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The Holy Spirit

God is pretty mysterious, but you'd have to say the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious. He is called the "Comforter" by Jesus, but He also convicts the world in regard to sin and righteousness. He blows where he wills. He changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

Whenever I have wanted to understand the Scriptures, I have always implored the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we have a great gift in the Magisterium, who gives the final, definitive interpretation of any matter touching or morals, when necessary. Of course, the infallibility of the Church under certain circumstances is a work of the Holy Spirit.

Every time you are moved to pray, (authentically) that is a grace of the Holy Spirit. Every time any true supernatural good work is done, it's the Holy Spirit. One of the deep realities of the new covenant in the blood of Christ is that people are united in the Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit.

We can't say enough, and that makes sense, for He is God.
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Nathan said…
I have always felt that the Holy Spirit is often treated with horrifying dishonor by the way we (Catholics and Protestants) attempt to deal with questions of authority. One one hand are many protestants defending sola scriptura and Catholics persuasively attacking it. However, it has been my (limited) experience that Catholics present a false dilemma: they assume that if sola scriptura is incorrect then the Magesterium must be the work of the Holy Spirit. How, then, has the Magesterium made so many awful, violent, unchristian declarations over the centuries? On the third hand, and imagining they have third hands, are the wild charismatics, obsessed with mystical powers their manipulative leaders claim to have acquired.

I feel at home among the anabaptists, who have accepted none of those three errors and have tried to simply live according to the pattern exemplified by Jesus and taught by the apostles, often answering grave threats with peace and faithfulness. Why not listen to God, instead of insisting on a human hierarchy either of priests or of scholars? Jesus told us explicitly that none of us should be called rabbi. His spirit is with us, and we don't need any other source of authority. It is a scandalous thing to stand before God's throne and ask for someone else's advice. Indeed, I suspect we will eventually regard our past pursuit of another authority with embarrassment and joyful repentance.
5:56 PM
Jason said…
Nathan,

How many of the alleged horrors of the Catholic Church actually occurred? Moreover, to acknowledge the divine authority of the Catholic Church is not to deny freedom, and that this freedom is routinely abused. Rather, it is to say that, insofar as dogmatic truth has been protected and preserved, it is a work of the Holy Spirit. That's exactly what Jesus said would happen. I don't feel the need to apologize for things others did in the name of Christ, except in the most general sense. But if we are talking how we know what we know supernatually, we are talking infallibility, and that movie always ends the same way.
6:13 PM
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