Pentecost Novena: Day Five

The Pentecost Novena, itself, can be found here. 
 
"Where you are not, we have naught, nothing good in deed or thought, nothing free from taint of ill." - From the Veni Sancte Spiritus, Sequence for Pentecost

Many falsely believe the opposite of God is the devil, but to assert thus is to fall into the heresy of dualism which believes there are two gods or "forces" governing the universe, one good and one evil. The correct answer to, "What or who is the opposite of God?" is, "Nothing." God has no opposite; God, as the source of all that exists, can have no opposite, for this would imply another principle.

But let us not fall into this other idea, which is to assert "nothing," as something positive. "Nothing" is a lack, a privation of what might be there. While all of this can give rise to many fun word plays, it is integral to understanding just what sin is, and consequently what a life without the Holy Spirit in it is. For if God is not present, we are left with His opposite, and thus we have - nothing. Perhaps we now quickly see the reason a life without God is such a sorrowful idea.

Let this truth stir up in us great desires to never see the Holy Spirit depart from us! This is what inspires St. Paul to cry out, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-2, emphasis added)." Love - charity - is not only the foundation of the spiritual life, it is the necessary prerequisite for all merit, for virtue, for any supernatural good to be accomplished.

Without the virtue of charity, the Holy Spirit cannot impart His sevenfold gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety, knowledge, and fear of the Lord to us, those gifts the novena specifically prays for! And this is because the soul is not open to receive any of those virtues without charity. Charity is that Divine receptivity, as well as that Divine Gift. To love anything implies an openness to receive from it. And the more we love, the more open we are.

Now it is the Holy Spirit, as Author of all Grace, Who accomplishes this in us. It is He Who both opens us to receive Him and He is the one Who gives Himself! Hence why our relationship with God is the most fundamental of all those relationships we shall ever know, for from it flows both our receptivity to love others and that which we can give to others. To be completely without God would imply a stone heart; it can give nothing to others, and it can receive nothing from them.

Of course, because we are not wholly destitute in this life, only the souls in Hell suffer this great burden, every soul still maintains some connection to God, no matter how small. Nonetheless, as God has the power to give speech to a rock if He so willed, so He has the power to change all hearts to be open to His love, however, He wishes to bestow it.

In order to grow in love, then, throughout these days, and in that great season of the year, Ordinary Time, which is fast approaching, may our prayer not only be for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, but may we also pray that He will open our hearts to receive their foundation more perfectly. For the more firm is the foundation, the stronger the entire edifice shall be!