Before each session of the Second Vatican Council, the bishops, abbots, cardinals, and theologians as well anyone else involved in the working of the great Council prayed together an ancient prayer, attributed supposedly to Saint Isidore of Seville from the seventh century.
A long prayer, it begins simply: “Here we are, Lord Holy Spirit, hindered by our evident sins, but in your name gathered for a special purpose. Come to us and be with us and enter our hearts.” An invocation of the Holy Spirit, it’s like innumerable others prayed by the faithful daily all over the world—at the ordination of priests, in the Mass, in the individual prayers of the faithful in joy and in crisis and even simply as a matter of habit. Calling down the Holy Spirit is what we Christians do day in and day out. It’s instinctive, second nature, something belonging to us insofar as we belong to God, the giver of the Spirit, giving himself. And so, it made perfect sense for the fathers of the Council to have invoked the Spirit of God. They would have been foolish not to do so; it would have ruined the work of the Council before it had even begun had they not called on the Spirit.
But invoking the Holy Spirit certainly didn’t help the Council run efficiently, nor did it remove from the Council the tension and intrigue associated with other large organizations and institutions. Early in the Council, for example, the “Regulations,” drawn up to govern the work of the Council weren’t really detailed enough to regulate much of anything.[1] There was no procedure, for example, for actually closing debate; so, you can imagine how well that went in a room full of bishops, most well-accustomed to the pleasure of hearing themselves speak—some began to think the Council would go on forever.[2] And there was intrigue as I said. Joseph Clifford Fenton was an American priest and a professor at The Catholic University of America. Two days after the Council opened, troubled, he wrote in his diary, “I always thought this council was dangerous…Now I am afraid that real trouble is on the way.” Of Pope Saint John XXIII, Fenton thought he was “definitely a lefty.”[3] Pope Benedict XVI, then just a lowly theologian and assistant to the Archbishop of Cologne, was accused, clearly but not by name, of illegally circulating an alternative renegade document meant to dissuade the bishops from supporting a document backed by the Curia.[4] He was accused of this by the man holding the office he would one day occupy himself. And of course, it was true; he did indeed pass out an alternative renegade document.[5] The chaos of the first days and weeks of the Council was remarkable, and one could understand how someone could think (as some still do today) that Vatican II bore no evidence of the Holy Spirit at all. Some saw and some still see only dilution and disarray. Some have even been eaten up by anger because of it, because of all the things they think went wrong. And some have been destroyed by their anger, all because they couldn’t see the Holy Spirit at work.
Some folks could though. Yves Congar, the great Dominican theologian, was certainly not immune to intrigue, suspicion, or despair during the Council, but he saw things differently than many others. “We are all at sea,” he wrote in frustration in his diary. “But,” he went on, “I see that the Council goes through phases of shadow and sunlight. I believe in the Holy Spirit. He makes use of people.”[6] Congar believed in the Holy Spirit. Of course, there was tension, inefficiency, and chaos, but it was all still divinely guided, he believed. No matter the drama, the Holy Spirit was still in charge. This was theological truth, not something one could judge by looking merely at symptoms. As Paul VI taught, the Holy Spirit is the “soul of the Church,” illuminating, enlivening, protecting, and guiding the Church.[7] This is true no matter what, no matter the chaos in the life of the Church—either in an ecumenical council, a synod, a diocese, or even a parish; it’s true even in the family, the “Ecclesia domestica,” the “domestic Church,” we like to call it.[8] “I believe in the Holy Spirit” we pray Sunday by Sunday in the Creed. He has been poured into our hearts as Paul said.[9] Our job therefore is not to determine whether or not he is present; rather, our job is to open ourselves to his presence already among us. We know he is with us and within us. This is our faith.
But what does this mean? Or, rather, what are the consequences of believing in the Holy Spirit? If the Holy Spirit guides us as we believe, then where to? What’s next once we say we believe in the Spirit of God and open our hearts to him?
This scene from Luke’s gospel helps us reflect on these questions, for in it we’re given first glimpse of the form and purpose of the Spirit’s work in Jesus of Nazareth. Having been baptized by John, and after receiving the Holy Spirit, as Luke tells us, “in bodily form like a dove,” Jesus was led by the same Spirit into the desert for forty days to be tempted by the devil.[10] And having resisted “every temptation,” Jesus returned to his hometown and “went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.”[11] After the readings, the psalms, and the benedictions—we can assume—Jesus stood up to preach, and opening the scroll, he read a passage from the prophet Isaiah which begins, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”[12]
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he said. Earlier at his baptism, Luke wanted us to learn about Jesus the king and the servant. Here Luke wants us to learn about Jesus the prophet. Like the prophets of old before him, Luke describes the Spirit falling upon Jesus in the traditional way of the Hebrew prophets of old. “Then the spirit of the Lord fell upon me,” Ezekiel said, and he was instructed to cry out, “Thus says the Lord.”[13] The prophet of God is a messenger, the giver of God’s word, a truth-teller in a world of lies, the one who calls the people of God back to the integrity of the covenant; Luke wants to portray Jesus in just these terms. Jesus is like the ancient prophets, and he’s here to bring about restoration and covenant renewal. He is of course more than a prophet—Luke is clear about that—but at this point he wants us to reflect upon Jesus as prophet, the man of God, the messenger, the truth-teller.[14]
And what does Jesus the prophet say? He speaks the hope of Isaiah, of the jubilee. Isaiah dreamed of the restoration of Jerusalem after exile. “They shall rebuild the ancient ruins,” he said.[15] He dreamed of a society in keeping with the vision of Deuteronomy 15 and Leviticus 25, a society in which, as it says in Deuteronomy, there shall be no one in need, a society in which on the Day of Atonement every fifty years all captives would be freed from debtor’s bondage and have their land returned to them, restoring the original plan of God for his people.[16] This is what Isaiah saw happening in his own day, and it’s what Luke says Jesus was inaugurating in the synagogue in Nazareth—the jubilee, the restoration of God’s original purpose in giving the promised land to his chosen people.
