Jonah is Running Away from God on a Ship to Tarshish!

Once upon a time, God told Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh. Jonah was jealous of the people of Nineveh. He knew that if he went and preached to them, God could forgive them, because the people of Nineveh would likely repent. Jonah did not want them to repent. He wanted them to continue sinning, so that God would ultimately destroy them. That was how much Jonah hated the people of Nineveh. And so, when the command of God reached Jonah, instead of going to Nineveh to preach to the people there as commanded by God, Jonah hurried to Joppa. At Joppa, he paid the fare and hopped aboard a ship bound for Tarshish, away from God.

God saw what Jonah was doing and laughed. How could Jonah hope to escape the God that could see all things! Immediately, God sent a very terrible storm to rock the ship. The ship swayed from side to side, and threatened to split in two. Everyone on board was afraid. They began to throw the ship's cargo overboard in order to lighten it, but to no avail - the storm continued to place the ship in grave peril. And all this while, Jonah was sleeping in the hold of the ship! The Captain would have none of it. He went up to Jonah and shook the guy awake. He said: "Come on, man, what are you doing asleep? Everyone is trying to save the ship - we're at the verge of sinking, man!" Jonah promptly got up.

The ship's passengers and crew decided it was appropriate in view of the situation to cast lots to see who was responsible for the terrible misfortune they were facing and, when they did, the lots fell on Jonah. Which means, Jonah was responsible for the storms wracking the ship. Everyone turned to Jonah. "Tell us," they said, "Who are you, where are you from, and what is your business?" Jonah told them who he was, where he was from and what his business was - he was running away from the God of earth, sky and sea. The people aboard the ship were horrified. Jonah was doing a very bad thing. They said to him: "What shall we do with you, so that the sea may quiet down for us?" Jonah asked them to throw him into the sea.

The people aboard the ship did not want to throw the poor guy into the sea. They expected he would die. They knew he had sinned against God, but they were hesitant to take his life. And so they continued to try to keep the ship afloat. Without luck. The storms grew even more turbulent. And so they prayed. They asked God not to hold them responsible for taking Jonah's life by throwing him into the sea for, after all, it was God that made the situation as bad as it was, and all because of Jonah. And so they seized Jonah and threw him plop into the sea! Then the sea quieted down for them and the people aboard the ship continued their journey in peace. They went all the way to Tarshish, without Jonah.

Meanwhile, Jonah was in the sea. Promptly, God sent a whale to go and swallow Jonah. The whale saw Jonah falling into the sea and, opening wide its mouth, the whale swallowed Jonah alive. Jonah found himself in the belly of the whale. It was very dark and scary. Poor Jonah. He was sad and distraught. And in the belly of the fish he repented and called on God. He begged God to have mercy on him. And after spending three days and three nights in the whale's belly, God commanded the large fish to spit Jonah out onto the shore. And so the whale spat Jonah onto the shore, and the poor guy was relieved. Phew! After three days and three nights in the captivity of the belly of the whale. Anyway. Serves Jonah right for trying to run away from God on a ship to Tarshish. Ha ha ha!

Advantages of Community Living

All over the world, people endeavor to live lives worthy of the name. There is competition to be sure, but there is also cooperation and collaboration. People sometimes realize that they cannot do things on their own and so they get into groups in order to do it together. There is joy in doing things together as a community. The songwriter exclaims in Psalm 133:1: “How good it is for siblings to dwell together in unity!” This post will explore five advantages of living in community as opposed to living on your own. In a world like ours that is progressively becoming individualistic, this sort of elucidation is apt.

The first advantage of community living is emotional support. We are social individuals. We cannot live all by ourselves. There is a popular saying to the effect that no one can be an island unto oneself. We all need to collaborate with one another, first of all for the emotional gratification it affords. Living in community in other words is like food for the heart, for the soul. We learn in community to laugh and cry with others. We learn to belong and to derive succor and consolation from those with whom we live in groups.

