The Estuary of Theology 23 

The Spirituality of the Holy Spirit and the Darkness of No-information

If you are experiencing the two kinds of the darkness of no-information before the Eucharist, the darkness of no-information of God and the darkness of no-information of self, it is the evidence that you are formed by the spirituality of the Holy Spirit. They are much like, but not the same as, the experience that one has when he/she is absorbed in and concentrated on something. When one concentrates on his/her plan, he/she may forget him/herself, which means he/she is in a condition of no-information of self. At this time, his/her knowledge of good and evil and the memory of the senses (the five-sense data) are linked with each other to accomplish his/her plan. His/her knowledge of good and evil, while being connected to his/her memory of the senses (the five-sense data), repeats reasoning and judgement using the knowledge already placed in the memory of the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil, based on these, gets connected to his/her free mind, works on it, and a decision then an activity is made. In this situation, the information that the senses (the five-sense data) continue to capture tends to be ignored, and the state of being in the no-information of self occurs. On the other hand, the darkness of no-information of God and self that occurs when one shares in the spirituality of the Holy Spirit is totally different. I will explain this in detail below.

In the Holy Eucharist, the following words which Jesus earnestly taught are living: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35); “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48); “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). Moreover, the Eucharist, into which, after Pentecost, the will of the Holy Spirit descends in the Eucharistic celebration, can be considered to have the same structure as the human person so that it can capture and form human knowledge of good and evil and continue, in collaboration with Christians, Jesus’ missionary and saving work “for the life of the world.”

In what follows, I will explain an idea of the structure of the Eucharist and that of man; and the words of God, “is” and “let there be,” in this explanation indicate for man, the creature, the state in which the wills of the Father and the Son keep fulfilling the word and the act, and the recognition by the Holy Spirit is being waited. This state is similar to that of a man who is alive even when he/she is not active. The passage, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2) refers to the state after “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) as we saw in depth in the account of Genesis in The Estuary of Theology issue 4. The phrase “The earth was without form and void” suggests a state in which the Father’s mind of passion-like compassion is still, and the phrase “darkness was upon the face of the deep” suggests that when the Father is in this state, the Son, the Word, is silent. At this time, the Holy Spirit “was moving over the face of the waters” to make the fact that the Father’s will had been fulfilled by the Son into recognition. This can be inferred in contrast from the subsequent words describing God’s activity: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good” (Genesis 1:3-4). The will of the Father, expressed in the phrase, “And God said,” is fulfilled by the word and act of the Son, expressed in the phrase, “‘Let there be light’; and there was light,” and is completed with the recognition given by the Holy Spirit, expressed in the phrase, “And God saw that the light was good.”

The structure of the Holy Eucharist

1. The word of God “is”: By the “is” of the Word, “Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26), the Holy Eucharist maintains the fact that it is the body of Christ, which remains in the form of bread and wine. It is the Word which preserves the presence of God, who, out of the bush that did not burn out, answered Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), and about whom Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), and keeps fulfilling his promise: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20). On the other hand, by the word “is,” the Eucharist can continue to fulfil the word of Jesus, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32), on the Cross in union with the drawing power of the Father, and draw and form people’s knowledge of good and evil and free minds. At the same time, as Jesus said, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18), the Holy Eucharist too can lay down its life by being eaten by Christians so that it will continue the work of Christ, who descended into Hades saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24), and save the free minds of those who wander in the world after death, and of those who have become evil spirits.

2. The will of God (the Holy Spirit): The will of the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, whom Jesus sent from the Father after he had gone to the Father, fulfilling his word, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7) (cf. John 15:26).

3. “God’s plan”: The whole of the revelation which Jesus made known and completed as he said, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

The structure of man

1. The word of God, “Let there be”: At the time of Creation, God's first word was “Let there be light” (cf. Genesis. 1:3). It was the word that God, who “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17), commanded because he wanted his creation to exist. The word “Let there be,” which God commanded, keeps the existence of human and “every living creature.”

2. The free mind: The free mind is the life of God breathed into the man, as it is written: “[T]hen the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Genesis 2:7-8). By this life of God, man becomes a living being as man formed by God.

3. The knowledge of good and evil: Because of having eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, humans got the knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge of good and evil, being connected to the memory of the senses (the five-sense data), takes in the information placed in this memory and stores it as knowledge. The knowledge of good and evil, created by God in the likeness of his omnipotence, deducing and judging the stored knowledge, makes it into a recognition by fixing it and makes humans “the ones who know good and evil” as God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:22). This recognition works on the free mind, which is connected with the knowledge of good and evil, and results in a concrete activity. By the way, the memory of the senses (the five-sense data) was given by God, out of the necessity of life, to humans even before they got knowledge by eating the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and to all other creatures, as we see from the following words of God: “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so” (Genesis 1:29-30). “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

The darkness of no-information of God is a certain condition that occurs when the trainee sits before the Eucharist to share in the spirituality of the Holy Spirit because his/her knowledge of good and evil that constitutes a person gets connected to “God’s plan” that constitutes the Eucharist. As we read in the scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles, “‘both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.’ They were all astounded and bewildered, and said to one another, ‘What does this mean?’” (Acts 2:11-12), the trainee is overwhelmed because his/her knowledge of good and evil is connected to the mighty “God’s plan” in the presence of the Eucharist, and he/she becomes unable to see the knowledge about “God’s plan” that he/she must have had till then. In the midst of this condition, the knowledge of good and evil of the trainee takes on the yoke of “God’s plan,” all of which Jesus taught, and relearns it directly from God. The fruits of this learning will be known when the Holy Spirit draws them out from him/her in a timely manner.

