PODCAST | Giving the Holy Spirit a Blank Check
In this podcast, Fr. Javier del Castillo helps us prepare for the great solemnity of Pentecost by guiding us to ask ourselves: What is my relationship with the Holy Spirit? Am I docile? Do I listen?
“Wherever the Spirit is, there is newness, there is life,” explains Fr. Javier. “There is definitely a difference between what the Apostles were before, and what the Apostles are after they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:1-11). And, “it’s the power of humility… of the docility of the Apostles that let go and let God. Let God the Holy Spirit act in and through them in spite of their own weaknesses…”
Fr. Javier says that, “Our Lord is challenging us to be docile to the Spirit. And, to be docile means to give the Holy Spirit a blank check… It means to take a risk, it means that we won’t know where He comes from and we don’t know where we’re going. But we know we’re in sure hands. And that’s what it means to commit ourselves to the Christian life.”
We ask the Holy Spirit “to come in a new Pentecost” to each one of us today to help us be docile in order to let God into our lives and to take us wherever He wills. We also ask the Holy Spirit for His gifts, especially wisdom, to understand the ways of God and to understand the things of the world from God’s point of view.
Rev. Javier del Castillo
Fr. Javier del Castillo is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei and currently serves as President of the St. Josemaria Institute. He earned a degree in electronic engineering and moved to Rome to complete his ecclesiastical studies, where he was ordained a priest in 2005 and earned a doctorate in Philosophy from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in 2007. He worked as a chaplain in high schools in the Washington, D.C. and Chicago areas for several years, offering spiritual accompaniment to students, parents, and teachers. From 2015 on, he served as the vicar of Opus Dei in the midwest; he was appointed regional vicar of the United States in 2022. He became vicar of the United States and Canada in 2024, following the restructuring of the regions, until his appointment as Vicar General in April 2025.
