Office Of Readings | Week 4, Friday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Homilies Of A Fourth-Century Spiritual Writer | May You Be Filled With All The Fulness Of Jesus Christ

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Office Of Readings | Week 4, Friday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Homilies Of A Fourth-Century Spiritual Writer | May You Be Filled With All The Fulness Of Jesus Christ

‘May you be filled to the complete fullness of Jesus Christ.’

This homily from a fourth-century spiritual writer reflects on the varied ways in which the Holy Spirit works within those who have been reborn in Jesus Christ. Rather than describing a single spiritual pattern, the text presents Christian life as dynamic, marked by change, growth, and responsiveness to grace.

The reading begins by identifying the subject of this work: those who have become children of God through the Spirit and who carry Christ within them. Their lives are guided not by uniform experience but by the Spirit’s discreet and inward leading. Grace works invisibly in the heart, shaping prayer, emotion, and action according to God’s purpose.

A series of contrasting states then follows. At times, the Spirit moves the believer to deep compassion, expressed in tears and intercession for the whole human race. At other moments, the same Spirit kindles expansive love and joy, embracing all people without distinction. These movements show that love may take the form of sorrow or delight, both rooted in concern for others.

The homily also describes humility as a work of grace. The believer may be led to see himself as least of all, not through self-contempt but through truthful self-knowledge. This humility stands alongside moments of intense joy, suggesting that spiritual depth includes both abasement and consolation.

Another image presents the believer as a warrior, armed by the Spirit to struggle against evil. This is balanced by scenes of rest and silence, where the soul experiences peace and repose beyond words. Action and stillness are not opposites but complementary forms of life in the Spirit.

The reading also acknowledges moments of insight, when the soul is taught mysteries that cannot be expressed, as well as times when the believer appears entirely ordinary. Grace does not remove a person from human life but renews it from within, allowing the believer to move naturally between the spiritual and the everyday.

The reading concludes with an exhortation. Since grace works in such rich and varied ways, believers are encouraged to pray with hope for the gift of the Spirit. The goal of this guidance is not experience for its own sake but transformation: to be made pure, whole, and complete before God. The final aim is expressed in Pauline terms, as growth into the full stature of Christ.

A Reading From The Homilies Of A Fourth-Century Spiritual Writer | May You Be Filled With All The Fulness Of Jesus Christ

Those who have been considered worthy to go forth as the sons of God and to be born again of the Holy Spirit from on high, and who hold within them the Christ who renews them and fills them with light, are directed by the Spirit in varied and different ways and in their spiritual repose they are led invisibly in their hearts by grace.

At times, they are like men who mourn and lament over their fellow men, and pouring forth prayers for the whole human race, they plunge into tears and lamentation, on fire with spiritual love for mankind.

At other times they are enkindled by the Spirit with love and exultation that, were it possible, they would clasp in their embrace all mankind, without discrimination, good and bad alike.

Sometimes they are cast down below all mankind in lowliness of spirit, so that they reckon theirs to be the lowest and most abject of conditions.

And sometimes they are held by the Spirit in ineffable joy.

At one time they are like a brave man who puts on the king’s full armor and goes down into battle; he fights bravely against the enemy and defeats them. In like manner, the spiritual man takes up the heavenly arms of the Spirit and marches against the enemy and engaging in battle tramples the foe beneath his feet.

At another time the soul is at rest in deepest silence, tranquility and peace, existing in sheer spiritual pleasure and in ineffable repose and a perfect state.

Again, the soul is instructed by grace in a certain understanding in the ineffable wisdom and the inscrutable knowledge of the Spirit on matters which neither tongue nor lips can utter.

Then again, the soul becomes like any ordinary man.

In such varied ways does grace work within them and many are the means by which it leads the soul, renewing it according to God’s will and training it in different ways so that it may be set before the heavenly Father pure and whole and blameless.

We, too, therefore must make our prayer to God and entreat in love and in great hope that he may bestow upon us the heavenly grace of the gift of the Spirit. We pray that we, too, may be guided by that Spirit and that he may lead us into the fullness of divine will and refresh us with the varied kinds of his repose, that by the help of this guidance, exercise of grace and spiritual advancement, we may be considered worthy to attain to the perfection of the fullness of Christ, as the Apostle says: that you may be filled to the complete fullness of Christ.

Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ

God our Father,
you give your Spirit to those you call your children
and you lead them in wisdom and love.

Grant us the grace to welcome your Spirit at work within us,
in joy and in sorrow,
in struggle and in rest.
Teach us to trust your guidance
when the path is clear
and when it is hidden.

Renew our hearts according to your will,
and shape our lives in humility, compassion, and courage.
Lead us towards wholeness in Christ,
that we may be made ready
to stand before you pure and complete.

We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

Glossary Of Christian Terms

Born again | Receiving new life through the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit | God’s Spirit dwelling within and guiding believers
Grace | God’s free and active gift at work in the soul
Spiritual repose | Inner rest and peace given by God
Intercession | Prayer made on behalf of others
Lowliness of spirit | Humble awareness of one’s dependence on God
Ineffable | Beyond the power of words to express
Heavenly arms | Spiritual strength and protection given by the Spirit
Repose | Deep spiritual rest
Divine will | God’s purpose and desire
Renewal | Inner transformation brought about by grace
Perfection | Completeness or fullness of life in God
Fullness of Christ | Maturity and wholeness of life in union with Christ