Posts
"O Holy Spirit, make me docile to Your action and always willing to be guided and directed by You."
"In what concerns sanctity, we are always like school children,m apprentices who, having only a rudimentary knowledge of the art they are learning, are always in need of direction and suggestions from their teacher. Our Teacher of sanctity is none other than the Holy Spirit...That is why the whole work of our sanctification can be reduced to a question of docility to the divine Paraclete...
"But very often, alas! our will still remains hard, stubborn, and intractable because it is so attached to creatures especially to that one creature, the 'ego' which we blindly cherish. Hence, to cooperate with the action of the Holy Spirit, the first requirement is the painstaking effort to detach ourselves from everything, especially from ourselves. Detachment will free us from numerous bonds which, like cords, tie us to creatures, making our docility and submissiveness to the Holy Spirit an impossibility...
"the Paraclete is not content simply to invite us to what is good, but He wishes to take the initiative, impelling us more effectively toward God. However, He respects our liberty, and will not make Himself Master of our will unless we are disposed to give it to Him freely. And here we can set up another obstacle to His action:...Perhaps we cooperate partially, giving Him something of what He asks, but we do not give Him 'all'. We must therefore, cultivate the spirit of 'totality' which puts no limits on our giving. We must have a magnanimous heart and not retard the work of the Holy Spirit, who will to bring us, not only, to good actions but to generous, heroic, saintly ones." --from Divine Intimacy, #192.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Come, Holy Spirit!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Let us pray for His Spirit upon us during the Vigil Mass tonight.
Luke 1:26-38 Mary overshadowed by the Holy Spirit conceived the Savior! Holy Spirit, overshadow us! Luke 11:9-13 It simply pleases Jesus and the Father to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us. Let us ask and knock and seek for more of the Spirit.
On the faithful who adore
And confess You evermore
In Your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue's sure reward;
Give them Your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end.
Amen. Alleluia.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Acts 2:1-4 PENTECOST Suddenly there was the rush of a mighty wind, from heaven...And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues. By our novena we have prepared ourselves for the coming of the Spirit. Let us repent if necessary, humble ourselves by fasting, and turn to Him with a loving and surrendered heart desperate for more of His Spirit.
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
melt the frozen, warm the chill;
guide the steps that go astray.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Luke 24:49 Jesus said He would send the promise of the Father"...and the disciples would be clothed with "power from on high." The Holy Spirit is the Father's Promise! Ask Him now to fulfill His promise to you and your children!
Heal our wounds, our strength renew!
On our dryness pour Your dew;
wash the stains of guilt away.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Luke 4:18-19"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..." Jesus quoting the Prophet Isaiah (ch 61). Jesus depended upon the power of the Spirit in His own ministry! How much more so we, in our family, our work, and our service.
Where You are not, we have naught;
nothing good in deed or thought,
nothing free from taint of ill.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Great Promise
'We must fervently prepare ourselves for Pentecost, so that the coming of the Holy Spirit will be renewed in us in all its plenitude. Since sin is the obstacle to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, our preparation must consist in a very special purity of conscience. Sin must be destroyed in us, not only in its actual manifestations, even though they are slight, but also in its deepest and most hidden roots.
"We must be convinced, furthermore, that a certain action of the Holy Spirit is never interrupted in a soul in the state of grace...This action does not necessarily have to be perceived and consoling. In aridity and despondency the Holy Spirit also works in the faithful soul; His action is secret and hidden, but also real and effective. Its chief purpose is to purify the soul and dispose it for union with God. If the soul is convinced of this, it will remain confident, even in difficulties, and, if it neither understands nor sees its path, it will trust in the Holy Spirit, who sees and knows well the goal to which He is leading it."
"Ah! eternal Word, tell me, I beg You, what prevents the Holy Spirit from accomplishing all His work in the soul? You tell me that the first impediment is malice; another impediment is the self-will
of those who want to serve You, but in their own way. We want Your Spirit, but we want Him in the what that pleases us, and as much as pleases us; in this way we make ourselves incapable of receiving Him. At other times, lukewarmness is a hindrance; we think we are serving You and do not realize we are serving ourselves." (St. Mary Magdalene dei Pazzi)--taken from Divine Intimacy, #168.
