Scott Hahn, 'Fleshing Out' the Holy Spirit

Scott Hahn has written a great piece on the connections between the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I didn't read all of it but it really helped me to understand the maternal aspects of the Spirit - though obviously the Holy Spirit is not feminine as Hahn makes clear, but in the same way that God the Father is not male, we can use analogies to understand God.

Anyway he writes about how the Spirit conceived in Mary brought forth the birth of Christ and how the Spirit's work in baptism gives birth to Christians etc. He quotes N.T. Wright which will only confirm the widespread allegations that Wright is a secret Jesuit (though I think the man is very anti-Catholic)

Anyway, here is the book:

http://www.salvationhistory.com/documents/scripture/First_Comes_Love_appendix.pdf

St. Paul's Challenge for Today: Living by the Spirit

"Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." - Galatians 5:16-21 (NRSV)

We are called through our baptism to 'fight under the banner of Christ' (as Rowan Williams likes saying) against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The apostle actually outlines the 3 ways of living presented to us today.

1. The works of flesh: sin. I like that St. Paul is translated here "to prevent you from doing what you want". He knows the struggle against the flesh and that it is what we want.

2. The Law. God's moral precepts without grace and Christ's merit, without the work of the Spirit, basically to be left alone in Original Sin without the possibility of obedience.

3. The Spirit. The solution of St. Paul is life in the Spirit, against the flesh and the law. The freedom to follow Christ in loving God, and bearing one another's burdens. This the apostle calls "the torah of Christ" (Gal. 6:2)

and if that wasn't enough motivation St. Paul's call for imperfect contrition at the end still rings true:

If you do these, you will not inherit the kingdom.

Numbers and the Holy Spirit in Tonight's Mass Readings

"Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’ And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, ‘My lord Moses, stop them!’ But Moses said to him, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!’" - Numbers 11:25-29 (NRSV)

I'm glad God's work of salvation is up to the Holy Spirit and not to us.