Ever loving God decided to give a portion of His Spirit to mankind so that they would be His children and heirs forming themselves to be special people of His own.

"Then afterward I will pour out my spirit upon all mankind. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; even upon the servants and handmaids, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. And I will work wonders in the heavens and on the earth, ..."(Joel 3: 1-3a; Acts 2: 17-19a).

"For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, 'Abba, Father'. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, ..." (Rom 8: 14- 17a).

"But you are, 'a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises' of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were 'no people', but now you are God's people; you 'had not received mercy' but now you have received mercy" (I Pet 2: 9-10)

It is fulfilled when Jesus sent His Spirit on the apostles first, then on the Church in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Ephesus; and to all individuals, peoples and nations.

"And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'receive the Holy Spirit' " (Jn 20: 22)

"When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appear to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim" (Acts 2: 1-4).

Peter and Paul came to Samaria to pray over the believers for the gift of the Holy Spirit. "Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8: 17).

When Paul arrived in Ephesus, he found the believers not even knowing the Holy Spirit; he instructed them about the Holy Spirit. "And when Paul laid his hands on them, the holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke in tongues and prophesy" (Acts 19: 6).

At the conversion of Saul, Ananias entering his house laid his hands on him and prayed "Saul my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy Spirit" (Acts 9: 17).

"While Peter was still speaking these things, the holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word" (Acts 10: 44).

Today, also individuals, families, societies and nations need to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is the life breath in every Christian to live a holy, truthful and authentic life according to God's will by keeping His statutes and commandments. The Holy Spirit imprints in the heart of a believer a nature to love God in keeping His commandments.

"I will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the stony hearts from their bodies, and replace with a natural heart, so that they will live according to my statutes, and observe and carry out my ordinances; thus they shall be my people and I will be their God" (Ez 11: 19-20). "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts" (Heb 8: 10).

Every Christian receives the gift of the Holy Spirit in his/her life by baptism in the Church, the body of Christ. Now, those who are baptised should ask themselves the following questions to find out if they are in the Spirit or not.

a) Have you lost the presence and experience of God by loosing the Spirit by grave sins? (Psalm 51: 13)

b) Have you grieved the Holy Spirit by your unloving behaviour? (Eph 4: 30)

c) Have you quenched the Holy Spirit by not praying, not receiving the sacraments in the Church? (I Thess 5: 19)

d) Have you opposed the Holy Spirit by not yielding to His actions and functions coming through the Word of God because of your arrogant, self-righteous and proud attitude? (Acts 7: 51).

e) Do you lie to the Holy Spirit by a deceitful life? (Acts 5: 3, 9).

f) Are you led by the desires of the flesh and the world or by the Holy Spirit? (Gal 5: 16-17).

g) Are you concerned about the things of the flesh or concerned about the things of the Spirit? (Rom 8: 5-6).

h) Have you started your life in the Spirit and now ended up in the flesh? (Gal 3: 3).
 

If you have lost the Spirit, quenched the Spirit, opposed the Spirit, lied to the Spirit and now living in sin according to the flesh and the world, this is the time to come to the Lord Jesus (Church) with a good confession. Jesus will forgive your sins and receive you with love in His arms and fill you again with His Spirit.

"Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the Kingdom without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit" (Jn 3: 5-6).

"For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 14: 17).

"I will not reject anyone who comes to me" (Jn 6: 37).

"Let anyone who thirst, come to me and drink" (Jn 7: 37).

"I will ask the Father and he will give you the Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to be with you always" (Jn 14: 16-17).

"In a few days, you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1: 5). "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1: 8).
 

(On these days of Novena or triduum, you may spend more time in prayer thirsting and asking for the Holy Spirit and reading text on the Holy Spirit from the holy Bible. If possible try to read books on the Holy Spirit and to come to know more about the Holy Spirit. Before making a good confession, try to reconcile with all and restore the broken relationships. On these days make an effort to go daily for the holy Mass and receive Holy Communion. Fasting and mortification will make your prayer doubly effective and meritorious. If possible give a part of your money or income for the poor or for works of evangelisation..).
 