"We must be convinced, furthermore, that a certain action of the Holy Spirit is never interrupted in a soul in the state of grace...This action does not necessarily have to be perceived and consoling. In aridity and despondency the Holy Spirit also works in the faithful soul; His action is secret and hidden, but also real and effective. Its chief purpose is to purify the soul and dispose it for union with God. If the soul is convinced of this, it will remain confident, even in difficulties, and, if it neither understands nor sees its path, it will trust in the Holy Spirit, who sees and knows well the goal to which He is leading it."
"Ah! eternal Word, tell me, I beg You, what prevents the Holy Spirit from accomplishing all His work in the soul? You tell me that the first impediment is malice; another impediment is the self-will
of those who want to serve You, but in their own way. We want Your Spirit, but we want Him in the what that pleases us, and as much as pleases us; in this way we make ourselves incapable of receiving Him. At other times, lukewarmness is a hindrance; we think we are serving You and do not realize we are serving ourselves." (St. Mary Magdalene dei Pazzi)--taken from Divine Intimacy, #168.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Weakness in Prayer
"We want to pray, but God is far off, we do not have the words, the language, to speak with God, nor even the thought to do so. We can only open ourselves, place our time at God’s disposition, wait for Him to help us to enter into true dialogue. The Apostle says: this very lack of words, this absence of words, yet this desire to enter into contact with God, is prayer that the Holy Spirit not only understands, but brings and interprets before God. This very weakness of ours becomes -- through the Holy Spirit -- true prayer, true contact with God. The Holy Spirit is, as it were, the interpreter who makes us, and God, understand what it is we wish to say." -- Pope Benedict XVI, quoted in ZENIT 5-17-2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Contemplation of the Crucified
"The glorious Cross of Christ sums up the world's sufferings, but it is above all a tangible sign of love, the measure of God's goodness to man. In this place, we too are called to rediscover life's supernatural dimension, to lift our eyes from what is contingent, and to return to complete reliance upon the Lord, with a free heart and in perfect joy, by contemplating the Crucified, that He may wound us with His love.
... It is only by allowing himself to be illumined by the light of God's love that man and the entire creation may be redeemed, that beauty may finally reflect the splendor of the face of Christ, as the moon reflects the sun. The Blood of the Crucified flowing from the glorious Cross vivifies the dried bones of Adam who is in us, so that each of us might rediscover the joy of setting off on the path of sanctity, of climbing upwards, towards God. From this blessed place, I unite myself to the prayer of all Franciscans on earth: "We adore you O Christ and we bless You, because by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world."
"...The contemplation of the Crucified is the work of the mind, but it is unable to soar the heights without the support, without the force of love...Brother Bonaventure of Bagnoregio -- the illustrious son of St. Francis -- ...communicates to us his own experience by inviting us to prayer. First, the mind should turn to the Passion of the Lord, since it is the sacrifice of the Cross that blots out our sin, a lack that can only be filled by God's love: "I exhort the reader – he writes – to cry out in prayer through Christ Crucified, whose blood cleanses us of the stain of our sins" (Itinerarium mentis in Deum, Prol. 4). But to be effective, our prayer needs our tears; that is, our interior involvement, our love, which responds to the love of God. Then what is needed is that admiratio, which St. Bonaventure sees in the humble ones of the Gospel, who are capable of experiencing wonder before Christ's saving work. And humility is the door to every virtue. For it is not through the intellectual pride of a search enclosed upon itself that one attains to God, but rather through humility, according to the famous expression of St. Bonaventure: "May [man] not believe that it suffices to read without unction, to speculate without devotion, to investigate without wonder, to examine without exultation, to work without piety, to know without love, to understand without humility, to study without divine grace, to see without wisdom divinely inspired" (ibidem.).
"The contemplation of the Crucified has an extraordinary efficacy, for it causes us to pass from the order of things thought, to that of experience lived; from hoped-for salvation to the sweet and blessed homeland. St. Bonaventure affirms: "He who gazes intently [upon the Crucified] … makes the Passover with Him – that is, the passage (ibid., VII, 2)....St. Francis...tells us, too, that it is not enough to call ourselves Christians to be Christians, nor is it enough to seek to perform good works. We need to conform ourselves to Jesus through a slow, steady commitment to the transformation of our being to the image of the Lord, so that through divine grace, every member of His Body, which is the Church, might show forth the necessary likeness with its Head, Christ the Lord. And we begin this journey -- as the medieval masters teach us on the basis of St. Augustine -- with self-knowledge, with the humility of looking within ourselves with honesty." --Pope Benedict XVI, (quoted on ZENIT 5-15-2012)
... It is only by allowing himself to be illumined by the light of God's love that man and the entire creation may be redeemed, that beauty may finally reflect the splendor of the face of Christ, as the moon reflects the sun. The Blood of the Crucified flowing from the glorious Cross vivifies the dried bones of Adam who is in us, so that each of us might rediscover the joy of setting off on the path of sanctity, of climbing upwards, towards God. From this blessed place, I unite myself to the prayer of all Franciscans on earth: "We adore you O Christ and we bless You, because by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world."
