The guidance of the Holy Spirit

This is the first of six blogs intended to help you to allow yourself to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, a gift of the Father and of Jesus, is our guide both collectively (church, groups, society) and also as individuals. Reading the gospels one can meet Jesus being guided by the Holy Spirit – in the beginning of his ministry (Luke 4,1.14), in his preaching (Luke 4,1.14), in his pleasant moments (Luke 4,14). This Holy Spirit was given to us by Jesus on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13) in order that He might continue to guide us as individuals as well as collectively in all Truth (John 16:13).

The Holy Spirit guided Jesus through his entire life

Looking at the life of Christ, we can notice that it was all immersed in the Holy Spirit. Starting from the beginning of his life here on earth, we can learn that he was conceived of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.

“When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).

“Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God” (Luke 1:34-35). 

Christ’s intimacy with the Holy Spirit is also noticed at the beginning of his public mission, on the banks of the Jordan. Here the Holy Spirit descends on him in the form of a dove:

“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him” (Matthew 3:16).

In this same Spirit Jesus acts, speaks, rejoices and prays:

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness […] filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee” (Luke 4:1.14).

“Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country” (Luke 4:14). 

“At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21-22).

It was also through this Spirit that Christ offered Himself upon the cross for our salvation.

“For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!” (Hebrews 9:13-14).

The Holy Spirit guided the people of the Old Testament

The experience of the Spirit of God as a guide from within is not something original to the experience of Jesus. It is experienced also in the Old Testament. For example, the prophet Isaiah, when he remembers God’s mercy acknowledges the guidance of this Spirit by stating:

“Where is the one who put within them his holy spirit, who caused his glorious arm to march at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths?” (Isaiah 63:11-13).

Other instances where the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament is manifested is in Elijah’s Message to Ahab, when he states “the Spirit of the Lord will carry you where I do not know” (I Kings 18:12).

Moreover, as shown in Psalm 139:7-10, all life is immersed in this Spirit:

Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.

Jesus promising the Holy Spirit upon those who belong to him

As Christ’s mission draws to an end, according to the gospel of Saint John, Jesus himself clearly relates the giving of his life to the sending of the Spirit upon those who belong to him.

“now I am going to him who sent me […] it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate [Councellor] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:5-7).  

Here the gift of the Holy Spirit is seen as another Advocate together with Jesus. Saint John Paul II explains: ” When the time for Jesus to leave this world had almost come, he told the Apostles of “another Counselor” [Allon parakleton, Jn 14:16. …]. It is precisely this Spirit of truth whom Jesus calls the Paraclete-and parakletos means “counselor,” and also “intercessor,” or “advocate.” And he says that the Paraclete is “another” Counselor, the second one, since he, Jesus himself, is the first Counselor (cf. 1 John 2:1), being the first bearer and giver of the Good News. The Holy Spirit comes after him and because of him, in order to continue in the world, through the Church, the work of the Good News of salvation” (Dominum et Vivificantem n. 3). Thus as the Holy Spirit guided Jesus throughout his life, he will continue to defend our lives and guide us towards the Truth.

The Holy Spirit guides the disciples of Christ, making them sharers in His mission

The Risen Lord, bearing in his flesh the signs of the passion, pours out the Spirit, making his disciples sharers in his own mission.

“he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:20-23).

The Holy Spirit was to teach the disciples all things and bring to their remembrance all that Christ had said (cf. John14:26), since he, the Spirit of Truth (cf. John 15:26) will guide the disciples into all the truth (cf. John 16:13).

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you“(John 14:26).

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf” (John 15:26).

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:13).

Finally, in the Acts of the Apostles, we read that the Spirit descended on the Twelve gathered in prayer with Mary on the day of Pentecost, and impelled them to take up the mission of proclaiming to all peoples the Good News.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts 2:1-4).

The Holy Spirit guides us from within in prayer

The Holy Spirit now dwells in the Church and in us as in a temple.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

“do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

In us, the Holy Spirit prays and bears witness to the fact that we are His adopted children.

“And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6).

“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!”  it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17).

“the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

When living in us this Spirit cultivates in us his fruits, namely: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Another characteristic of the Holy Spirit, as Saint John Paul II explains, is that “the Holy Spirit not only enables us to pray, but guides us “from within” in prayer: he is present in our prayer and gives it a divine dimension (Cf. Origen, De Oratione, 2). Thus “he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom 8:27). Prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit becomes the ever more mature expression of the new man, who by means of this prayer participates in the divine life” (Dominum et Vivificantem n. 65).

This guidance from within normally happens through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, namely: “wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord” (Catechism, n. 1830). “Thanks to the multiplicity of the Spirit’s gifts, by reason of which he is invoked as the “sevenfold one,” every kind of human sin can be reached by God’s saving power. In reality-as St. Bonaventure says- ‘by virtue of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit all evils are destroyed and all good things are produced’ (St. Bonaventure, De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti, Collatio II, 3: Ad Claras Aquas, V, 463)” (Dominum et Vivificantem n. 42).

