The Holy Spirit Sanctifies Christ As Lord In Our Hearts – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; May 10, 2026 

The Easter season begins with the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus and runs fifty days, embracing Jesus’ ascension into heaven, and concluding with Pentecost, when seated at the right hand of the Father he sends the Holy Spirit, in answer to the prayers of the Virgin Mary, upon the Apostles and the infant Church.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he instructed his Apostles to remain in Jerusalem until, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, they would be empowered to preach the Gospel to all the nations. (cf. Lk 24:45-49) Now, as the celebration of Easter draws near to the Ascension of the Lord, properly this coming Thursday, but actually celebrated the following Sunday, the readings direct our attention to the work of the Holy Spirit.

Before zooming in and looking at the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, let me zoom out, as it were, to look at what the world neither sees nor knows, but has been revealed to us, the whole work of salvation beginning with the Holy Trinity, from whom we have come and to whom we are meant to return.

From an abundance of his generous love, the One God, the Holy Trinity, freely created the world, creating also angels and men, capable of recognizing his goodness, able to respond to love with love, meant to share his life, and live eternally in his embrace. The angelic nature is such that the fallen angels, the demons, who from the beginning rejected the love of the Holy Trinity, are forever separated from God, condemned to everlasting misery. Human nature, however, is redeemable, so when Adam rejected God’s love, God prepared our salvation. Finally, in the fullness of time, one of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, was sent to us as our Savior, becoming man, born of the Virgin Mary, and as man returning to God, atoning for our sins on the Cross. Having returned to the Father, through his resurrection and ascension, he then sends the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to complete his work, drawing us into the Church through the sacraments to share in the life of the Son of God and to follow his path through death to eternal life.

As the unity of the divine nature does not destroy the distinction of among the persons of the Divine Trinity, our unity with God in heaven will not destroy our personhood, as though we were to be absorbed back into a vast, indistinct ocean of oneness, but rather brings our personhood to perfection, as we live forever sharing the Son’s love for the Father, in the bond of the Holy Spirit. In the end, even our individual bodies will be raised from the dust and transformed to share, in its own manner, the life of glory.

The light shine in the darkness (Jn 1:5) and exposes the darkness, so let me contrast briefly what God has made known to us through Christ and his Holy Spirit with the major forms of human error, resulting from the devil’s deception and Adam’s sin, that are found in the world today.

First, there are the different materialisms (like a two-dimensional flatland) that falsely boast in the name of science, that see human life as no more than the product of blind, meaningless, material forces, to be dissolved into the dust of death; if there is any meaning here, it is only the meaning that a person fashions for himself.

Then, for whatever elements of goodness and truth might be preserved by them, there are a multitude of errors found in the different religions of the world.

There are the primitive nature-religions in which human beings pursue their fragile lives, seeking to maintain the connection with the “life-force” in the midst of a deeply interconnected world composed of both benevolent and hostile powers; this is the religion that is most amenable to the extreme forms of environmentalism. Then there are the ancient errors of the East, popularized in the West by way of the New Age, that see the whole material realm, together with all personality and all multiplicity as a mere illusion; some seek to escape the illusion and merge back into the One through self-denial, others rather seek to enjoy the illusion through their devotion to a multiplicity of gods; it is a little like the choice between the red pill and the blue pill in the Matrix movies.

Among those who recognize the truth of the One God, there is Islam, in which the “faithful” submit themselves as slaves to the One God, who is seen as reigning in isolated splendor, the merciful and compassionate ruler of slaves; obeying the one God and his “prophet,” they seek to bring the rest of the world into submission as they hope for the reward in the afterlife, the reward of an earthly paradise of pleasure.

Then there is Judaism, rooted indeed in what God made known to ancient Israel, but which in its present form seeks to “redeem the world” through obedience to the commandments, preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah, while remaining blind to the reality that he has already come; while they retain a belief in the resurrection of the dead, they boast rather of this world over and against the other worldliness of Christianity.

Finally, some mention should be made of the fantasy religions of more recent origin, like Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

From these roots arise a variety of errors that are nearly infinite.

Now, let us zoom back in to look at how the Holy Spirit works in our lives.

When Philip, the Deacon, arrives in Samaria and proclaims the Gospel, some people are freed from unclean spirits, and some people who are crippled or paralyzed are healed. Those who are crippled and paralyzed are unable to freely move about; our souls are unable to freely move about when we are subject to various addictions, compulsions, and passions. The soul is effectively ruled by unclean, demonic spirits when the mind, plunged in ignorance and error, is unable to direct a person’s life in accord with the truth. The first work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, then, is to fill the mind with the truth of Christ, revealing her slavery to sin, leading her through repentance to forgiveness, which opens the door to the life of grace.

When the Apostles arrive, lay on hands, and, through the sacrament of confirmation, bestow the strength of the Holy Spirit, the minds of the baptized are given light, their wills strengthened, and they begin to proclaim the wonderful works of God, announcing the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light. (Cf. Acts 2:11; 1 Pe 2:9)

We can see this work of the Holy Spirit also through the lens of today’s 2^nd reading: Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear.

Always, the work of the Holy Spirit begins in the heart, leading us to a deep interior knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man. The Holy Spirit teaches us to recognize Jesus, seeing him by faith where the world does not see him, in the Holy Eucharist. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, he says. Insofar as the Holy Spirit leads us to believe in and love Jesus Christ, he also leads us to keep his commandments. In this way, we sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. He is the divine “Lord”, which means we are to submit to his rule, not as slaves but as children, and give to him our unconditional loving obedience. The more we love Jesus and keep his commandments, the more we will recognize the work of the Holy Spirit within us. The more we come to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit, the more our love for Jesus will grow and the more eager we will become to keep his commandments and practice good works. This is the “virtuous circle”, the spiral staircase that rises up towards heaven. If we consider the “circle” of the Church’s liturgical year, with its cycles of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, each year the returning feasts should find us higher up on the spiral.

If we are to be ready to give an explanation to those who ask a reason for our hope, we must first sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, otherwise our words will be as a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. (cf. 1 Cor 13:1) If we do not first sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, we will not have the gentleness and reverence in our hearts that will translate into our speech. Yet, to speak and give a reason for our hope, in addition to the light of the Holy Spirit in our heart and mind, we also need some measure of knowledge; the more we know our faith, the more we give the Holy Spirit something to work with.

When, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles, he reminded them of all they had learned in Scripture and all they had learned from Jesus, giving them the understanding of what they had learned, together with the wisdom to articulate it, and the courage to proclaim it.

The Holy Spirit frees us from the slavery of sin and error, fills our minds with truth, kindles in us the love of God that keeps the commandments, sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts, gives us the ability to give an answer to those who ask a reason for our hope, desiring that they too come to discover and share the gift that we have received, desiring the salvation of souls. Indeed, this is the true and greatest good for which God created us, short of which human life becomes an eternal failure. We should then not only be ready to give a reason for our hope but pray ardently for the conversion of sinners.