 

A life without the Holy Spirit:
 

Is empty and void in despair and sadness

Is vexed and tossed by temptations and enticements

Is weak and desperate in the flesh with sinful attachments

Is broken and wounded with anger and unforgiveness

Is in bondages of passing lust and passions

Is in darkness and blindness not knowing the right way

Is in perversity, licentiousness and immorality

Is a life crushed with pains and sickness

Is a life where God is a Distant Being

Is a life where Christ is only a historical past

Is a life where the Gospel and God's words are veiled

Is a life where laws and commandments are meaningless and coarse

Is a life where the Church is a mere secular institution

Is a life where prayer and liturgy are dead

Is a life where virtues and holiness is foolishness

Is a life where duties and responsibilities are burdensome

Is a life where ministries and missions are mere professions
 
 

Whereas a life with the Holy Spirit:
 
 

Is meaningful and worth living

Is challenging and vibrant

Is a life with Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us

Is a life in the Kingdom of God

Is a life where one is led in the Way, the Truth and Life

Is a life of peace, joy and consolation

Is a life of power and grace

Is a life of holiness according to God's will

Is a life of authenticity and truthfulness

Is a life in the Church the mother who cares

Is a life where authority and commandments become easy

Is a life where burdens become light and yokes easy

Is a life where prayer and sacraments become part and parcel of life

Is a life where one hears God's voice in the Holy Scriptures

Is a life where one finds answer to all his problems

Is a life where one finds the healing touch of the Divine Master

Is a life where one's soul burns with love for God and others

Is a life witnessing Jesus Christ always and everywhere

Is a life that brings the thirsty neighbours to the Living Water

Is a life burning out for Jesus and His Kingdom

Is a life that finds a seat in the eternal banquet. AMEN

(Author : Fr. James Manjackal)

Pope Francis: The Holy Spirit opens our hearts to the Lord

(Vatican Radio May 6th-2013)- The Holy Spirit was the subject of Pope Francis’ Homily during morning Mass at the Casa Santa Martha Monday. The Holy Father also stressed that it was important for Christians to examine their conscience on a daily basis.
Present at the Casa Santa Martha was the Archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Angelo Comastri who concelebrated Mass with Pope Francis. Also present were employees from the complex of St Peter’s Basilica who listened as the Pope focused his Homily on the Holy Spirit.

Pope Francis said that the Holy Spirit whom Jesus called the “Paraclete” was the Person of God who is always there to protect us and support us.
The Holy Father underlined the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives by saying that without this presence, our Christian lives cannot be understood.
Pope Francis went on to describe the sort of life one would have without the Holy Spirit. It would be a religious life, he said, a compassionate life of someone who believes in God but without the vitality that Jesus wants for his disciples.

The Spirit the Pope continued, “bears witness” to Jesus , so that we can give it to others.
Turning his attention to the first reading, the Holy Father recalled the beautiful story of a woman called Lydia whose heart was opened so as to pay attention to the words of St Paul. The Pope explained that it is the Holy Spirit that opens our hearts to know Jesus. The Spirit prepares us for our encounter with Jesus, he leads us down the path of Jesus and works in us throughout the day and throughout our lives.

The Pope then invited people to examine their conscience at the end of the day because it is in this way, he added that we can see how Jesus worked in our hearts.

Concluding his Homily, Pope Francis “asked that people be granted the grace to become accustomed to the presence of the Holy Spirit, this witness of Jesus who tells us where Jesus is, how to find Jesus, what Jesus tells us.” The Pope continued by saying, we should get into the habit of asking ourselves, before the end of the day: 'What did Holy Spirit do in me? What witness did he give me?” Because, the Holy Father said, he is a divine presence that helps us moving forward in our lives as Christians.
 

