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Office Of Readings | Christmastide | 2nd January | A Reading From The Treatise Of Saint Basic The Great On The Holy Spirit | The Lord Gives Life To His Body In The Spirit
‘The Lord gives life to his body in the spirit.’
In this reading, Saint Basil explains the work of the Holy Spirit in giving life to the body of Christ and shaping the Christian life. A spiritual person is not one who rejects the body, but one who no longer lives according to the flesh alone and is guided by the Spirit of God. Such a person is called a child of God and is reshaped according to the likeness of God’s Son.
Basil uses the image of sight to describe the Spirit’s activity. Just as sight functions properly only in a healthy eye, so the Holy Spirit works effectively in a soul that has been purified. The Spirit is not absent from the human person, but his activity becomes clear where the heart is open and receptive.
Basil then describes how the Spirit bears witness within believers. This happens inwardly, as the Spirit moves the heart to cry out ‘Abba, Father’, and outwardly, as the Spirit speaks through believers in their words and actions. In both cases, it is the Spirit who gives voice to prayer and proclamation.
Basil next turns to the unity of the Church. Although the Spirit gives different gifts to different people, the Spirit remains whole and undivided. Using the image of the body, Basil shows that diversity of gifts does not weaken unity. Each member has a distinct role, but all belong to one body and depend on one another. This unity is not merely organisational but spiritual, created by baptism into the one Spirit.
Because believers share the same Spirit, they also share in one another’s joys and sufferings. The Spirit creates a real fellowship, in which concern for others arises naturally from belonging to the same body of Christ.
Finally, Basil explains how the Spirit leads believers into true worship and knowledge of God. Just as the Father is known through the Son, so the Son is known through the Spirit. To worship in the Spirit is to have the mind opened to divine light. When Christ speaks of worshipping in Spirit and in truth, he speaks of worship that is no longer tied to a place but is centred on himself.
Through the Spirit, believers behold the Son, Jesus Christ, and through the Son they are led to the Father. In this way, Basil sets out the ordered and living relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.
A Reading From The Treatise Of Saint Basic The Great On The Holy Spirit | The Lord Gives Life To His Body In The Spirit
A spiritual man is one who no longer lives by the flesh, but is led by the Spirit of God, one called a Son of God, remade in the likeness of God’s Son. As the power of sight is active in the healthy eye, so the Holy Spirit is active in the purified soul.
We may form a word either as a thought in the heart or as a sound on the lips. So the Holy Spirit, bearing witness to our spirit, cries out in our hearts saying ‘Abba Father,’ or speaks in our place, as Scripture says: ‘It is not you who speak; it is the Spirit of the Father who speaks in you.’
In the gifts that he distributes, we can see the Spirit as a whole in relation to its parts. We are all members of one another, but with different gifts according to the grace God gives us. ‘So the eye cannot say to the hand, I do not need you, nor can the head say to the feet, I have no need of you.’ All the members together make up the body of Christ in the unity of the Spirit, and render each other a necessary service through their gifts. God has arranged the various parts of the body according to his own will, but there exists among them all a spiritual fellowship which makes it natural for them to share one another’s feelings and to be concerned for one another. ’If one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together. Moreover, as parts are present in a single whole, so each of us is in the Spirit since all who make up the one body have been baptized into the one Spirit.
As the Father is seen in the Son, so the Son is seen in the Spirit. To worship in the Spirit, then, is to have our minds open to the light, as we may learn from our Lord’s word to the Samaritan woman. Misled by the tradition of her country, she imagined that it was necessary to worship in a certain place but our Lord gave her a different teaching. He told her that one must worship in Spirit and in Truth, and clearly by the truth he meant himself.
As then we speak of worship in the Son because the Son is the image of God the Father as, so we speak of worship in the Spirit because the Spirit is the manifestation of the divinity of the Lord. Through the light of the Spirit, we behold the Son the splendour of God’s glory, and through the Son, the very stamp of the Father we are led to him who is the source both of his stamp, who is the Son, and of its seal, who is the Holy Spirit.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Holy Spirit,
you give life to the body of Christ
and unite believers in one fellowship.
Purify our hearts,
guide our prayer,
and open our minds to the knowledge of the Son,
that through him we may be led to the Father.
Grant that we may serve one another
according to the gifts you bestow,
and worship God in spirit and in truth.
Amen
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Spiritual man | A person led by the Holy Spirit rather than by the desires of the flesh.
Holy Spirit | The third person of the Trinity, who gives life and unity to the Church.
Abba, Father | The intimate address to God given through the Spirit.
Gifts of the Spirit | Different graces given to believers for the service of the Church.
Body of Christ | The Church, made up of many members united by the Spirit.
Worship in spirit and truth | Worship centred on Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, not confined to place.
Trinity | The one God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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