God’s Grandeur: The Holy Spirit at Work in Our Lives

Our lessons during this season of Epiphany help us to better see and understand the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Seeing a violent and lonely world “bleared, smeared with toil,” the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins found sustaining hope in the Christian teaching about the Holy Spirit, who, just as at the dawn of time, is even now “over the bent / World brood[ing] with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” The Spirit’s work in the cosmos intersects with our lives, too! As Luther reminds us, our faith toward God and our love for others is a pure gift from the Spirit, who daily calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy every member of the church.