Clothed with Power

When we look at the promises of Jesus and the life of the early Church, one thing becomes clear. Dr. Mary Healy wrote, “Jesus Christ did not die and rise from the dead for a powerless Church unable to cope with the cynicism, brokenness, and spiritual emptiness that surrounds us. He died and rose to form a people alive in Him, filled with joy, walking in the gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit, and bearing witness to his victory over sin and death.

You and I, as disciples of the living and risen Lord Jesus, are not supposed to be white knuckling it through life, just getting by, clenching our teeth, and hoping to survive the onslaught of a broken and wounded world. We’re meant to be taking the world for the kingdom of God. Our very lives are witness to his victory and permeated by the graces, love, power, and joy of the Holy Spirit.

Kingdoms rise and fall, and they will continue to do so until the Lord comes. Our first allegiance is to the kingdom of God. Our hearts yearn for the life of God. The Holy Spirit is meant to empower us for mission, convict us, correct us, lead us, equip us, and build the kingdom of God through us. We should never settle for less.

In baptism, we became adopted sons and daughters of God. Original sin—alienation from God—was destroyed in us, and we became temples of the Holy Spirit. Every time we receive a sacrament, the Holy Spirit increases within us and strengthens us.

Here’s the question we need to answer: If we have received the Holy Spirit in extraordinary ways, and his presence and power is permeating our lives, why do so many of us act exactly as we did before we knew Him? Where is that transfiguring power? Where are those graces that are given and poured into our soul in baptism, strengthened and anointed in confirmation, and added upon through the Eucharist and the other sacraments? Why do many who have received the sacraments get captured by the world and get sucked away from the life of God?

This problem is not new to us. Jesus rose victoriously from the dead, and the apostles hid in fear (Jn 20). They’d been with the Lord for three years and had seen people raised from the dead—and they hid in fear. They had no idea what to do. So, they went back to fishing (Jn 21)—to the lives they were leading when Jesus first found them; nothing seemed to have changed.

Jesus did not immediately send out his apostles to the world. He knew they were not ready. After his death, he appeared to them over forty days, spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and enjoined them “not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait” (Acts 1:4). He promised them something more—and they received the Holy Spirit. They were ordained priests in the upper room—and they went out from there preaching.

As Jesus said, the apostles needed to “be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5). Don’t you think that is also the case for you and me? The whole Church needs it. Baptism literally means to be drowned in, immersed in something. In sacramental baptism, we are immersed in the waters that the Lord transforms so that we become grafted onto Him. It has many wonderful effects. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is another washing in the Holy Spirit. It’s not a sacrament, but it’s also an immersion, a washing in the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is already within us through the sacraments, but He needs to be unleashed in our lives. Let me use an analogy. Imagine it’s Christmas morning, and someone gives you a beautifully wrapped present. You receive it and go home with the gift. Do you have it? Yes. Have you fully received it? No.

What if you put that present on a shelf and never looked at it again?

It belongs to you, but you’re not using it. You must tear off that wrapping paper, open the box, take it out, and start using it. That’s how you fully receive the gift.

When that is gift unleashed in our lives, we should expect to see three things:

1. A new awareness of the reality and presence of Jesus in our lives. When I was my religious community’s director of formation, many of our seminarians had never been on a roller coaster. They had heard about them, but one day, I took them on a roller coaster. On the way there, they said, “This will be interesting.” And then, halfway through the ride, their faces filled with utter terror, their eyes bulged out, their hair blew back, and they screamed at the top of their lungs. It was a whole different reality! In the same way, it’s not enough to just know about Jesus—we must know Jesus and experience his presence, love, mercy, correction, power, and immense goodness.
2. The presence of charisms—spiritual gifts—in the lives of believers. The gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in Isaiah 11 are for you! They allow you to go where the Spirit wants you to go. The charisms, however, are given for the good of others and the building up of God’s kingdom. When a charism is operative in our lives, something comes alive inside of us. It gives us grace, power, and courage for the specific work God created us for. When you discover your charisms and begin using them, your life will take on new meaning. Your head will pop off that pillow in the morning. When the Holy Spirit is operating within you, it’s supernaturally anointed, and it makes an impact. Charisms are not badges of holiness. They’re gifts for service, proof of love, and power from on high for the building up of the kingdom. (Learn more about this in my book Clothed with Power from on High, available here.)
3. Power for sanctification. The Holy Spirit eliminates sin and sin patterns in our lives, brings our lives into God’s order, and draws us into deeper communion with God. Baptism in the Holy Spirit flips our priorities. We start looking differently at what matters and what doesn’t matter. Prayer becomes more attractive, and the spiritual world opens up. It brings about a deep maturity. It does not replace the need for receiving sacraments or practicing virtues but empowers those things and gives them fuel.

The gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the watershed of any life. I converted to Catholicism because I started reading the Church Fathers and realized the early Church was the Catholic Church. That was great! But weeks later, I stumbled into the meeting of a group that was praying with freedom, joy, and love that burned in my heart. These people knew Him in a way I did not. As I prayed with them, I tentatively raised my hands, and my heart ached for what they had. God heard that silent prayer and poured out that grace upon me—and it changed the trajectory of my life. When I consider that day, I want to weep for God’s goodness in stepping into my life in such a profound way, immersing me in his Holy Spirit, and unleashing those graces within me.

Even if we’ve already received baptism in the Holy Spirit, we can ask for more. We can ask for the gifts to be stirred up again. God is generous. We can never ask for too much of the Holy Spirit in our lives; He wants to fill us and set us ablaze.

This article is condensed from a talk given at the 2025 Lift Jesus Higher Rally in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can listen to it here. The article originally appeared in Renewal Ministries’ June 2025 newsletter.