In today’s first reading, 1 Cor 2: 10b-16, St. Paul reminds
us of the Spirit’s presence and role in our lives. It is the spirit within each of us who knows what pertains to me and you and “[n]o one
knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God.” The spirit that each of us has received is of
God, not of the world. Given that gift
from God, we have the ability to know
what God gives us and what is not of or from God. We have been given the gift to discern good
spirits and evil spirits. Through the spirit within us, we speak of
spiritual things spiritually, that is, we use “spiritual terms”. It is a wisdom of the spirit, not of the world,
that inspires us when we speak of heavenly realities, of things of God.
When we speak of spiritual realities, we meet opposition
from “the natural man [woman], as the natural and the supernatural oppose one
another. Things of the Spirit are not accepted by “the natural man [woman]”. To such persons, spiritual realities are
perceived as foolishness, St. Paul reminds us. There is no way that the natural
man/woman can understand the things of God because they are thinking from
natural minds; they are judging naturally, not spiritually. A person who has been given “the mind of
Christ” through baptism, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon
him/her, knows the mind of the Lord, thinks with the minds of the Lord,
responds as God responds to the things, experiences, situations of this world.
And people of the world, using natural abilities only, have no idea out of
which lens a woman/man of the spirit (of
God) is looking, perceiving or
understanding reality.
For instance, when you and I profess our faith in God, our
Creator--His presence in all of life, His power at work transforming our world and our lives one by one; when you and I profess our faith in Christ Jesus and His death and resurrection; when you and I profess our faith in God the Holy Spirit, in the Eucharist, in the Scriptures as the Living
Word of God, and in other spiritual realities, persons who think and function
from the perspective of human wisdom, who think only naturally, scoff at us. “How
foolish can you get?” “There is no God!” “Jesus coming to you in a piece of bread or a
cup of wine which you say has been changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus in
the process of Transubstantiation at your Liturgies, is utter foolishness. You
are committing idolatry in your worship services, the natural man/woman proclaims! You are utterly wrong when you believe that God reveals Himself in nature, in other human beings, in life and in death itself: how crazy are you?
I stand by my faith! How about you?
I stand by my faith! How about you?
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