me

seeth the father now

how do we know the son through the spirit

our lord said i will send my spirit and he may clarify covet he will reveal

me he will recall to you all things that i have taught you he is the spirit

that’s how we know christ we’re believers in the divinity of

christ how do we know that christ is the son of god by the holy spirit so the father is hiding behind the sun

the sun is revealed by the holy spirit

and who reveals the spirit in this world the church

this is the relationship of the person coming more now to practical matters

a very important effect of the spirit is it unifies us

we are when we’re not holy christ we’re divided

we’re at sixes and sevens we want the divine we want the you

the civil war is waging inside of us

we get what we want and then we’re disappointed

and what is it that brings us together it is the holy spirit

the best short treatise on psychology that was ever written

is the seventh chapter of romans

i wonder if that was really an autobiography of saint paul

or was he just simply expressing

what is common to us all in the seventh chapter of romans

the ego dominates the word i me

my myself is used 30 times

you will find that the more often a person uses the word i

the less happy he is i gotta be me

no we have to be his would you want to be the way you are for

all eternity [Music]

so st paul now in that seventh chapter romans describes the

the disorder

when i want to do the right only the wrong is within my reach

in my inmost self i delight in the law of god but i perceive that there is in my

bodily members a different law fighting against the law that my reason

approves miserable creature that i am

i know that nothing good lodges in me for though i will to do good

the deed is not the good that i wanted to do i failed to

do but

what i do against my will is because sin lodges in me

this is the unchristian purpose person or the one who has not completely given himself

to christ now notice the difference when you come to the eighth chapter of romans the word i me my myself is used

only about three times and these times were necessary for the

sake of narration but

he says now the spirit lives in me and i’m guided by the spirit of christ

this is what the holy spirit does for us it unifies us it makes us whole it introduces a new

love principle we’re completely changed once we have the spirit of christ

really have it i knew of a family where a boy would

never wash his face hands nor coma’s hair

fingernails were dirty his parents and whenever he went out the

door he slammed the parents bathed pleaded coaxed bribed

spanked nothing helped one day he came down to table

fingernails cleaned washed behind the ears his clothes were neat

and when he went out he closed the door gently

he had met susie

a new love principle was introduced into his life

now when we are only concerned about christ is out there

or just in relationship to liturgy and the like

then we do not have this love principle in us

but if the spirit of christ is in us then we can endure anything

we’re never cast down except it is the will of god

this is what results in tremendous transformation character

in london i used to see a man in the parish where i worked

he would come in every morning about eight o’clock and he would go to community at the nine o’clock mass and he would kneel until

about 11. never used a preval

and he would spend about 12 14 hours a day in church

always dressed in a kind of a dirty brown suit

and to test him one day i said were you always as good as you are now

well he said considering the graces that i’ve received i’m probably a thousand times

worse was an alcoholic i was such an alcoholic that i used to

take off my shoes and sell them at the pub for a drink

but he said i took the pledge every land and kept it

this particular troll tuesday i was out at hyde park and

i said oh tomorrow i have to take the pledge and i said well if i can keep the pledge

for 40 days why can’t i keep it for 40 years

well that was easy he said i went to maiden lane church for benedict

and the maiden lane church is the covent garden section of london there are three steps leading down

from the road surface and he said i went to a front pew

and when the host was raised for benediction there came over me an overpowering passion for great

and for vice he said if the temptations of a lifetime were concentrated in one second they

were in that second i ran out of my pew down the middle

aisle the benediction bell rang and i stumbled up the steps

i turned around i almost tore my heart out doing it and the temptation left me

i said how what do you consider a good day in prayer he said 24

where do you live he said in the same dive i live during all my alcoholic days i kneel alongside of my cot

in this place where the alcoholics and bums live and i pray for all of my neighbors

you see something got into it that illumined his natural spirit

now their electric light bulbs in those lamps there

that’s the way the human spirit is when you send a curd through that

that’s the holy spirit but you have to have the bulb that is receptive

of the current you have to have a human spirit to be receptive of the holy spirit

this is one of the reasons fathers wine sisters why we recommend you see the daily holy hour just living close to the

eucharistic fires [Music] so that christ possesses us he’s our

love principle and when we love him we’re changed

not just knowing about him but knowing him

then nothing is hard

in the same church where in all i spent about seven or eight years of my life it is in one of the most corrupt holes

in the world seoul square district

one january morning i opened the church door and there fell in a limp figure girl about 25.

and i said how did you happen to be here

she said where am i father i said oh father yes she said i used to be a catholic but not anymore

i said you were drunk yeah she said i was very drunk

well i said men often get drunk because they like this stuff men women drink because they don’t like something else

what didn’t you like well she said i was living with three men

not one of them knew that i was doing it and i got in trouble

so i got drunk

i said what is your name pointing to a billboard across the

street on the wall of the crosston blackwell jam office i said is that your picture over there

on that billboard yes i’m the leading lady in that musical

comedy because she’d been exposed to a january fog and cold i made a cup of coffee for

her she said thanks i said no come back this afternoon and thank me

she said on one condition that you do not ask me to go to confession

i said very well no she said you must promise me faithfully

that you will not ask me to go to confession

i said i promise you faithfully not to ask you to go to confession

she came back that afternoon before matinee i said we have a rembrandt and a van dyke painting in this church would you

like to see them as we walk down the side aisle i

pushed her into a confession

i always keep my promises

i gave her communion morning after morning she became a nun in the convent of

perpetual adoration in london and i shall be seeing her at her convention two weeks from today

