Living Our Baptism: Part III: Temple of the Holy Spirit
Fr. Donald Macdonald, SMM
I n his early years as a priest Father de Montfort could not find his role. For some months he gave himself to the poor in La Salpétriére hospital Paris, until a note at his place at table told him to leave. He then lodged in a hovel under a staircase from where he wrote to Mademoiselle Louise Trichet. He is really hurt and feels that everyone’s hand is against him: “Both men and demons in this great city of Paris are waging a war against me . . . slander me . . . destroy my good name, put me in prison . . . They form the accoutrements and retinue of divine Wisdom which he brings into the lives of those in whom he dwells” (Letter 16).
This reads as a young man’s complaint as he almost universalises his own particular situation. In his attempt to live for God alone he meets opposition and frustration. This he knows he must meet – ‘the retinue of divine Wisdom’ – as he tries to follow Jesus. Although his situation is far from stable, the changing circumstances do not mean a changing Christ. Although he is lodged under a staircase in a slum, he knows that the spirit of Christ lodges in him. It is this reality, coming from the sacrament of baptism, to which he holds.
His upset and depression lifts as he prays to understand what is happening to him. A series of questions attempts to assimilate life and faith: “When shall I possess this loveable and mysterious Wisdom? When will Wisdom come to live in me? When shall I be sufficiently equipped to serve as a place of rest for Wisdom in a world where he is rejected and without a home? Who will give me this bread of understanding with which Wisdom nourishes great souls? … When shall I be crucified and lost to the world?” (Letter 16).
He knows that the spirit of Jesus/Wisdom lives within him. How he wishes to make the wonder of that insight truly his own? He wants to be genuinely Christian so that everyday experience dovetails with what he knows of God through faith. His present lodging is poor but the Guest who has made his home within him is rich.
TEMPLE OF GOD
St. Louis-Marie in Paris centered on God within himself. St. Paul in the city of Corinth advised his people to do the same: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? (1 Cor. 6:19). The word translated as ‘temple’ is the word usually used for ‘tabernacle’ – the heart of the Temple in which God dwell. This was his understanding of his community of nondescript people!
Once baptized they are claimed or sealed as God’s own: “you are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). God was in Christ reconciling us to himself and has come to make his home with us through the spirit of our Risen Lord. Can I sense the wonder in Father de Montfort’s prayer when he prays to receive God within him worthily in a world where he is not wanted?
There were churches in Paris as Temples in Corinth, but the people who were individually and collectively baptized into Christ are the true home of God: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? … For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Cor. 3:16-17). ‘Do you not know . . . ,’ implies that I should, but is awareness ln wonder of God within me an essential part of my Christian makeup? Do I lodge there too in wonder and adoration? Is this the core reality of my Christian being? Do I instinctively and habitually adore the presence of God within myself as naturally as I breathe? Have I made this awareness of presence personally mine?
The Baptism of Christ: Italian painter: Paris Paschalinus Bordone: 1535-1540
The painting resides at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
This is the third of six articles on Living Our Baptism. The first article in this series may be found using this link.
He knows that the spirit of Jesus/Wisdom lives within him. How he wishes to make the wonder of that insight truly his own? He wants to be genuinely Christian so that everyday experience dovetails with what he knows of God through faith.
It is still true that “. . . we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7), but we do walk alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. As baptized, we ought to be aware that in the ongoing tension between self/sin and God’s will – ‘flesh and Spirit’ is Paul’s short- hand – that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Roms. 8:1-2). Much of the dynamic of Christian life comes from realizing this. To focus on the presence of God within me can help bring this home.
St. Paul is emphatic: “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you” (Roms. 8:11). There is tremendous energy and power here through the love of God present through his Spirit. I just steep myself in the wonder of it all.
In so far as I can habitually do this, I receive genuine help in the tension between a disordered self and God: “for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live” (Roms. 8:13). This will help me cope with the inevitable tension in attempting to find and do God’s will. As Montfort remarked in such a situation – “(God) has his plan in all this and I adore his plan, though I do not understand it” (Letter 15).
CHILD OF GOD
St. Paul sums this up so well in showing that he is describing a wonderful outlook not conducting a theoretical discussion: “for all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear (when you were baptized into Christ Jesus), but you have received a spirit of adoption” (Roms. 8:14-15). ‘I never asked to be baptized,’ never came from someone who shared that insight. On the contrary, “when we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ . . .” (Roms. 8:15-17).
Indwelt by God’s Spirit and able to speak with the spontaneity of the child, I am dearer to the Father than I can ever know, as one commentator observed. The future too in Christ is secure. Whatever the future holds it is safe in as much as my risen Lord is there. Death cannot separate us. This is the reverse of the spirit of slavery and fear which is all too often assumed to be part of religious faith.