The Holy Spirit guides us individually towards various missions

The Holy Spirit also guides each one of us in different paths. He prompts us from within to discover and live the personal mission God the Father has planned for us. In this way, “some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). In this way together we “build up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). Saint Paul further explains:

“There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;  and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (1 Corinthians 12:4-11).

The Holy Spirit guides us into all the Truth

“the Advocate,the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). 

In this phrase, the verb ‘remind,’ ‘zakar,’ derived from ‘zikkaron’ the ‘memory’ of Easter, does not only mean to commemorate, but to live a right now experience. Moreover – as Saint John Paul II explains in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World – “This means that “The Holy Spirit will be the Counselor of the Apostles and the Church, always present in their midst-even though invisible-as the teacher of the same Good News that Christ proclaimed. The words “he will teach” and “bring to remembrance” mean not only that he, in his own particular way, will continue to inspire the spreading of the Gospel of salvation but also that he will help people to understand the correct meaning of the content of Christ’s message; they mean that he will ensure continuity and identity of understanding in the midst of changing conditions and circumstances. The Holy Spirit, then, will ensure that in the Church there will always continue the same truth which the Apostles heard from their Master” (Dominum et Vivificantem n. 4).

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:12-13). 

About the latter two citations from the Gospel of John, Saint John Paul II continues to explain “In [John 14:26] Jesus presents the; Counselor, the Spirit of truth, as the one who “will teach” and “bring to remembrance,” as the one who “will bear witness” to him. [And in John 16:12] he says: “He will guide you into all the truth.” This “guiding into all the truth,” referring to what the Apostles “cannot bear now,” is necessarily connected with Christ’s self-emptying through his Passion and Death on the Cross, which, when he spoke these words, was just about to happen. Later however it becomes clear that this “guiding into all the truth” is connected not only with the scandal of the Cross, but also with everything that Christ “did and taught” (Acts 1:1). For the mystery of Christ taken as a whole demands faith, since it is faith that adequately introduces man into the reality of the revealed mystery. The guiding into all the truth” is therefore achieved in faith and through faith: and this is the work of the Spirit of truth and the result of his action in man. Here the Holy Spirit is to be man’s supreme guide and the light of the human spirit. This holds true for the Apostles, the eyewitnesses, who must now bring to all people the proclamation of what Christ did and taught, and especially the proclamation of his Cross and Resurrection” (Dominum et Vivificantem n. 6).

The Holy Spirit guides in the transmission and development of faith

In the transmission and development of the Good News, the Apostles and their successors will be in a special way associated with the Holy Spirit.

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:26-27).

As John Paul II comments: The “Apostles were the direct eyewitnesses. They “have heard” and “have seen with their own eyes,” “have looked upon” and even “touched with their hands” Christ, as the evangelist John says in another passage (cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3; 4:14.). This human, first-hand and “historical” witness to Christ is linked to the witness of the Holy Spirit: “He will bear witness to me.” In the witness of the Spirit of truth, the human testimony of the Apostles will find its strongest support. And subsequently it will also find therein the hidden foundation of its continuation among the generations of Christ’s disciples and believers who succeed one another down through the ages.

The supreme and most complete revelation of God to humanity is Jesus Christ himself, and the witness of the Spirit inspires, guarantees and convalidates the faithful transmission of this revelation in the preaching and writing of the Apostles,²² while the witness of the Apostles ensures its human expression in the Church and in the history of humanity” (Dominum et Vivificantem n. 5).  

Discerning the guidance of the Holy Spirit

When we directly deal with the Holy Spirit in our lives, sometimes it is difficult for us to be aware of the inspirations and motivations of the spirit. A practical method to receive the actions of the Spirit (and not unique) is that of asking questions directly to the Holy Spirit. Such questions can be,

Holy Spirit, what are you doing in me in this moment?

Holy Spirit, what are you doing in my family, community, society…?

Holy Spirit, what are you doing in my parish, diocese, church…?

Holy Spirit, what are you doing in humanity?

The answer to these questions is valid when based on Scripture. Certainly, the answer needs also to have a basis on a proper understanding of scripture, and thus enlighted by the church’s magisterial teaching, theology and the experience of saints. Moreover, taking into consideration the existence of different spirits, namely Divine, Human and Diabolical, we always need to discern which spirit is guiding us?

In order to help us in this discernment, in this ‘Guided by the Holy Spirit’ series, this website will offer some insights and tools that can help discern the guidance of the Holy Spirit, by:

showing the difference between the different types of spirits

by explaining what is ‘discernment’ and how it is done in ‘Spirit’ and ‘Truth’

by showing the importance of being aware of the  ‘consolations’ and ‘desolations’ during the discernment process

by understanding the types of ‘Desolations’ and their ‘Cure’

by showing practical insights on when the evil most likely attacks and how to overcome such an attack with prayer

and finally

by showing the importance of focusing on the ‘process’ rather than on ‘progress’ when allowing oneself to be guided by the Holy Spirit.