"...The contemplation of the Crucified is the work of the mind, but it is unable to soar the heights without the support, without the force of love...Brother Bonaventure of Bagnoregio -- the illustrious son of St. Francis -- ...communicates to us his own experience by inviting us to prayer. First, the mind should turn to the Passion of the Lord, since it is the sacrifice of the Cross that blots out our sin, a lack that can only be filled by God's love: "I exhort the reader – he writes – to cry out in prayer through Christ Crucified, whose blood cleanses us of the stain of our sins" (Itinerarium mentis in Deum, Prol. 4). But to be effective, our prayer needs our tears; that is, our interior involvement, our love, which responds to the love of God. Then what is needed is that admiratio, which St. Bonaventure sees in the humble ones of the Gospel, who are capable of experiencing wonder before Christ's saving work. And humility is the door to every virtue. For it is not through the intellectual pride of a search enclosed upon itself that one attains to God, but rather through humility, according to the famous expression of St. Bonaventure: "May [man] not believe that it suffices to read without unction, to speculate without devotion, to investigate without wonder, to examine without exultation, to work without piety, to know without love, to understand without humility, to study without divine grace, to see without wisdom divinely inspired" (ibidem.).
"The contemplation of the Crucified has an extraordinary efficacy, for it causes us to pass from the order of things thought, to that of experience lived; from hoped-for salvation to the sweet and blessed homeland. St. Bonaventure affirms: "He who gazes intently [upon the Crucified] … makes the Passover with Him – that is, the passage (ibid., VII, 2)....St. Francis...tells us, too, that it is not enough to call ourselves Christians to be Christians, nor is it enough to seek to perform good works. We need to conform ourselves to Jesus through a slow, steady commitment to the transformation of our being to the image of the Lord, so that through divine grace, every member of His Body, which is the Church, might show forth the necessary likeness with its Head, Christ the Lord. And we begin this journey -- as the medieval masters teach us on the basis of St. Augustine -- with self-knowledge, with the humility of looking within ourselves with honesty." --Pope Benedict XVI, (quoted on ZENIT 5-15-2012)
Friday, May 11, 2012
Discouraged?
"There is presumption when one relies more upon one's own resources than on the help of God...
"It is not unusual for a person to slip rather quickly from a state of presumption into a state of despair when faced with trials and difficulties...That discouragement leads first to pessimism, and then to lukewarmness, a lukewarmness which feels that the struggle for personal holiness is too difficult a task; what happens next is that all effort is abandoned.
"The cause of discouragement is not the existence of difficulties, but rather the absence of a genuine desire for holiness and of reaching Heaven. When we love God and want to love him more, we avail ourselves of difficulties to show him our love and to grow in virtue. Lack of hope creeps in when bourgeois attitudes are allowed to flourish in the soul; when one becomes attached to things of this world, regarding them as the only things that are worthwhile.
"The lukewarm person becomes discouraged because through a good deal of culpable negligence he has lost sight of his goal, which is personal holiness and a desire to know and love God more. Then material things take on an absolute value, if not in theory, at least in practice. If we make temporal projects into absolute goals, eliminating from our horizons our eternal dwelling and the goal for which we have been created - to love and praise God and to possess him afterwards in heaven - then our noblest efforts betray us and lead to our defilement." -- from In Conversation With God, vol. 2, pp461-462.
"It is not unusual for a person to slip rather quickly from a state of presumption into a state of despair when faced with trials and difficulties...That discouragement leads first to pessimism, and then to lukewarmness, a lukewarmness which feels that the struggle for personal holiness is too difficult a task; what happens next is that all effort is abandoned.