truly a saint what made the difference

the spirit of christ the bulb lighted up

i was talking to drug addicts in harlem

and i took a ball one of them brought a ball with him and i rolled the ball down the

center aisle the hall

and i said to the boys did that go in a straight line yes

now i said i’m going to roll it down again [Music] you can react to it if you want

one boy stuck out his foot rolled under the seats

i said what made the ball change the direction is it my foot all right you’re going in a certain direction you’re

going in the direction of addiction you’re going to continue

you’re going to hell with it unless someone sticks out his foot

and changes your direction [Music] and that’s christ that’s his holy spirit

so this is what the holy spirit does completely changes us

now do not begin devotion to the holy spirit by saying 10 our fathers and 10 hail marys the day to the holy spirit

must be vital remember it’s the spirit of christ if you love someone do you think about

that person when that person is away do you write to that person

if there’s a souvenir left are you interested in it do we pick up our scriptures do we love christ

are we reading his gospels or do we love him not enough to read his

love letters are we really in love as christians

so the devotion to the holy spirit means well for example for us priests when anyone comes into the parlor with a

problem we immediately begin an aspiration of the holy spirit guide me

send me light preaching sermons when we come in to make the holy hour and this is where we prepare our sermon during the holy hour

we begin dear lord tell me how to develop this idea send your spirit

when we have any problems family the light invoke the spirit

when people come into the parlor do we pray with them this is i think one of the most serious

lacuna of our pastoral ministry we are having endless endless pastoral councils

and endless meetings what does the spirit mean

i i read about a dozen catholic books a few years ago on the spirit and the holy spirit

was not mentioned once when people come in to eat kneel down

and and pray with them

if you’ve ever read the works of the great psychiatrist paul 28 paul 28 in the course of his psychiatric books will

just mention i said to the patient let’s kneel down and pray to the holy spirit

there was a young woman came to see me some time ago and she said i want you to help my brother who’s in the philippines i want

to bring him here and but she said i i’m not a catholic i’ve

given it up and i don’t want to hear anything about it

so don’t mention it [Music] but i want you to help

help this one get into the country i said very well so as we passed the chapel i said come in

you may stand for a moment and i said dear lord here’s a girl who’s

very mad at you she’s really mad

because she asked you to do something once and you didn’t do it

you’re not a good captain of the ship so she jumped overboard

so i turned door and i said that’s all you may go now so i let her out she came back the next

day and went to confession if i hadn’t said this prayer do you think she would have come back

believe me she was worried

but associate always the holy spirit and the holy eucharist

i cannot go into that but the symbolism is in the old testament the man and the jew that fell

in relationship to the manner and

why these talks are long

well i don’t know what else to tell you oh there are many

things i know to tell you about the holy spirit yes but i mean for purposes of time

but just one more point now this applies to everyone but it

applies in a special way to us priests and and religious because we are consecrated to god

when we sin we are a consecrated god we suffer far more than anyone else who

sings do you know why

it’s because we have the best love in the world

and sin is hurting someone we love imagine a man two men married to two old

shrews impossible old shrews

one of the men was married before to a beautiful woman who died

the other was never buried before which suffers the more under the shrew

the one who had the better love

he suffers more because he knew what real love was and so we priests and we sisters

we have had and most of us still have

that deep deep love for christ

and then when where for we sin it hurts us so much

because we love and we when we sin too we do not fear

judgment as much as for example you lay people might fear hell we don’t fear

that we are sorry because we hurt the good lord

and that is why when any of our priests

leave get married many of our nuns leave and get married

they’ll never be happy oh yes for 18 months two years sure

biologically they’ll be happy

they lost something and so we pray for them because there’s

an inner hell that’s going on and it goes on in varying degrees when

we do not have in ourselves the spirit of christ

the revolution of the spirit is tremendous themselves

we would have more conversions in parishes if we were devoted to the holy spirit

now here is the editor of the london daily worker the communist newspaper

seated with his wife listening to what in england they call the wireless the radio

i think it was lyfbianoff who was talking the russian

and as he was talking peace the wife got up and she was the

associate editor of the communist newspaper she got up and she turned off

the set she said i don’t think lippinoff wants peace i think he wants war

he said don’t you be talking that way you are not talking like a communist

he said i don’t care what not she said i don’t care what i’m talking like but i don’t think he wants peace

he said if you continue to talk that way i will report you to the party

and you will be disciplined she said report

he said do you know what you’re talking like you were talking

as if you might become a catholic she said i am

he put out his hands he says shake so am i

how that is dr douglas hyde who told me this story

and his wife here they were editing a newspaper together

living together never exchanging conversation on this subject what happened

the divine light went on they had the bulbs everyone’s got a bulb

and that changed them

so be not misled by enthusiasms about the spirit

just be careful enthusiasms are dangerous

they were dangerous in the worship of ball they were dangerous and greatest diana

the ephesians

and as father knox wrote in his book on enthusiasm we’ve always had a group that

will take one little doctrine out of the whole body of doctrine of the church

and it goes to their heads like wine goes to an empty stomach

and it distorts them remember

the spirit was breathed on the church the church was within the blessed mother

and 120 on the day of pentecost true authentic devotion to the holy spirit

in the church and you’ll find it

good particularly in the eucharist

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A Great Talk On The HOLY SPIRIT

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Sermon Notes

Venerable Fulton John Sheen Archbishop & Theologian JMJ

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