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Encountering the Holy Spirit- my testimony

When I was much younger, I was asked to come along for a prayer meeting, it was my first so I went with a bit of hesitation. Everything was going well, until the person conducting the meeting, asked the congregation to pray in tongues. It was literally the first time I heard about it and being curious, I took a look around the room only to end up terrified as I seen people's hands trembling and heard them speaking in a language I couldn't understand. That day I decided I would stop going for any further meetings as I didn't know what to make out of that experience. I remember thinking, they got to be making it up, how is this even possible?

Growing up, I struggled to understand how we profess to believe in One God, when there are three persons of the trinity, God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. One explanation which really helped me came from a priest who asked us to think of the trinity as an olive tree. Imagine God the Father as the roots, Jesus as the branches and the Holy Spirit as the fruit (olives), together they make up the tree and are of the same essence, yet they are different and perform a unique function. In the same way, the Father, Son and Spirit are three persons, yet their nature is the same, Divine. Nature is the inherent character or feature of something. We know that by nature, God is eternal, omnipresent, all-knowing and all powerful, hence this would be the nature of all three persons of the trinity. 

Our understanding of these three persons of the trinity comes from what God himself has revealed to us. For example. We know that they are three separate persons because Jesus talks to his Father in the Gospels and he promises to send the Holy Spirit after he goes back to the Father. Yet, we know that they work in unison as Jesus himself tells us in John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."We see this also at the time of creation, in the Book of Genesis "Let us make humankind in OUR image".

While we often pray to the Father and to Jesus, I think, we often struggle while praying to the Holy Spirit because we cannot picture him easily. We often associate the Spirit with a dove or by the gifts, but the Spirit is much more, its a person. While seeking the gifts of the Spirit, we should also seek to have a deeper relationship with him. While I say this, I know that I am also guilty of this struggle and is something I am currently working on.

I personally encountered the Holy Spirit when I was doing my studies of the Ministry of the Word. We had a brilliant priest called Father Roland, who one day volunteered to pray for those who hadn't received the gift of tongues. After my experience as a teenager, I was very eager to experience it for myself so I went and stood right in front of the class along with other colleagues. There father made a simple prayer and asked us to simply praise God. I noticed my legs and hands beginning to tremble a bit, but I ignored it and concentrated of praising God, before I knew it my tongue took over and there were these deep shrieks from within my soul which I couldn't comprehend. I couldn't believe that I had gotten so loud (being a shy and introverted person) but it was so overwhelming that tears began to roll down my eyes. Soon the entire room was filled with these shouts of praises to God and I remember thinking in my head, anyone passing by would be bewildered by what was happening in this room as we had gotten really loud by that point. That was one of the most powerful experiences I ever had. It made me think of the day of Pentecost when the disciples spoke in tongues and people heard it and were amazed. 

I have often avoided speaking about this experience to people because they usually do not believe it and also because I know that while the gifts of the Holy Spirit are amazing, the person of the Holy Spirit is what you need to be after. The gifts do not bring you salvation, that comes only from God. Yet I decided to talk about this experience this Pentecost Sunday, as I know that many think the Holy Spirit was active only during the time of the disciples, but the reality is that, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and he is active in you. At the time of your baptism you have been entrusted into the care of the Holy Spirit and its time to dive deeper into your relationship with this person of the trinity. 
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