The second is division of labor. We live in communities because we realize very early on that we cannot do anything all by ourselves. Just think. Is there anything you use that you made from scratch all by yourself? Hardly. Even if say, you woke up in the morning, went to the fridge to fix yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you have to know that you did not make it all by yourself. The bread you dress with jelly and peanut butter was once flour, eggs and milk. The baker made it, and sold it to the grocery owner, from whom you likely bought it. Or, even if you made the bread yourself, you probably didn’t make the flour. Or, even if you made the four yourself, you probably did not grow the wheat; or even if you grew the wheat yourself, you probably did not make the fertilizer, and on and on and on. We need people to share our work.

Adam Smith was an eminent philosopher and economist in his day. He espoused the concept of division of labor. He said that the efficiency of productivity was underpinned by different individuals doing what they were best suited to do, on behalf of the larger working community, in such a fashion that a concert of efforts and roles pooled together would result in the efficient use of time and resources in the production process. And he was right. This was the start of the industrial age. It was the start of the greatness of nations.

Living in community thirdly helps us to wait for the coming of Christ. In other words, there is a faith component to living in community. Faith is a personal journey, but theologians would enthuse that it is not a private one. We worship God in community and share our belief in God as a group. The communion that we jointly participate in justifies our coming together to bless the God that collects us into communities with himself, his son and his spirit. As children of God, we are siblings to one another and we owe everyone a debt of charity as a result of this. God our father that gave us his son to die for us on the cross of Calvary is our eternal guard and guide, and he shows us how to live in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

A fourth advantage of living in community is that it gives us an identity. We spoke about participatory frameworks in a previous post. Participatory frameworks are the means by which we relate to the spheres of human relationships that collect about us, such as family, community and nation. We derive our identities from participatory frameworks. Through our family we relate to our communities, and through our communities we relate with the nation at large. We live in community in order to obtain an identity.

A fifth and last reason why we stay in communities is so as to be inspired. Within communities there are models that we can be inspired by. We observe them and are full of admiration for how they conduct themselves, and we wish to be like them, and so emulate them. We are happy to be around them because they rob off on us, and we imbibe some of their spirit. This opportunity, to be like the models we admire, comes about because we live in community with them. This is a true advantage of living in community with others. All in all, it is good to live with all the people we meet in harmony, peace and love.

A Harvest of Hope

As we go along life's journey putting one foot in front of another, we reap a harvest of hope. The only way we can keep moving on in spite of all the challenges there are on this journey is by reaping such harvest; by keeping hope alive. An Act of Hope says: "O God, I hope in you for grace and for glory, because of your promises, your mercy and your power." And that is what life is all about: grace and glory. Jesus bore his cross all the way to Calvary, where he laid down his life for us. And after this severe suffering, God rewarded him with glory in the resurrection and the ascension. Now Jesus sits forever at the right hand of the Father, where he basks in the grace of God, and similarly imparts such abundant grace to us through the Holy Spirit that comes to us in the Sacraments. Tantum ergo sacramentum veneremur cernui!

 

A harvest of hope is necessary to keep faith alive. You see, there are three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. Our Christian journey begins with charity. Charity is the most important of the three theological virtues. St. Paul says in this regard to the Corinthians: "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13). Love, or charity, as expressed in good works breeds faith in the human heart. It confirms and ratifies belief in goodness. Because in love we see the example of goodness and experience its soothing effect on us and on the beloved, we come to believe in goodness, in Jesus. With this faith, sourced through love, we persist in good works, in right conduct, hoping that at the end we will be rewarded with heaven. And so love gives birth to faith, which in turn engenders hope.

 

God's initial act of creation was an act of love. Elohim said: "Let us make people in our own image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26). God wanted to give man and woman all the good things possible. He loved us so much that theologians say he loved us into existence. But then, what does the Baltimore Catechism say is the reason for God's creation of people? "God made us to know him, love him, and serve him, in this world, and be happy with him in the next." And so the love that brought us into existence was to bear fruit in faith consequent on knowledge and service of God. This faith in turn would bring us hope in the happiness of the afterlife where we would rejoice eternally with Elohim. Love bears faith, and faith bears hope; hope sustains faith, and faith sustains love, and they all sustain us in our Christian life in spite of difficulties.

