Acts 8:5 - 17

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Dialyt

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Today’s 1st reading:
Philip went to a Samaritan town and proclaimed the Christ to them. The people united in welcoming the message Philip preached, either because they had heard of the miracles he worked or because they saw them for themselves. There were, for example, unclean spirits that came shrieking out of many who were possessed, and several paralytics and cripples were cured. As a result there was great rejoicing in that town.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, and they went down there, and prayed for the Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet he had not come down on any of them: they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
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I don’t get it: surely if the had been baptised they would already have become temples of the Holy Spirit. So why had they not received it? Don’t we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism? This is something I’ve never understood - please can someone explain it to me?
 
The difference is subtle, but the two aren’t in conflict. Baptism initiates us into the Church and allows the Holy Spirit to begin to work in our lives; this is what the Catechism means when it says we become “temples of the Holy Spirit” at Baptism (CCC 1265). The Holy Spirit is certainly present with us at that time. But Confirmation magnifies that effect by “increasing and deepening our baptismal grace” (CCC 1303); the Catechism interprets the sacrament as “completing Baptism.”

Being initiated into the Church is a digital thing – either you’ve been baptized or you haven’t. But the gifts of the Spirit are analog; they can increase in you as you continue to grow as a follower of Christ. Confirmation is an outpouring of that increase that mirrors what the Apostles received at Pentecost, an increase that they received despite following Christ Himself for three years and receiving the grace of the first Eucharist. Even though they’d been initiated as Christians, in some ways their ministry didn’t really get started until the Holy Spirit was poured out on them.

Hope that helps.
 
Thanks, that helps a bit. I guess I’ll never fully understand it anyway!
 
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