“The Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.” (Luke 12:12)
Trying to explain the way the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, St. Thomas Aquinas once offered an analogy. Suppose you are out in the ocean far from shore in a small rowboat. You are rowing hard to get back to shore when you realize in despair that you will never make it. Just then, the Lord comes on the scene and rigs up a sail onto your rowboat.
Now the wind can carry you back safely to shore!
This was Aquinas’ way of telling us that the Holy Spirit can help us do far more than we could ever accomplish on our own. But the story also tells us that we need to stay connected to the grace that the Holy Spirit offers. We need to keep our sail unfurled so that he can guide us.
What does an unfurled sail look like? It’s open to the wind, ready to respond whenever the wind blows. For us, this means raising our sails every morning in prayer and keeping them up throughout the day so that we can catch the wind of the Spirit whenever it blows.
Just as ordinary wind comes and goes, so too does spiritual wind. There will be days with no wind at all, when the Spirit is calling us to live by faith alone. There will be blustery days, when we are certain that the Holy Spirit is leading us and guiding us. And there will be days when we think we can detect a breeze, but we can’t be sure. Those are the days—and they are many— when we need to stand back and try to listen a bit more closely for the Spirit’s still, small voice.
The key is always looking, always expecting, always being ready for when the Spirit moves us. Over time, we will get better at sensing the Spirit, even on the calmest of days! We will also get better at sensing the Spirit in those tense times, like when we feel the need to defend our faith or give reasons for what we believe.
So keep practicing, and let the Spirit show you how to become an instrument of his grace in this world.
“Come, Holy Spirit, teach me to sense your presence. I want my sails filled with your wind every day.”
Ephesians 1:15-23; Psalm 8:2-7