The collect from last Tuesday's Holy Mass: Grant, we pray, almighty and merciful God, that the Holy Spirit, coming near and dwelling graciously within us, may make of us a perfect temple of his glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. AMEN!
Beautiful. I've noticed that the Holy Spirit has been popping up in the prayers during daily mass all week this week. Like Tuesday's Collect, all of the prayers have been quite beautiful and profound. It's like there's a big feast of the Holy Spirit coming up or something! A blessed Pentecost to all!
Oh Holy Spirit, I pray that I receive all of your gifts to the fullest extent that I am allowed! I need them all...especially as we enter the storm!! Amen.
The priest in the country Church had a huge kind of red light display under the altar of a huge red flame burning with little red flames on either side and diving red doves. You would have needed sunglasses to look at it. I noticed the locals collecting around it in surprise. The children must love it. The priest there is from India so maybe that is where he got the idea for the Light display. I like it very much, but maybe not right under the altar. I suppose they shut it off during mass. I was thinking of the words of Jesus that the Holy Spirit could not come untill Jesus left. Anyone any idea why the Holy Spirit could not come until Jesus had Ascended? I thought maybe it has to do with Faith. That Faith is the doorway through which the Spirit comes? John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
+ I think Jesus had to arise back into Heaven first (before the Holy Spirit could come down upon us), because in Heaven there is no time and when Jesus came home (to the Father), He brought all of humanity that chose to die with Him home as well. All who died with Christ, rose with Him to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father. Now, the Love (the Holy Spirit) that they shared between Themselves (Father and Son) became ours also. God recognized humanity in His Son and we were no longer slaves but His children. The whole purpose for the Incarnation was to make this possible. Even Angels are at awe that through Christ, humanity can (if we choose Christ), sit at the right side of the Father. Peace Brother, Ed +
Wow!! That is so deep. I will be thinking and praying about this for a long, long time. Thank you Ed. So we are entering into family. Deep. deep, deep.
Three wonderful reflections: 1. https://fatherdoyle.com/2016/05/15/thoughts-for-the-feast-of-pentecost-from-fr-willie-doyle-5/ A devotion which does not consist in any special form of prayer nor in doing anything in particular more than to listen to inspirations, is devotion to the Holy Spirit of God…For, as the work of Creation belongs preeminently to the Father and that of the Redemption to the Son, so the work of our Sanctification and Perfection is the work of the Holy Ghost. We honour Him when we listen to His inspirations. He is ever whispering what we ought to do and what we ought not to do. When we are deliberately deaf to His voice, which is no other than the small voice of conscience, we grieve instead of honouring the Holy Spirit of God. So let us often say: Come, O Holy Ghost, into my heart and make me holy so that I may be generous with God and become a saint. See what the Holy Spirit made of the Apostles – changed them from skulking cowards into great saints afire with the love of God. 2. http://vultuschristi.org/index.php/2016/05/hearts-will-be-opened/ I am about to carry out the plan for the renewal of My priesthood that for so long I have held within My Heart. These days of shame and of darkness that have come upon My priests in so many countries are about to be changed into days of glory and of light. I am about to sanctify My priests by a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them. They will be sanctified as were My Apostles on the morning of Pentecost. Their hearts will be set ablaze with the Divine Fire of Charity and their zeal will know no bounds. They will assemble around My Immaculate Mother, who will instruct them and, by her all-powerful intercession, obtain for them all the charisms necessary to prepare the world — this sleeping world — for My return in glory. I tell you this not to alarm you or to frighten anyone, but to give you cause for an immense hope and for pure spiritual joy. The renewal of My priests will be the beginning of the renewal of My Church, but it must begin as it did at Pentecost, with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the men whom I have chosen to be My other selves in the world, to make present My Sacrifice, and to apply My Blood to the souls of poor sinners in need of forgiveness and healing. They will preach My Word in the power of Saint Peter on that Pentecost long ago and, at the sound of their voices, hearts will be opened and miracles of grace will abound. (From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of a Priest) 3. http://www.luisapiccarretaofficial.org/gospels/pentecost/13 What we must care about is to keep our littleness in the Will of God, because by being in It we will be dissolved in It, and His Will, like wind, will bring the freshness It possesses into our act, as refreshment for all creatures. It will bring a warm wind to enflame them with His love; It will bring a cold wind to extinguish the fire of their passions; and finally, It will bring a humid wind to produce the vegetation of the seed of His Will. The Divine Will is more than wind, and our acts in It, by agitating It, move the winds It contains and produce admirable effects. Then, all these winds, united together, invest the divine throne and bring to their Creator the glory of His Will operating in the creature. If everyone knew what it means to operate in the Supreme Fiat and the prodigies It contains, they would all compete to operate in It. The Will of God is so great that God Himself makes It the depository of the divine works: In the Divine Will God deposited the Creation, that It might remain ever beautiful, fresh, whole, new, just as God issued It from His creative hands; in the Divine Will God deposited the Redemption, that It might be always in the act of redeeming, and His birth, His life, His Passion and death might be always in the act of being born, of living, of suffering and of dying for the creature. In the Will of God everything was deposited, because It alone has the virtue and the power to maintain the work done always in act, and to reproduce that good as many times as one wants. The divine works would not be safe if they were not deposited in the Will of God. If it is so with the divine works, much more so should it be with the works of the creatures. To how many dangers are they not subject when they are not deposited in the Divine Will! How many changes do they not undergo! Therefore, all God’s contentment is when He sees that the creature makes the deposit of her acts in the Supreme Volition. if God’s Will was the depository of Creation and of Redemption, It must also keep the deposit of the Fiat on earth as It is in Heaven (Sanctification). If we do not form this deposit of all of ourselves, of our little acts, not having Its full triumph over us, His Fiat will not be able to carry out Its “Fiat on earth as It is in Heaven.”
