A Reflection for Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (Corinthians 3:15 - 4:1, 3-6)
One of my first assignments working in Catholic media was to report on the ground from the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin back in 2012. Such gatherings always have formal schedules, but it’s the unexpected encounters and networking, sometimes leading to lasting friendships and collaborations, that stay with us.
I’ll never forget chatting with a couple of Irish seminarians at a pub on the outskirts of one of the venues. They were warm, easygoing, funny and also real and honest. “It can’t be easy being a seminarian in Ireland today,” I thought to myself, but they exuded a lightness of heart that I admired and was drawn to.
Being curious, I asked about how they navigated challenges related to institutional credibility, how their contemporaries viewed their vocations, and about life in the seminary. Again they were genuine and honest. To the question about life in the seminary, they insinuated that, while it was a good experience overall, the culture inside was a bit stilted. One of them joked, “If the Holy Spirit ever showed up in there, someone would call the fire department.”
Needless to say, we had a good time, and later that evening my face was sore from laughing. Years later, it’s one of those encounters along my journey that I frequently recall and never tire of sharing. I’m not in touch with the seminarians (now priests!) any longer, but how could I forget their spirit, humor and deep insight?
Perhaps the best wayI can describe them is: They were free. They didn’t pretend to be something they were not. They didn’t try to deflect or sugarcoat difficult issues. They saw reality for what it was and tried to respond as best they could, without losing a sense of humor.
St. Paul tells us that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Perhaps we could say the reverse as well: “Where there is freedom, there is the Spirit of the Lord.”The Holy Spirit was very much present in their seminary. But if we, like those seminarians, have difficulty recognizing the presence of the Holy Spirit, who blows where it wishes (Jn 3:8), perhaps it’s a call to live more freely: free from self-deception, free from propriety, free from thinking we have all of the answers, free from judgement, free to laugh at ourselves, free to love as Jesus loved.