 

A harvest of hope is necessary for us to set our sights on the afterlife and not be bogged down in despair about the vicissitudes of this earthly existence, which philosophers have called the prison of the soul. A harvest of hope engenders in us a positive attitude that informs us of the fact that this world is not the end; that there is a crown after the cross; that all will be well with us at the last. Hope is dwelling in the grace and joy of the Holy Spirit in anticipation of heaven. Hope is keeping faith alive. Hope is the economy of faith. God gives us hope as a kind of tranquilizer when the devil buffets us with hardship that tests our faith. Like in the case of Job, after his wife had told him, "Curse God and die" (Job 2:9b). Hope is the force that makes it possible, when faith is weak and waning, to keep putting one foot in front of another. It is the reserve energy that keeps us going when the power source of faith falls short.

 

Hope reminds us of what Jesus said: "In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Hope allows us to realize that there is a "balm in Gilead" (Jer. 8:22). Hope reminds us as well that "dry bones shall rise again" (Eze.37). Hope feeds us with the milk of peace in spite of trouble. "I look up to the mountains, from where shall come my help. My help comes from the Lord that made both heaven and earth" (Psalm 121:1-2). Like Maria in the Sound of Music, "the hills fill our hearts with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years, and our hearts want to sing every song they hear; to beat like the wings of birds that fly from the lake to the stream; to laugh like the brook when it trips and falls over stones on its way." The sound of music is the sound of hope.

 

A harvest of hope is like a "lark learning to play." We "go to the hills when our hearts are low," and they lift us up with hope. We "know we will hear what we've heard before," because "the hills are alive with the sound of music, and so we'll sing as well once more." Hope keeps us singing, on and on and on. Hope justifies the joy in our heart. Hope fills us with the power of peace, and the contentment of truth. In spite of the troubles of life; in spite of the disappointments that existence brings us; in spite of the turbulence of the days ahead; the fact that we cannot predict what tomorrow will bring; in spite of our fears; in spite of our hardships - hope keeps us going. Along this journey of life; along the path less taken by Robert Frost and ourselves; along the way to God, hope keeps us putting one foot in front of another, and on, and on, and on. 

In Honor of a Great Saint, Francis of Assisi

Those that know me well also know that my favorite human being of all time is Saint Francis of Assisi. He is a model. I wish I could be more like him. He is not just my favorite saint, but also my favorite individual - that's what I meant when I said "favorite human being of all time." I grew up hearing the most amazing stories of this man. He was a super champion of peace. In fact, one of my favorite prayers is his iconic "Lord make me an instrument of your peace" prayer. In it, he asks for the grace to be able to give love in place of hatred; pardon in place of injury; joy in place of sadness, and faith in place of doubt. He says, "O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love," and then he hits a home run with the prayer when he adds, "for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to everlasting life." This prayer was one of Margaret Thatcher's favorites as well. God rest her soul.

 

Francis is a saint for all people and peoples. Young, old, and people of different ethnicities can identify with him. During the religious crusades that rocked the world of his day, he was one of the few Christians who believed that peace can come about through ecumenical dialogue. This was very forward thinking in his time. But that was just the way he was: always looking for opportunities to bridge divides; to be sent about in the cause of goodwill and ubiquitous peace. This reaching out in spreading the message of peace and goodwill also included the animal kingdom, the members of which he called his brothers and sisters. He could communicate with animals, and he respected them as creatures of the one God. In this regard, a story was once told concerning Francis and a naughty wolf. You see, once upon a time in a village called Gubio, a wolf used to come out in the evening and at night to kill people and eat them. And so the villagers decided not to leave their houses in the evening and at night. Subsequently, the wolf got bolder and started to attack, kill and eat people even in the day as well. It was a bad state of affairs indeed.

