Welcome back. Today, reflecting on the Gospel of John 7:37-39, remember each day, we're listening for a word, a phrase, or an idea that the Holy Spirit uses to capture our attention, to intrigue our imagination, to spark our curiosity, to reveal another layer of the scripture. And today's reading is fairly short. So we got to get tuned in. We got to get focused in, so we don't miss it. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. If he believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water." Now this, he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet, the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. And so Jesus is talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. It's interesting. We have images of God, right? When we're little, we probably see God the Father as a big, old man, right? We see Him pictured with a big gray beard and gray hair and that sort of thing. And if you had a dad that loved you and was there for you, it's probably easy for you to bond to an idea of God as Father. But if you had a dad who abandoned you or if you had a dad who beat you or was cruel or neglectful to you, it's probably hard to bond to the idea of God as Father. But we all have an image of God that we hold in our hearts and minds, image of God as God the Father, image of God Jesus, and maybe less so an image of the Holy Spirit [inaudible] maybe think of a dove or that sort of thing, flames of fire. And for me, I think of the Holy Spirit as a great encourager. I think of the Holy Spirit as encouraging us, just constantly encouraging us to do what is good, right, true, beautiful. I see the Holy Spirit just encouraging you in moments of difficulty. I see the Holy Spirit encouraging you when you're resisting God's plan for your life. I see the Holy Spirit encouraging you when you need to take that next step to really grow spiritually. I see the Holy Spirit as a great encourager. And then sometimes I think about our church, and I think it's not really a-- sometimes it's not a very encouraging environment, and we got work to do there. Is your parish a place of encouragement? And most importantly, are you a person of encouragement? If I met 10 people that you know, if I asked them, "Eh, tell me about this guy," would they say, "Oh, yeah, he's very encouraging. He encourages us every day. I feel encouraged when I see him."? If I said to them, "Well, what is it that he says?" they might say, "Well, it's not really anything he says. Just his presence is just sort of encouraging to me. It just encourages me."? Other people might say, "Yeah, I was having this really tough time. And he encouraged me, and it changed my whole perspective. I was able to see it differently." That's what the Holy Spirit does. That's what the Holy Spirit wants to do for you, for me. It wants to change the paradigm. Discouragement comes from the devil, period. Discouragement is not of God. When you feel discouraged-- when you feel discouraged, you immediately have to cast that out. You have to immediately say, "This is not from God." Discouragement is not from God. God does not discourage. God encourages. And so we learn to see the movement of good and evil in our lives. We learn to see God working in our lives. We learn to see the evil one working in our lives. Just in something as simple as encouragement and discouragement, discouragement does not come from God. It needs to be cast out of our lives to invite the Holy Spirit today, the great encourager, to fill us with His encouragement, to send us out into the world so that we can be great encouragers of other people. Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself. Be the very best version of yourself, all that God created you to be.
