Confidence in the Holy Spirit

We sometimes think the the Church has the sole franchise on the Holy Spirit and forget that long before its establishment the Holy Spirit was at work outside this visible body.  Indeed, in Genesis 1: 2, we read: "The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God (the breath of God, Ruah Yahweh) was moving over the surface of the waters."  It is assuring to acknowledge that presence in our own times of "formless void", one of whose victims seems to be the Catholic School system which has dwindled dramatically in the United States over the past generation.  Yet, that Spirit is there, hovering and breathing LIFE into the remnants and the pulse keeps beating.
Encountering 70 facullty and staff at Catholic Central High School in Springfield, OH gave me a glimpse of the Spirit at work.  Springfield is a city like so many others, whose enconomic base has withered and evidences of the struggle for survival abound.  Catholic Central School is now the ONLY Catholic center of education in the city, where at one time there were six (or seven) grammar schools and one high school.  It provides education from kindergarten to high school and is staffed by veteran laity committed to keeping Catholic education alive.  Being there was like hovering over the waters on the wings of the Holy Spirit.  I could feel the power and the action of their faith, determination and hope.  CCS must survive, it must grow to pass on the legacy of our faith to the upcoming generations.  And it will, like so many others across the nation in this same situation.  Like the wind, the Spirit blows where it will, and cannot be ignored.  It begs us, to move ahead with confidence, not only with regard to Catholic education, but in all other areas of our lives and society which seem to have melted into a formless void.  Come Holy Spirit.  Fill us with the FIRE of your power and love.  Let us never lose heart.  AMEN!
Bro. Rene