Thought for the Day – Friday 21^st August 2020

“Communion with Christ in the Holy Spirit” by John Henry Newman

‘Let us not suppose that God the Holy Spirit comes in sense that God the Son remains away. No; he has not so come that Christ does not come, but rather he comes that Christ may come in his coming. Through the Holy Spirit we have communion with the Father and the Son. “In Christ we are builded together,” says St. Paul, “for an habitation of God through the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2.22) “Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells within you.” (1 Corinthians 3.16) “Strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” (Ephesians 3.16)  The Holy Spirit causes, faith welcomes, the indwelling of Christ in the heart. Thus the Holy Spirit does not take the place of Christ in the soul, but secures that place to Christ. St. Paul insists much on this presence of Christ in those who have his Spirit. “Know you not,” he says, “that your bodies are the members of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 6.15) “By one Spirit we are all baptised into one body…. You are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”(1 Corinthians 12.13)  The Holy Spirit, then, vouchsafes to come to us, that by his coming Christ may enter into us. And thus he is both present and absent; absent in that he has left the earth, present in that he has not left the faithful soul; or, as Jesus says himself, “The world seeth me no more, but you see me” (John 12.45)’