The Spirit Becomes the Soul of the Church, by Bevil Bramwell

By Bevil Bramwell, OMI, The Catholic Thing, May 31, 2020

Fr. Bevil Bramwell, OMI, PhD is the former Undergraduate Dean at Catholic Distance University. His books are: Laity: Beautiful, Good and True; The World of the Sacraments; Catholics Read the Scriptures: Commentary on Benedict XVI’s Verbum Domini, and, most recently, John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae: The Gift of Catholic Universities to the World.

Today we celebrate the moment when the Holy Spirit became the soul of the Church. This is, to say the least, significant because it puts Catholics squarely in the middle of a great spiritual battle. Jesus told us: “in this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33) The current pandemic, for instance, is just one among many of the works of “the prince of this world.” And if we are not going to allow the Devil to dictate what our lives in this world are going to be,  we cannot let ourselves obsess over worldly evils. Jesus also told us, with good reason: “you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world.” (John 15:19)

To have been chosen “out of the world,” however, has multiple dimensions. On Pentecost, it’s useful to remember a distinction that Cardinal Charles Journet once made between “Christ [who] is the visible center of the Church and the Holy Spirit [who] is the invisible center, heart and soul of the Church.” …

Read more here:  https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2020/05/31/the-spirit-becomes-the-soul-of-the-church/