Making Room for the Holy Spirit

I’ve just finished another discussion of how to maintain the Jesuit and Catholic identity of our university. I always enjoy these discussions because I believe this to be an important and even essential topic for our future. Yet, like in many such discussions, I am frustrated because everyone seems to have a different answer, and a firm idea of what we are talking about often seems elusive. However, this time what struck me is the extent to which the conversation was focused on what we and others could do about it. Absent from this conversation was any discussion of what God might do. It got me thinking that in this, and in the many other important conversations we are having in the Church these days (if the “church of the convinced” allows conversation), we need to make room for the Holy Spirit.
In my earliest searchings for a young adult faith life just after high school, one of the pit stops in my faith journey was several years spent as a member of the Catholic charismatic movement. It was a time of great excitement and wonder, a time when the borders between this world and the supernatural world were broken down in ways previously unknown to me. In this new spirit-filled world, with God, anything was possible. The surprising and unexpected workings of God’s Holy Spirit lurked around every corner of the Church. What faded were not only barriers to the supernatural world, but barriers within this world as well. This new and strange enthusiasm for my faith put me into contact with people and possibilities which I had not previously allowed. Liberals, conservatives, simpletons and intellectuals, we gathered together to praise, worship and give witness to the things that God and his Holy Spirit were accomplishing in our lives. There were no limits on God and the unexpected and unorthodox ways he might act in our lives. Our prayers could result in healing, and God could be a part of everything we did, no matter how “secular.”
Such enthusiasm and openness to God’s spirit can rarely be maintained long before the cares and complexities of this world start to intrude and instill doubt. After a few years, I longed for a perhaps less exciting but firmer foundation in a more contemplative approach to my relationship with God.
These days, however, when I find myself in the middle of fights over what makes a university truly Catholic or, worse yet, what makes a person truly Catholic, I can’t help but remember fondly these more innocent days. I fear that all too often when we speak of the “Catholic University” or the “Faithful Catholic,” the focus is far too much on what we do or don’t do, or what we can or can’t do, rather than how we might cooperate with the grace of God freely, mysteriously and surprisingly given to us. It seems to me that our discussions will not and cannot be so predictable, trite, vapid and/ or just plain nasty if we take the time to look beyond ourselves, stop worrying for a moment (or two! or three!) about what we or what others are doing and start paying more attention to what God is doing. Many of the barriers that exist between us, and many of the limitations we place on what God can do, would start to fade away if we just made more room for the Holy Spirit.