Baptism in the Holy Spirit

I've started in on a booklet/document from International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services titled Baptism in the Holy Spirit. So far, it seems to effectively bridge two purposes that I never thought could coexist in one text, covering the theological issues of my spirituality in a practical way. I'm looking forward to finishing it, and am considering buying several more copies to share with people outside the renewal.

That said, the "my" in that first paragraph is feeling a little presumptuous in light of what I've encountered in the first chapter, which outlines the hallmarks that seem common to people who have this experience of the Holy Spirit. It is this fruit which provides the practical evidence that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is an authentic movement of God's Spirit in people's lives. If this is true, it would serve all of us well to remain open to it, rather than judging it and casting it aside as a fringe movement of people deluding themselves or being misled, as so many of the renewal's skeptics have done. I've seen much of the evidence of the authentic movement of the Spirit which the document points out, yet a couple of those that I would consider both most important and most irrefutable seem to be absent from my own life. Granted, the book is careful to point out that usually some of these characteristics are instantaneous and others develop over the course of our life in the Spirit. Nor is there a set delineation of which traits will develop at what points in people's faith walk; different people experience different gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit during different parts of their journey. My friend Herb and I were observing this just the other night at our prayer group, as he wondered at the insight that seems to come through me, while I lacked the courage to comment on the purity for which I so respect him.

Indeed, this points to what I consider the most important single piece of evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in any person's life. When the Spirit moves in us, we desire to please the Lord above all else. We hunger for the things that make us holy, sanctified and set apart for the Lord's purposes. And I? Over the 28 years since that rainy night in Biloxi when I presumably first felt the Spirit stir my own heart, when I first pleaded with God to change what I could not seem to fix on my own, at no time has there ever been any shortage of evidence that I remain far too full and fond of my own self-centeredness.