 

The people of Gubio were very worried. If the situation endured, soon their village would be severely depopulated. They had to do something about it. They heard that Francis spoke to animals, and could negotiate with them, and so they sent for Francis to see if he could negotiate with the naughty wolf on their behalf and get the animal to stop killing and eating the villagers. And so on a certain day, Francis came to Gubio. The people of the village made him stand in the center of the village, while they secured themselves inside their houses. Soon enough the wolf came as usual to kill and eat unsuspecting villagers. Francis saw the animal come. The animal also saw Francis. Francis called out: "Brother Wolf, what is this I hear you are doing! Are you killing and eating the people of this village? Do you not know that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God? You should not kill and eat them! Anyway, I think I know what your problem is. You are hungry, and that is why you kill and eat. Now, would you promise me something? I shall ask the people of the village to give you food everyday. When you come into the village and see the food they have provided for you, you must eat the food and not harm the villagers any longer. Agreed?"

 

The wolf nodded penitently. and bowed low before Francis. Then Francis shook hands with the animal to seal the deal. Promptly then, Francis called the villagers to meet the wolf. He told the villagers that the wolf had agreed never to bother the villagers any longer. However, the villagers were to provide daily food for it to consume. In such a way, the wolf would not bother them when it was hungry. The villagers agreed. And so, from that day henceforth, they set aside a portion of food in the village center for the wolf to eat. Whenever the wolf was hungry and came into the village, it did not bother the villagers, but simply ate the food that they had laid out for it. The wolf became domesticated and friendly, and the villagers grew to like it very much. They invited it to parties and other events, and the wolf became very popular with everyone so much so that, when it died, it was remembered with love. A statue of Saint Francis and the wolf has been built in commemoration of what happened a long time ago in Gubio.

 

Francis was also a good friend of the poor. As a matter of fact, the reason he fell out early in life with his very wealthy father was because he once took all his father's merchandise and gave to the poor. His father, a successful cloth merchant, was so angry with Francis for doing this that he disowned the young Francis. It was after his father disowned him that the humble man set about building a local church with resources he begged off people. Some of his contemporaries were full of admiration that Francis, otherwise heir to a large fortune, could turn his back on the world and focus his effort on the selfless task of building a house for God. Soon enough, his contemporaries, young men from good families, followed his example and gathered around him. This was how the Franciscan Order started. With subsequent dispensation from the Pope, Francis and his companions organized themselves into a mendicant religious community dedicated to prayer and charity. The Family of Franciscan Religious Men and Women continues to grown even today.

 

St. Francis is truly a model. Today, we can think of all the good God used this humble friar to accomplish and be thankful for his life and example. We can adopt him as a model on our Christian journey, and we can ask him to pray for us. We should ask him to teach us firstly how to pray. When we are tempted to pray only selfishly, asking for this and that and that other thing, we should recall that "it is in giving that we receive," and rather offer our prayers for others who need more help than we do, such as the sick, the destitute and the oppressed. We can also learn from Francis to pray for peace all over the world. We can similarly reach out across divides of ethnicity, gender and age, and live in universal fraternity and sorority with all human beings, and even extend our charity to include compassion toward animals. We can be concerned for the environment by living frugal, simple lives, and we can tone down our avarice, our desire for material wealth, and turn our sights toward genuine riches which last forever; the riches of happiness in the Kingdom of God that comes from doing good. Today, I say hearty congratulations to our Pope Francis, and to all Franciscan Religious Brothers and Sisters on this Feast Day. St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us. Amen.

The Meaning of Patience

What is the meaning of patience? What does it mean to wait in the spirit of long-suffering for what you truly desire? There will definitely be challenges along the way – you can be sure of that. There will be many devils to try and stop you. These devils will show themselves not only as situations and circumstances, but also as people. They will hound you and make sure that life as you know it is unbearable. You have to avoid the devils in your life as much as possible.

What is the meaning of patience? What does it mean to seek earnestly for a solution to a problem you have? What does it mean to wake up each morning and think through and through what it is that you’re going to do about such and such a problem, such and such a worry? There is need to stake all your hopes on what it is you long for. You have to want it. You have to need it. You have to be ready to go the extra mile to ensure that you secure it for yourself and your loved ones. You have to keep trying.

