A short comment on one sentence in the Front Page – “the Holy Spirit in a steady stream of Communion-of-communications that gives birth and orders, driven to outward service …”
We don’t like the experience and reality of ‘driven.’ We already feel driven too much, Driven crazy. Driven by bills, obligations, endless empty trivia, the eternal loudness of all voices around selling everything that can be sold, and selling some stuff that can’t be sold because it doesn’t even exist, and selling endless war after war that we cannot pay, except in another round of taxes.
The world is driven.
We crave the Holy Spirit to give us Rest. And we get it. Sometimes.
Truth is – when the Spirit first Anointed Jesus to start his public ministry, and the Holy Spirit came, and the Holy Spirit stayed on Jesus, then, “immediately the Spirit drove him out into the desert” (Mark 1:12, Douay-Rheims Bible). Or pick any other favorite version, and we will not get away from the driven – “The Spirit then compelled,” or, “the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.,” or, “the [Holy] Spirit forced Him out into the wilderness.” The Holy Spirit drove, forced, compelled, impelled Jesus into the wilderness – to face tests by the devil.
What a way to start a new Anointed Ministry.
Truth is – the other part of the Truth – is this part, that during the exorcism of the demon possessed man in the Gergesenes cemetery, “the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea” (Mark 5:13).
In this life, we are driven by One Spirit or by other spirits.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:13)