However, even when the trainee is experiencing the darkness of no-information of God, with his/her knowledge of good and evil being connected to “God’s plan” of the Eucharist, he/she is still free to engage with information other than that about God. So, he/she will be plagued by various distractions because his/her knowledge of good and evil is connected to his/her free mind. Here, as we discussed in the previous issue, if he/she, keeping conscious of the drawing power of the Eucharist, adjusts his/her breathing to be peaceful and regular as in sleep, and if he/she keeps his/her eyes open and focuses on the Holy Eucharist (the tabernacle) even more, his/her free mind will relax and become calm, and he/she will see him/herself becoming quietly lowered. In this way, the trainee will be able to adjust him/herself to the humanity of Jesus of the Eucharist, who said, “for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29).

When the trainee’s attitude changes in this way, and he/she becomes more focused on the Eucharist, his/her knowledge of good and evil becomes more strongly connected to “God’s plan.” As a result, his/her free mind experiences a state in which as if it has temporary lost the knowledge of good and evil. Because the free mind is taken away the knowledge of good and evil, which is usually with it, to the yoke of Jesus and it becomes as if it has lost it, it may turn to the word of God, “Let there be,” which preserves one’s existence, in search of another knowledge. For the word of God is knowledge to man. For this possibility to become a reality, the Father, who saw that the knowledge of good and evil took on the yoke of Jesus and became, so to speak, hidden, rewards him/her here. The “reward” that Jesus referred to when he said, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6), is given in here by the Father drawing his/her free mind to the word of God, “Let there be.”

When the free mind of the trainee is drawn to the word of God, “Let there be,” which supports the existence of man and “every living creature” as well as of man’s free mind, the connection between his/her free mind and his/her knowledge of good and evil, which is tied to the “God’s plan,” is cut off, and the darkness of no-information of self appears. At this point, the trainee is experiencing the twofold darkness of no-information of God and of self. On the other hand, his/her senses (the five-sense data) remember every single “activity of sitting before the Eucharist,” even in the darkness of no-information. This is because the state of the twofold darkness of no-information of God and self has no effect on the senses (the five-sense data). When the free mind returns and the knowledge of good and evil lifts the yoke and is united with the memory of the senses (the five-sense data), then the trainee will be thereby convinced that he/she has been formed by the spirituality of the Holy Spirit sitting before the Eucharist.

At this point, the trainee will realize the meaning of the word of Jesus, “you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29), and will find true peace. This peace is the peace of Jesus about which he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). The Father has rewarded him/her in this way.

A Christian who is thus well formed by the spirituality of the Holy Spirit may eventually find that the darkness of no-information of God and self appears in various situations in real life. This means the spirit of Jesus is asking him/her to work with him/her. When a Christian stays in the presence of the Eucharist to share in the spirituality of the Holy Spirit, he/she is there voluntarily and willingly, which means that the Eucharist has been already given the consent to work with him/her. However, in real life, when the spirit of Jesus, the combination of the Holy Spirit and the Word, wants to collaborate with a person, he asks the person for consent to enter into and collaborate with his/her decisions and activities. The appearance of the twofold darkness of no-information of God and self is its evidence. When you become aware of this, you must instantly respond to the request of the spirit of Jesus. All that is necessary at this point is to answer honestly to yourself, as little children do, according to the word of Jesus: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” (Matthew 5:37). God, who sees into the thoughts of people, expects Christians to be always honest with him. This may be confusing, disturbing, and frightening at first, but as it becomes a habit and you get used to it, it will not be difficult.

What is the most helpful for Christians to make it a habit to be always honest with God, is to put the training of the Book of Revelation, the formation of the twofold spirituality of the Holy Spirit and attending Mass into practice at their own initiative. In these situations, the spirit of Jesus is always close to Christians, relying on their initiative, and encourages them. All the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels will be realized when Christians themselves who have voluntarily acquired the habit of constant training and formation and attending the Mass seek to collaborate with the spirit of Jesus. The perfection of the Heavenly Father, of which Jesus commanded, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), will be given to Christians when they collaborate with the spirit of Jesus.

When the spirit of Jesus asks us for collaboration, what he wants is often actually about very small things in our daily lives. Jesus accomplished and prepared everything so that Christians can do these small things with the perfection of the heavenly Father. God expects Christians to receive these preparations of Jesus firmly and use them fully as we see in the following words of Jesus.

“I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:25-30)

To be continued.

Feb. 2021 in Hiroshima

Maria K