Sealed with the Spirit

Authenticity is important. Whenever I receive a letter, or an email, or a phone call, I make sure it is authentic – that is, that the person contacting me really is who they say they are. Recently, I’ve noticed this happen to me as well. When I call or email someone I don’t know well, people sometimes want to make sure it’s the real me, and not just someone pretending to be me. Very wise in this day and age of fake messages and spam calls!

Spiritually, authenticity is also important. We say that we are the beloved children of God, created by him and redeemed by him, and who now share in a mystical way in his own divine life. But how do we verify that? Who’s to say we aren’t just pretending all of those things? When times get tough, when people question us or we question ourselves, perhaps we need some sign of assurance that we really are who we say we are.

In today’s second reading, Saint Paul gives us an answer to the question of how we can be sure of our spiritual identity. Writing to the Christian community in Ephesus, he says that God has placed his seal upon all who believe in his Son. In ancient times, a seal was a unique sign of ownership: it verified the authenticity of the object or person that carried it. St. Paul says that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption, and so it is by his presence that we are who we claim to be. We receive the Holy Spirit at our baptism, when our souls are marked with the Lord’s seal and he claims us definitively as his own.

It’s important not to pass over this idea too quickly. How do we know we are really God’s beloved children? First and foremost, by *his* action, by what *he* has done. We tend to think of holiness as something primarily dependent upon us; whatever our relationship with God might be at the moment, we think of it as determined mostly our efforts, strivings, prayers, etc. In fact, the opposite is true. It is always God’s action that is first and foremost. In baptism, he claimed us definitively as his sons and daughters and we remain marked with that seal forever.

Saint Paul the Apostle (c. 1620) by Claude Vignon

Of course, having been marked with his seal, having been given the authentic presence of his Holy Spirit, God calls us to cooperate with him in living out that authentic identity he has given us. That’s why St. Paul is encouraging the Ephesians to not give into what is out of step with the identity they have in the Holy Spirit – “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting… reviling… along with all malice,” – but instead to “be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” Those may sound like just nice platitudes, but they’re not. They are the real abilities to do what we would otherwise not be able to do, precisely because we have been marked by the Holy Spirit. By his grace and presence, our thoughts and desires, our attitudes, our actions, and above all how we treat one another can be transformed into those of Jesus, into the very identity of Christ.

That matters, not just for us but also for others. We can think about all the ways in which we want a better world: more peaceful, more loving, more oriented toward the truth, more forgiving. At times, we may wonder, “Where is God; why is he not acting to bring about such a world?” The answer is he is: he is precisely in and through us, and through all those whom he has marked as his sons and daughters. With the Holy Spirit within us, we are the instruments by which he seeks to remake his creation. That’s why it’s so critical for us to not be fake or pretending in our Christian identity, but to live out that identity authentically. When we choose to give up bitterness, fury, anger, malice, when we choose to be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving others because God has forgiven us, then we aren’t just choosing to be holier for ourselves alone – we are helping to bring about the very transformation of the world, the very world that God wants to give us.

Friends, to help us to do all of this, our heavenly Father also gives us his constant assistance. He gives us the Living Bread come down from heaven, the very Body and Blood of his Son, who recreates us with his Presence, who gives us a renewed share in his identity each time we receive him. May the grace of this Eucharist assist us to authentically live out the identity with which we were sealed in our baptism – to be faithful to the name of Christian until the day of redemption.