The Holy Spirit isn’t stingy with grace. So why are we?

A Reflection for the Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

Find today’s readings here.

Today we contemplate the power and workings of the Holy Spirit. The catechism calls the Holy Spirit, “the inexpressible person,” which feels appropriate from my experience. The Spirit is simultaneously a person in relationship with the Father and Son, and yet mysterious, surprising, even elusive. Unlike the incarnate Jesus, the Holy Spirit takes many different forms: wind, water, fire, a cloud, a dove. We could say that the Holy Spirit is a free spirit. “The wind blows where it chooses,” Jesus tells Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

And so I wonder, what does it mean that Jesus threatens to withhold mercy from those who aren’t faithful to the Holy Spirit? How can we know, for sure, if we’re following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, or blaspheming against it?

Part of struggling with this question, at least for me, is the tendency to bifurcate and polarize it. We presume that, if we’re not following the Spirit at all times, then we’re blaspheming at all times. Jesus himself seems to set up this dualistic, zero-sum logic in the gospel for today.

But it’s important to distinguish between the seriousness of the question for Jesus and the dualistic logic we subsequently project onto the Holy Spirit. Certainly, Luke wanted his readers to know that being open to and following the promptings of the Holy Spirit is essential for Jesus. But Jesus never put a cap or limit on the Spirit’s forms, power and workings. The Holy Spirit isn’t stingy, nor is it operating from a zero-sum calculation. “The wind blows where it chooses.”

Christians should undoubtedly avoid blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Perhaps one way to do that is by overcoming our imposed logic of stinginess that limits the freedom of the Holy Spirit to work in ways that may surprise us, unsettle us and ultimately change us for the better.