There is a sweet way of saying what I’m trying to. It’s called the act or art of putting one foot in front of another. This may simply be called walking. But recall that life is a journey. We walk along journeys, and so the process of living, of getting through life, is walking. And in this walk, this journey of life, what can we do if not put one foot in front of another repeatedly. That’s life; that’s what we signed up for. You and I. Life is about participation. We participate in this journey by making sure we do not overstep our bounds. We must know our limits. And this is where humility comes in.

There is a relationship between humility and patience. If we are in a hurry to get everything right the first time, we probably should be in heaven, and not with the rest of humanity on earth. But we know that we cannot and even should not get everything right the first time. There is always room for improvement. The room for improvement is supplied by our privation of perfection, the perfection that is characteristic of God alone. Do you recall when the rich young man came to Jesus and called him “good master”? Jesus complained. He told the rich young man not to call him good, because no one but God alone is good. This is humility. If goodness is perfection, and perfection is getting everything right the first time, and getting everything right the first time means that we have no privation in us, that we are God, then to allow anyone to call us good is to be proud, and to be impatient.

We can be impatient with our human situation. We can be impatient with the fact that we are not where we think we are supposed to be. We can be impatient with the fact that we do not seem to be keeping up with the Joneses, or simply keeping up appearances successfully. We can be impatient with the fact that things are not going our way or that our dreams are not materializing as fast as we want them to. We want all our wishes and desires to happen yesterday. We want all our passions to be realized today. We want everyone to know us as the coolest and the best at all we do, and when that does not seem to happen quickly enough, then we begin to grow steadily impatient. We begin to throw tantrums.

We are only human, and so we should be patient with ourselves. Human as a word resembles another word, humus, which means soil, and indeed the bible tells us that God made us from the dust, or the slime, of the earth. On Ash Wednesday the priest or minister rubs a bit of ash on our foreheads and reminds us that we are dust and that we shall ultimately return to dust. The priest in so doing wants us to be cognizant of the fact that our humanity is a precarious condition that always should probe the recesses of our soul to ascertain whether or not we are being patient with our failings and our privations, whether we are keeping well our humble place of being human. This is patience. Indeed then, patience is both a spiritual and a cosmic reality. We can be patient about little things like waiting for the bus or the train, or for the washer or the drying machine or the timer on the oven. We can be patient about waiting for test results or anything else that most people have to wait for.

But we also should be patient with the state of our soul. We should realize that we are getting there slowly, with the help of God. We are not God. We were only made to be like him. God our father is the source of perfection, but we are only images of that perfection in a very limited way. And we need to be thankful too, because there comes with gifts and glories the responsibility of acting right in order to keep them and be meritorious of them. We should then be wise not to aspire too high. We should not be too ambitious or too greedy. Recall what the song-writer says in Psalm 131: “O Lord, I am not proud; I do not busy myself with things that are beyond my scope.” This should be our attitude.

One more thing. We have said in a previous post that patience is one of the characteristics of a scientific, or mature mind. This is the sort of mind we want to have. A scientific mind is rational and disposed to good works and right conduct. And it all begins with patience and humility. Let us be patient and humble in all we do. Let us not be in a hurry to acquire all manner of glory and wealth and all what not. Let us rather rest in the loving embrace of the divine and wait for him. God never fails. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Let us continue to wait.

The First Seminarians

The first seminarians were the twelve disciples of Jesus. I sometimes try to think of them and how they encountered Jesus every day; how they engaged in the formation process. I think of them as insecure. I think of Jesus as the ideal formator: rector, vice rector, spiritual director and professor rolled into one. Jesus was charged with the responsibility of seeing to the spiritual, pastoral, human and intellectual formation of his disciples. When I think of their spiritual formation, I recall Jesus telling his disciples to fast, or to watch and pray. I recall him going off to a quiet place with Peter, James and John to pray. By the way, what was the deal with Peter, James and John anyway? It was always them that Jesus was going off to places with. The Synoptic Gospels mention them far more than any of the other nine disciples. I wonder why Peter, James and John were so popular in their seminary.