And so we discover the agenda of the Messiah. In the desert, resisting the devil, we saw how Jesus chose to rely on his Father alone. Here we see what the ministry of Jesus is all about. He brings good news to the poor. He liberates those in captivity. He gives sight to the blind and freedom to the oppressed. And, on top of all that, he says in substance with power and confidence, “This is what God wants!”[17] In the synagogue at Nazareth, we discover God’s plan. And, reading further, we see Jesus carry it forward in his ministry and even in his death, speaking kindly as he did to the good thief, “today you will be with me in paradise.”[18]
And like those in the synagogue—even millennia removed—we stand in silence, amazed.[19] Many of us still don’t know what to make of it, this messianic agenda of jubilee. Even many of the faithful: some of us just don’t understand it. Prophets are not always understood or accepted. Sometimes they’re even hated. Some have even been killed. It’s always been so.
But how does this apply to us? What should we make of the Messiah’s agenda? Does it have anything to do with us, or are we simply to admire it from a safe distance like some ethical antique while coming up with our own plans that fit more reasonably with our own needs and our own allegedly more realistic ethics? Must we be about the jubilee if we’re to be followers of Christ? These are important questions.
To think about this, what we must remember is that the Holy Spirit has fallen upon us too, the Church, the believing community. Just as the Spirit fell upon Mary, so too did he fall upon the apostles at Pentecost.[20] And even more clearly, as John tells it, Jesus asked his Father to send the Spirit to those who could accept him; and he said to them, the Spirit “remains with you, and will be in you.”[21] So we must, if we are to believe the New Testament, accept that Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit, and that he remains with us even today. And likewise, we must accept that the description of the early Church in Acts of the Apostles reflects in many ways the ideal community envisioned in Deuteronomy 15 and in the imagined jubilee of Isaiah. Just as in the promised land there were to be no poor, so too in the Church all things were to be held in common.[22] The Church is to be the jubilee community, the community of healing, forgiveness, liberty, and freedom. Does the agenda of the Messiah have anything do with us? Yes, it does; absolutely everything in fact. Not only is this his agenda, it’s ours too—if of course we’re serious about being his disciples.
But what, finally, does this look like? What does the messianic jubilee look like in the Church today? This is the most critical question really, and I’m sorry to say I have no answer. But it’s true, I don’t. Maybe this is a cop out on my part. Maybe I just don’t want to get into a political fight. If the history of Vatican II is anything to go by, it’ll be both mystical and chaotic. I don’t know. But really, maybe this is something you need to discover yourself by prayer and fasting and by being quiet enough in your soul to make that beautiful and wise prayer to God, the prayer that begins with the words, “Lord, I do not know…” The Spirit is with us in joy and in crisis, and with the Spirit is the jubilee of the Messiah. Von Balthasar, that great theologian, called the Holy Spirit the “interpreter of Jesus.”[23] John just called him the “Spirit of Truth.”[24] Which is to say that we believe the Spirit himself will teach us if we lift up our hearts and truly open them to him. Therefore, our task, your task, my task—the spiritual work before us as individuals, as a parish, as the people of God, is to make ourselves open to this Spirit. We must pray to hear Jesus and then be quiet enough to listen. Do you pray to hear him? Are you quiet? You must be. These actually are the most pressing questions of our age, spiritual questions.
And of course, it all begins by hearing this one word of Jesus; you may have missed it. It’s a very important word. It’s his first word really. What’s the first word Jesus said after rolling up the scroll? It’ll tell you everything. He said, “Today.”[25] Today. Now you know. Amen.
[1] John O’Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 100
[2] Ibid., 137
[3] Ibid., 113
[4] Ibid., 141
[5] Ibid., 145
[6] Yves Congar, My Journal of the Council, 207
[7] Paul VI, Credo of the People of God 6, 13
[8] Cf. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio 49
[9] Romans 5:5
[10] Luke 3:22; 4:1
[11] 4:13, 16
[12] Luke 4:18; Isaiah 61:1
[13] Ezekiel 11:5
[14] Acts 3:22
[15] Isaiah 61:4
[16] Deuteronomy 15:4; Leviticus 25:9-10
[17] Luke 4:18-19
[18] Luke 24:43
[19] Luke 23:43; 4:20
[20] Luke 1:35; Acts 1:8; 2:4
[21] John 14:17
[22] Deuteronomy 15:4; Acts 2:44
[23] Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, 7.252
[24] John 15:26
[25] Luke 4:21
© 2022 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
