If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”- Gal 5:25"
By Fr. Guenther Kerkmann, SJ

   All the other priests and the Sisters immediately turned to me and said, "Such a difficult question should be answered by a Jesuit." So I stood up, walked to the whiteboard and wrote one sentence in English: I love you. Then I said, "Do you remember your English grammar? Subject, Predicate, Object? When you talk about Love, there is always someone who does the loving, and there is always someone who is loved. And these two are connected by an action expressed through the verb.

   This holds true for God, too. God is Love. Therefore, there must be someone who loves. We call him "the Father", and there is someone who is loved. We call him "the Son". And the dynamic action that interacts between the two, expressed by the Verb, that is the Holy Spirit. And the wonderful thing is that the Son of God became man, He became of us, one of mankind. So since God loves His Son, we are included in this Love, because we, too, belong to humankind. We partake in the dynamic interaction between The Father and The Son. Everything else that is taught about the Christian Faith is but a consequence of this one central fact. So it makes a lot of sense that the Holy Spirit (= God's Love) is poured out into our hearts first at Pentecost, then at our baptism and confirmation. This makes us The Church.

Let me share another "story" about the Holy Spirit.

    When I was a young novice, someone asked our novice master, "What is the Holy Spirit?"

Instead of answering this question the novice master said, "Take pictures of the Holy Spirit and you will learn. “We discussed what we could do. How can you take pictures of the Holy Spirit?

So we re-read the story of Pentecost written in the Acts of the Apostles. We discovered that there were three symbols connected with the Holy Spirit: wind, fire, and water.

It is possible to take photos of the wind, or at least of what the wind does. So we made a series of slides about the wind. How the wind blows away the dead leaves in autumn, or dry branches, how it blows away thrown-away paper or a plastic bag, and so on. The wind has a purifying power.

Then we took photos of the wind blowing the pollen over the wheat fields. The seeds of the dandelion flower drifting gently in the wind, and similar photos. The wind is life-giving.

Next we took photos of a fan, a wind-bell, a mother blowing on the wound of a child. The wind has soothing power, healing power, comforting power.
Finally, we took photos of sailing boats and sailing ships, wind mills, and wind wheels that provide energy. They even produce electricity. The wind has moving power. It has tremendous energy.

So it finally dawned on us, that this is the Holy Spirit, or the Love of God. Poured out into our hearts, purifies us from any dead wood, from our self-centeredness, our egoism. It gives us new life, it enlivens us, so that we can make other people come alive. It soothes us, heals us (helps us to forgive). It gives us a tremendous energy. I think of the apostles and consequently the Church receiving enough energy to spread the word of God throughout the world. I think of all the religious orders that were founded throughout history. What a tremendous energy! They were and are a great blessing not only for the Church but for human society. I think of the many Christians who do great things for the Church and society. Yes, the Holy Spirit is a great source of energy.

Maybe you can make other series of slides, concerning the Holy Spirit, for example about fire or another one of water. Maybe you will discover that fire and water have the same four qualities: cleansing power, life-giving power, healing power, and driving power. And this is what Love is all about.