Anyway. We were talking of their spiritual formation. I recall when Jesus took – again, here goes – Peter, James and John up the hill to be transfigured in front of them. He began to shine as bright as light, and the bible mentions that his clothes were whiter than any local bleacher could make them. And then, Moses and Elijah came and stood with him. Theologians say that Moses and Elijah represented the Law and the Prophets, which Jesus came to fulfill. What a spiritual experience this must have been for the three seminarians, Peter, James and John. The bible tells us that Peter was so awed by the event that he proposed to build tents for them all, so that they would never have to leave the site of the transfiguration.

Still as part of their spiritual formation, Jesus welcomed his seminarians to the world of exorcism. He taught them how to cast out unclean spirits by fasting and prayer. And his disciples saw him do so. They saw him drive demons – Legion, as they were called – from the body of a possessed man into a herd of pigs. They saw him cure blind, lame, deaf, dumb and leprous individuals. They saw him cure the paralytic who was let down in the middle of a house through the roof. They saw him heal the woman with the issue of blood, who touched him among a crowd of many. They saw him attend to the spiritual needs of the Syrophoenician woman. They saw him heal Jairus’ daughter, when he said: “Little girl, I charge you to sit up straight!” They saw him heal the centurion’s servant. They saw him heal the man with the withered hand. They saw him heal and heal and heal. They saw him change water into wine; they saw him calm the seas. They saw him feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. They saw him walk on water. They saw him do many wonderful things. And by his name they did similar things.

The first seminarians also had pastoral formation. Jesus sent them out two by two one time to preach. And when they came back he asked them not to rejoice at the miracles they encountered as they preached but at the fact that their names were written in the Book of Life. They learnt from Jesus how to be patient with parishioners, and not to call down fire from heaven on them as once James and John suggested he do, when Jesus was rejected at a certain town. Jesus also told them not to be concerned with material provisions for their mission work, but to accept whatever they were given, for a laborer deserves his wages, Jesus said. Jesus told them not to take a materialistic approach to ministry, but to always lean on the providence of the divine. This was good pastoral formation. Jesus also taught them about ecumenism, when the disciples reported to him that they had seen someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name who was not part of their number and they had tried to stop him. Jesus had at that time asked them not to stop him, since anyone that was not against them was in a sense for them.

The first seminarians also had human formation. They struggled with their human weaknesses. They often bickered for example about who was the greatest seminarian. At one of such periods, Jesus placed a child in their midst and said that whoever welcomed a child welcomed him. Again at the Last Supper, Jesus washed their feet to show that the first should be the last and the leader should be the servant of all. Jesus always sought out opportunities to teach his disciples humility and to remind them that humility was the prerequisite for entrance into the Kingdom of God. He wanted them to know that without humility they could not be properly children of God, who resists the proud.

And of course the disciples had intellectual formation. Theirs was a rich theological training. I recall once when Jesus asked them who people said he was. They replied that people said Jesus was Elijah or John the Baptist or one of the prophets. And when Jesus asked them who they thought he was, Peter replied that he was the Christ. They got to learn in so many ways who this Jesus was, and even more powerfully so after the Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon them and made them priests finally. They had been ordained at the Last Supper, but it was at Pentecost that they were given ministerial appointments, after their intense seminary experience. These priests were now able to understand the significance of Jesus’ having done all he said he would do. They were now other Christs.

The Spirit of God is God Himself

Let’s keep talking about the Holy Spirit, one of my favorite subjects. Today, we are going to demonstrate how it is that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is God as well. It’s like a Trinity proof, only that it deals with the Spirit only. How is it true to say that the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, is equal in eminence and substance to God the Father, and by extension God the Son? Holy Mother Church teaches in this regard that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are consubstantial and co-equal. I want to demonstrate in this post that it is true to say with Mother Church that the Holy Spirit is true God.

In a previous post we said that the Holy Spirit (pneuma) is the spirit of God. Now, if we say that the Holy Spirit is the spirit of God, don’t we imply that the Spirit is simply a part of God? And if something is simply a part of something else, is that thing not less than the whole? It’s like saying that a person’s hand is part of the person, or that the roof of a house is part of that house. The whole is always greater than the parts of which it is composed. And we know from Logic that we cannot necessarily predicate of the whole what we predicate of the parts, without falling into the fallacy of composition. And so, a whole is not the equal of the parts that compose it. This is logically sound.

