Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Gonville Ffrench-Beytagh on the Holy Spirit



It is good for us to remember that a Christian is someone who allows himself or herself to be drawn into the prayer of Jesus to the Father by the Holy Spirit. St Paul refers to this when he tells us not to worry when we don't know what to say in our prayers: ". . . the Spirit helps us in our weakness: for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit . . ." (Romans 8:28)

Something of the adventure of this is captured by Father Gonville Ffrench-Beytagh in his little book A Glimpse of Glory. Father ffrench-Beytagh (1912-1991) spent much of his life in South Africa. Converted as a young adult, be trained for the priesthood, eventually becoming becoming Dean of Salisbury (Harare) and later Johannesburg. In the course of his ministry he challenged apartheid, and spent time in prison. On his release he went to England, becoming well-known for his remarkable ministry of spiritual direction, which he carried out from St Vedast's Church near St Paul's Cathedral, London. He published numerous book, including Encountering Darkness, an account of his imprisonment, Facing Depression, Encountering Light, Tree of Glory, and A Glimpse of Glory.

Here is what he wrote about the Holy Spirit and prayer:

"The Holy Spirit is pouring, cascading forth, in tumultuous torrents of love pouring out into the Son, pouring himself in torrents of love. And the Son himself is joyously, gloriously, pouring back his love into the Father. In this great procession of love pouring forth love, it is the Holy Spirit who is poured forth; it is he who is cascading forth in this glorious love affair. And that love is so unlimited, so limitless, that it spills over.

"The Holy Spirit spills over. This is not because God can't contain himself, but because he is so longing to share his life of love and joy and glory, that he has made us as containers. That is what CAPAX DEI means - capable of containing God. Our glory and our purpose is to be filled with the reality which is God. We are designed to be filled with the love of God. We are like the great tankers, filled with petrol or milk, that go trundling along the road, marked 'Capacity 20,000 gallons'. But you and I go about with a couple of gallons sloshing around in the bottom instead of being filled with the fullness of God. Yet that is what he made us for. That is the purpose of our existence - to be filled with God. If we think of prayer being for that, then we are expanding ourselves to receive a share of what is poured out and spilling over of the tremendous infinite power of the love of God.

" . . . I once spent four astonished days at the Victoria Falls in Africa. I was being pounded into the ground by their deafening roar and the magnificent sight of the millions and millions of gallons every moment pouring out, cascading, thundering down into the gorge below. It seemed as if the Congo and the Zambezi had drained all the water out of Africa and there it was. For me this made a picture of the ceaseless activity within the being of God himself. It was like the cascades of infinite divine love interflowing within the Godhead between the Father and the Son. God the Father is begetting love; God the Son is begotten love; God the Holy Spirit is the ceaseless flow of love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit binds them together in the gorgeous, ceaseless torrent of love.

"And beside the Victoria Falls is the rain forest. It is a weird place where you can put on a sou' wester, hat, oilskins, gumboots, and walk into the forest and you're just soaked to the skin. Water gets through everything. The heavy mist comes from the spray that rises up from the great canyon into which the torrent flows. It penetrates everything and seems wetter than ordinary water. As the mist from the cascade will drench us and soak into us if we put ourselves there in the forest, so, if we put ourselves close to the Lord God, his love that overspills and overflows will soak us in the Spirit. We long to share his love in as far as it can be shared by human beings. And he has made us for that, he has made us to be CAPAX DEI, to stand, as it were, in the rain forest, to be drenched in the love of God. That is the spiritual life.

". . . the Falls make a picture of this torrential love of God which never stops. We are caught up into God's love in the prayer of the Spirit praying within us. And we are caught up with the prayer of all the ages and the prayers of all the saints and of our own forbears. We are in their prayers with the angels and the archangels. It is the one great paean of love, agonizing sometimes, from the great chorus of heaven of which we are a part."


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