Living Your Life in the Spirit

At your Baptism you received Christ’s gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19)

You are called to embrace a life lived in the Holy Spirit, allowing it to guide your thoughts, attitude, decisions, and actions. If you are willing to humbly surrender, discern, and cooperate with the promptings of the Holy Spirit, it will teach you the Way of Christ—the virtuous way of truth, love, peace, justice, goodness, compassion, forgiveness, and selfless service to others—that leads you towards holiness (the perfection of love) and closeness with God, and it will guide you, intercede for you, and empower you to become the unique person that God intends for you to be. As scripture teaches, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Achieving holiness is not attained through your own efforts but, rather, through letting God’s grace and the Holy Spirit act within and through you without your resistance. This requires humility and acknowledging your dependence on God and placing your trust and hope in God. Through discerning and following the promptings of the Holy Spirit you will come to learn what God’s will is and what God asks of you. It enables you to focus on what God considers important at that moment for your life and, at the same time and if you consent, gives you the wisdom and courage to accomplish it.

Discerning the promptings of the Holy Spirit is a deeply spiritual practice that involves humility, attentiveness, prayer, and reflection. Here are some suggested ways:

1. Desire God's Inspirations: Begin by humbly desiring God's inspirations and guidance. As Jesus teaches, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7).

2. Prayer and Silence: Spend time in prayer and quiet contemplation. This helps you become more attuned to the gentle nudges and inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

3. Scripture: The Holy Spirit often speaks through the Word of God. Reflecting on Scripture and authoritative teachings can help illuminate God's will and guide your decisions.

4. Peace and Clarity: Promptings from the Holy Spirit are often accompanied by a sense of peace, joy, understanding, and clarity, even in challenging situations. If a decision feels chaotic or unsettling, it may not be from the Spirit.

5. Alignment with Virtue: The Holy Spirit's guidance aligns with virtues like love, truth, goodness, humility, compassion, forgiveness, and selfless service to others. If a prompting leads you toward these, it may be from God.

6. Community and Counsel: Seeking advice from trusted spiritual mentors or participating in a faith community can help confirm whether a prompting is truly from the Holy Spirit.

7. Testing the Spirits: As Scripture advises, test the spirits to ensure they align with Christ's character and teachings (1 John 4:1). This discernment helps distinguish between divine guidance and other influences.

8. Faithful obedience: Act with obedience to the Holy Spirit's promptings with faith, trusting that the Spirit will guide you (“[God] all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will”—Mark 14:36). As you are obedient with respect to small matters, you will begin to be entrusted with greater responsibilities (see the "Parable of the Talents" in Matthew 25:14-30).

9. Praise and Thanksgiving: You praise and give thanksgiving to God as you acknowledge the graces given to you through the Holy Spirit. You do this out of gratitude because you realize that ingratitude imprisons you within your own finite ego and sense of self-importance that can close you off from receiving God's further graces.

If you allow the Spirit to guide you in your thoughts, decisions and actions, you will begin to use your gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord, that the Holy Spirit has entrusted to you, to foster and live God's reign of love, justice, peace, compassion, healing, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation "on earth as it is in heaven." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1830-31; cf. Isaiah 11:1-3). You will also begin to experience and exemplify the fruits of the Spirit emenating within and from you: charity (love), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1832; cf. Galatians 5:22-23)

Allow the Holy Spirit to enkindle the fire of God's love in your heart and for you to be a conduit of that love for others.

Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful,
and enkindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created.
And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit
did instruct the hearts of the faithful,
grant that by the same Holy Spirit
we may be truly wise
and ever rejoice in your consolations,
through Christ our Lord.