For us human beings, we do have spirits, but we are not equal to our spirits. We are body and spirit composites, and so the spirit for us is just a part, and not all of us. There is the body as well, which influences how we live out the principle of spirit. Aristotle calls this situation of affairs, the composite of body and spirit, hylomorphism. In other words, we humans are hylomorphic composites. And so the spirit in us is just a part of us, and not us. Now that we have shown how the Spirit dwelling in us is only a part of us and not us, and how what can be predicated of the spirit within us cannot be predicated of us, can we not extrapolate and apply this situation to God and say that his spirit is just a part of him and not him? And if that be the case, can we not say that since the Holy Spirit, God’s spirit, is just a part of him it is therefore not equal to him? The answer is no. We cannot say that.

You see, God is not a composite being. He is not made of body and spirit, but only spirit. And so he is what is called a simple being – spirit only. And so his spirit is all of him there is. If he had matter (the principle of change, of potentiality, of non-being), then his spirit would simply be a part of him. But since all he is and has is spirit, then the spirit is all of him. That’s the first point. The second point is this: Spirit refers to principle or cause (recall in a previous post we likened it to substance). And a cause is greater than its effect. Aquinas in his proofs of the existence of God spoke of a hierarchy of efficient causes that leads ultimately to a first cause that is itself uncaused by anything else. He called this first cause God. Recall in any case in this regard that we called the first principle of life, of being, in a previous post the Holy Spirit, when we repeated Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

And so the first principle of life is the Spirit. This is the first cause, of all there is and all there will be. But this cause came from God, who breathed it into Adam. Could this spirit that causes all being cause God? Yes, because God too is being, and if the first cause causes all things, then it causes God also. But we have already said that this first cause, this spirit, is of God, and not just a part of God, but all of God, since God is not composite (has no separate matter), but is simply spirit. And so God causes himself. And since he causes himself, his cause is not greater than he is. But his cause is not less than he is because, according to Descartes in his Third Meditation, no true cause is less than its effect. It can either be greater than or equal to it. And we have already shown that God’s cause, his spirit, is not greater than he is, and so logically, God’s spirit is equal to him, and of the same substance.

Descartes talks about the pre-eminence of God in his third and fifth meditations, after having set the cognitive background in his second meditation, in which he asserts that he is a thinking thing, and (in the earlier part of his third meditation) that the only thing he can know are the things that are clearly and distinctly perceived by him; his mind, that is. One of these clear and distinct perceptions for Descartes is the existence of God, who sustains Descartes, for this humble philosopher realized that there was no way he could be the one sustaining himself. And so, not only does he exist because he is thinking and is consequently a thinking thing, but also God exists and sustains Descartes.

In other words, to the trained and rational soul, the existence of God is evident. We can know him, according to Descartes, by “the light of nature,” because we can easily admit that there must be something that informs our human and mortal existence; something far more eminent than we are; something of a superior form, and of a superior cause, that sustains and inspires us to keep alive; cut off from which we cannot exist. This entity is God, and his existence is so necessary that it is his essence. He is the existing thing, if Descartes is the thinking thing. This existing thing for Anselm is necessary in all possible worlds, and so (to borrow from Leibniz), since he is necessarily existent in all possible worlds, he is the necessary truth. He is, for Spinoza, the only Substance, the eternal spirit, the one and only God.

But he is a Trinitarian God. He exists in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is what Holy Mother Church teaches us. And we have demonstrated today how it is that God’s spirit is co-equal and consubstantial with him. God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, is God, and in the same way that Jesus and his Father are. God the Holy Spirit, the First Principle of Life, is the One that “proceeds from the Father and the Son,” and is God, true and true. You see, Holy Mother Church doesn’t lie to us. She tells us the truth. There are some things she tells us that are very hard to understand and we have to take them on faith. But there are things she tells us that we can demonstrate, like the one we just have, concerning how it is true to say that the Spirit of God is definitely God himself.