By Alina Geagea
In our Maronite liturgical calendar we find ourselves in the 15th week of the Season of Pentecost, the longest of our liturgical seasons.
In our daily Mass readings we recently read through the book of the Acts of the Apostles, hearing about the work of the Holy Spirit, living and working through the apostles and the church.
There is a deep dependence on, and reverence for the Holy Spirit in our Maronite Catholic Spirituality. Often in our liturgical Anaphoras (Eucharistic prayers), we hear the priest calling upon the aid and descent of the Holy Spirit to come upon the offering and upon the congregation, as he came upon Mary at the Annunciation, upon the Apostles at Pentecost, and upon us when we were baptised.
When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, he gave a variety of gifts to those who received him to enable the spreading of the Gospel and the growth of the church. In Catholic teaching these gifts are also called charisms, they are unique and always given for the building up of others, not self.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world.” CCC 799.
These charisms are alive today in the church and are visible in the early and recent saints of both our Maronite and universal Catholic church.
Some prominent gifts we see in our Maronite saints are healing, the working of miracles, prophecy and discernment. All of these overflow from a deep contemplative and monastic tradition, as instruments for evangelisation and the upbuilding of the church.
St Maroun, whose life of prayer and asceticism led to the foundation of the Maronite Catholic church, had a charism of healing. It is noted that people often visited him seeking to receive physical healing from sickness and ailments as well as spiritual healing.
St Charbel is now recognised as the saint who has performed the most documented healing miracles. He is also known to have worked miracles such as changing water to oil in his lamp.
St Rafqa in her embrace of her pain and suffering surely possessed the gift of discernment not only to know and make sense of God’s work in her affliction, but to embrace his spiritual consolations that were deeper than her pain.
St Nimutallah received the gift of prophecy and was known as the ‘man of visions’. On one occasion he received the prophetic knowledge of the impending collapse of a wall Kfifen whilst he was teaching a class, and after having asked his students to move, saw the wall come down in the very place they were seated.
These gifts the Holy Spirit continues to pour into the lives of his people today. But they are not only reserved for saints, since, as we see with so many biblical characters, God used them before they were perfected.
We are all called to aspire to become saints, and God has given each of us specific charisms. These may include healing, prophecy and the working of miracles, or others more ordinary but still supernatural in their efficacy for bearing spiritual fruit and leading others to faith, such as teaching, music, writing, or administration.
We are all called to contribute our gifts, to see the glory of God bringing conversion to hearts and renewal to our communities. Just as in baptism all of us receive the Holy Spirit, so all are given charisms.
Perhaps this long season of Pentecost is an opportunity given to us by the church, to ask again for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us and an awakening of the gifts he has placed in us, for the work of evangelisation and the building up of the church. And so that Pentecost may continue today in the church, as alive as it was on the church’s birthday, and the story of the Acts of the Apostles, unwritten, goes on in us.
Come Holy Spirit, have mercy on us and fill us anew with your presence. Make us sensitive to your gentle voice and docile to your promptings. Renew in our hearts the graces we received at our baptism when we were marked as your children. Lead us and guide us as we discern the gifts you have given each of us, and help us to generously use them to serve our community, share You with others and build up the church here on earth, for your kingdom to come and your will to be done. Amen.