"The cause of discouragement is not the existence of difficulties, but rather the absence of a genuine desire for holiness and of reaching Heaven. When we love God and want to love him more, we avail ourselves of difficulties to show him our love and to grow in virtue. Lack of hope creeps in when bourgeois attitudes are allowed to flourish in the soul; when one becomes attached to things of this world, regarding them as the only things that are worthwhile.
"The lukewarm person becomes discouraged because through a good deal of culpable negligence he has lost sight of his goal, which is personal holiness and a desire to know and love God more. Then material things take on an absolute value, if not in theory, at least in practice. If we make temporal projects into absolute goals, eliminating from our horizons our eternal dwelling and the goal for which we have been created - to love and praise God and to possess him afterwards in heaven - then our noblest efforts betray us and lead to our defilement." -- from In Conversation With God, vol. 2, pp461-462.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Way Out of Our Darkness
"Open the eyes of your understanding to gaze within the vessel of self-knowledge...discover this blood which God has given through his Son. And since the blood was shed only because of sin, you discover in it the knowledge of yourself...Then you know that God's eternal will wants nothing other than that we be made holy...
"Open, open the eyes of your understanding onto Power, the eternal Father, whom you find in this blood because of the union of the divine nature with human nature. And you will find Wisdom, the Son. And in that Wisdom you will recognize God's supreme eternal goodness as well as your own poverty when you discover Mercy, the Holy Spirit, who was the bond that joined God with humanity and humanity with God, and who held this Word fixed and nailed to the wood of the most holy cross. So your will will be filled and will reach out to love, and you will bind yourselves so tightly with Christ crucified that neither the devil nor anyone else will ever be able to separate you from him. In fact, anything that may act against you will only serve to strengthen your union with God and with your neighbors. For virtue is tested by what opposes it, and the more virtue is tested in us, the more perfect our union with our Creator becomes." --St. Catherine of Siena, quoted in Magnificat, p. 39-40.
"Open, open the eyes of your understanding onto Power, the eternal Father, whom you find in this blood because of the union of the divine nature with human nature. And you will find Wisdom, the Son. And in that Wisdom you will recognize God's supreme eternal goodness as well as your own poverty when you discover Mercy, the Holy Spirit, who was the bond that joined God with humanity and humanity with God, and who held this Word fixed and nailed to the wood of the most holy cross. So your will will be filled and will reach out to love, and you will bind yourselves so tightly with Christ crucified that neither the devil nor anyone else will ever be able to separate you from him. In fact, anything that may act against you will only serve to strengthen your union with God and with your neighbors. For virtue is tested by what opposes it, and the more virtue is tested in us, the more perfect our union with our Creator becomes." --St. Catherine of Siena, quoted in Magnificat, p. 39-40.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Abiding
"'Abide in me.' We can only abide in a place where we are already. Jesus tells us to 'abide' in him because we have been grafted onto him....
"Baptism is sufficient to graft us into Christ...but we should not be content with this union only. We must show gratitude for the immense gift we have received by endeavoring to become more and more firmly grafted into Christ. We must 'live' this union by making him the center, the sun of our interior life...The more we try to abide in Christ, the deeper our little branch will grow into him, because it will be nourished more abundantly by the sap of grace.
"'Abide in me and I in you.' The more closely we are united to Christ by faith, charity, and good works done with the intention of pleasing God, the more intensely will he live in us and bestow on us continually a new life of grace. Thus we will become, not merely living branches, but branches laden with fruit, the fruit of sanctity destined to bring joy to the heart of God, for Jesus has said: 'In this is my Father glorified, that you bring forth much fruit.' (Jn. 15:8)"
"Baptism is sufficient to graft us into Christ...but we should not be content with this union only. We must show gratitude for the immense gift we have received by endeavoring to become more and more firmly grafted into Christ. We must 'live' this union by making him the center, the sun of our interior life...The more we try to abide in Christ, the deeper our little branch will grow into him, because it will be nourished more abundantly by the sap of grace.
"'Abide in me and I in you.' The more closely we are united to Christ by faith, charity, and good works done with the intention of pleasing God, the more intensely will he live in us and bestow on us continually a new life of grace. Thus we will become, not merely living branches, but branches laden with fruit, the fruit of sanctity destined to bring joy to the heart of God, for Jesus has said: 'In this is my Father glorified, that you bring forth much fruit.' (Jn. 15:8)"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)