A Clean Heart, A New Spirit, A New Life

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WITH the Solemnity of Pentecost, we are assured that God in the Holy Spirit is always with us, intervening always in our lives to lead us to where we should be in our definitive life, i.e., to be truly God’s image and likeness, sharers of his divine life and nature.

It would just really depend on us on how receptive and docile we are with the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The ball is in our court. And the least thing we can do is to make as our own this prayer suggested to us by the Church: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.”

We should repeat this prayer frequently on a daily basis if only to protect ourselves from our strong tendency to ignore the indispensable role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is the Holy Spirit who will give us a clean heart, a new spirit and a new life.

Perhaps, we can also use a psalm to express this important request we have to make from God: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (51,10-12)

On our part, we just have to make sure that we take care of our spiritual and moral life since it is through them that we are enabled to receive God’s grace that is the sole principle of eternal newness. Everything else in our life should get its life and purpose from our spiritual and moral dimensions of our life. We have to know what is truly essential in our human affairs and not get confused and lost in the peripherals and incidentals.

We need to deepen our faith in God’s love for us, which should be shown in deeds. It’s in this way that we can participate in Christ’s victory over sin and death with his resurrection to eternal life. That victory will always make us new as St. Paul once affirmed:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away. Behold, all things are made new.” (2 Cor 5,17) In another passage, St. Paul said: “For we are buried together with him by baptism into death, that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in the newness of life.” (Rom 6,4)

Again, we cannot overemphasize the need for us to be led by our faith rather by any other principle no matter how important and indispensable it also may be. We have to understand that the passage of time and its cyclical character is meant for us to develop and show our faith and love for God who continues to intervene in our life since he is still in the process of creating and redeeming us in time.

Time is meant for the total process of our creation that includes our redemption. Time is not simply some kind of measure or record of what went before and after and what is now. Time is a gift from God that is connected to his eternity.

In other words, we should try our best to lead a spiritual and not simply a carnal life. It’s not a matter of suppressing our sensible, material and earthly condition, but rather of going beyond that level. That’s where the road to the fullness of our humanity can be found, and where everything will be made new and eternal.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com