St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

Think of a symphony orchestra. It's made up of a hundred different musicians and dozens of instruments.

The conductor is the visible focus of everyone's attention, both the musicians and the audience. And yet, is the conductor the real source of the music? No, the composer is. In front of every musician is a music stand holding a few pages marked with black dots - the score, the music. No one in the audiences sees the score, but that score is what brings all those minds together, coordinates everyone's efforts, and produces a beautiful, inspiring performance.

This is what the Church is like. The Pope is the conductor, guaranteed by God to stay faithful to the musical score. We are all musicians, contributing our own unique talents to the symphony of holiness that resounds throughout the world and history. And the Holy Spirit is the living musical score, the one who tells us what notes to play, when to play them, how fast to play them, how loud and soft. He is the silent force behind the power of every saint, every Christian, and the Church as a whole.

This same quiet but powerful style of the Holy Spirit is illustrated by the famous Holy Spirit Window in St. Peter's Basilica, in Rome. It is an oval window at the farthest end of the gigantic basilica. In the center is a figure of a dove, and around the dove are twelve sections of translucent amber that look like twelve spokes in a wheel. It is the only colored window in the entire building, and it quietly suffuses the immense space with a warm, golden light. Quiet and subtle, yet full of transforming power - that's how the Holy Spirit likes to work.

There is only one condition attached to this gift. To experience God's transforming presence in our lives, we have to obey his will out of love: "Whoever loves me will keep my word," as Jesus says in the Gospel. All of us here today want to obey God's will in our lives - some want to do so passionately, others reluctantly, but we all want to - otherwise we wouldn't be here. But how do we know what God's will is? The Holy Spirit quietly reveals God's will to us in two ways.

He inspires and guides the teaching of the Church. We have: the commandments of the Bible, the instructions in the Catechism, the examples of the saints, the regular updates from the pope's encyclicals - the Holy Spirit wants us to know how a Christian should live, and he gives us the Church to keep us posted. In this way, the Church, under the pope's leadership, is like the conductor of a symphony: we have to keep our eyes on him if we want to play our part well. But the Church can only give commandments and guidelines that apply to everyone. The commandments tell God’s will for all people. But within these parameters we are faced with opportunities and challenges unique to our own life circumstances. That's when the Holy Spirit guides us more personally, through inspirations, through his seven Gifts, through wise advice. Let us renew our commitment to follow and obey - not in order to experience spiritual fireworks, but in order to feed the fire of God's love in our hearts, whose light and heat we all need so much.