Love of the Holy Spirit consists in letting oneself be possessed by Him with complete docility, with perfect purity, and with total abnegation. This is true devotion to the Holy Spirit, but it is only one aspect of love. The other, essential also, is to possess. Yours and mine: the whole essence of love is in these two words. Thus the spouse of the Canticles sings, “My Lover belongs to me, and I to Him.” And this is the way that Jesus expresses the mystery of infinite love in His magnificent prayer to His Father on the night of the Last Supper: “And all things that are mine are Thine, and Thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.” In the same prayer, He tells of His immense love for men: “I in them and Thou in me, that they may be perfected in unity.”100

No one can let himself be possessed without at the same time possessing. These two aspects of love, which our imperfect understanding must keep separate, constitute the reality and unity of love. To love the Holy Spirit, then, is both to let oneself be possessed by Him and to possess Him. He is not only the Director of our life, but also the Gift of God, our Gift.

Let us recall the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas previously quoted: “By the gift of sanctifying grace, the rational creature is perfected so that it can freely use not only the created gift itself, but enjoy also the divine Person Himself. The rational creature does sometimes attain thereto, as when it is made partaker of the divine Word and of the Love proceeding so as freely to know God truly and to love God rightly.”

To possess Love is to love Him; it is to allow oneself to be penetrated by His fire, and to receive the ardent effusions of love and, in them, to receive Love itself.

This possession has its degrees. For the lowest degree of charity, it is enough to possess the Holy Spirit because He and charity are inseparable, according to the words of the apostle St. Paul: “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Only the Holy Spirit can pour charity into our souls; together with created love, we are given uncreated love, so that the principle and seed of charity is the Holy Spirit.

In proportion as the soul grows in charity, this happy possession of the Gift of God increases. The more we love the Holy Spirit, the more He is ours; and the more we love Him, the more we are His. In other words, the more perfectly the Holy Spirit is the principle of our love, the more perfectly He is the completion of that love, the more perfectly He is our Gift.

To have an idea of the degrees of possession, it is helpful to consider the perfect degree, for ordinarily the perfect leads us to a knowledge of the imperfect, as we judge what a seed is like from the ripe fruit. In the works of the mystics, expressions like these are frequently found: “To love with the heart of God”; “To love with the Holy Spirit.” Some saints, such as Catherine of Siena, tell us that God gave them His heart in exchange for theirs. Certainly these expressions should not be taken literally. On the other hand, we should not consider them as mere figures, like those we use to express our poor earthly sentiments, to tell the intensity of our affections or the ardor of our desires. It would be profitable for us to examine the mysterious realities hidden under the symbolic words of the saints.

Every act of charity proceeds from the habit of that virtue which the Holy Spirit infuses into our hearts. No matter how im­perfect an act of love may be, we love with charity, the most per­fect supernatural gift that we receive on earth. It is the created, but most faithful, image of the Holy Spirit.

We can use this charity in two ways: by moving ourselves to perform an act of love, or by being moved to it by the Holy Spirit with that special movement. When we love under the special movement of the Holy Spirit, it can be said with theological exactness that we love with the Holy Spirit. For, as St. Thomas teaches, “The operation of an effect is not attributed to the thing moved but to the mover. Hence, in that effect in which our mind is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole Mover, the operation is attributed to God.” And such is the case of the soul that works under the spe­cial movement of the Holy Spirit, as the holy Doctor himself as­sures us: “The spiritual man is not inclined to do anything as by a movement of his own will principally, but by the inspiration of the Spirit.”

The mystics call this love produced by the special movement of the Spirit passive love. This love is not called passive because the soul does not move, for, indeed, the soul is never so active as then. It is called passive because the soul does not move itself. The Holy Spirit moves it, and it works under His divine impulse. The act of passive love belongs to the Holy Spirit and the soul, but more to the Spirit than to the soul. Therefore it can truly be said that the Holy Spirit loves in the soul and that the soul loves with the Holy Spirit, especially when this passive love has reached its perfection.

It will help us to understand this doctrine if we recall a comparison used by St. John of the Cross to explain something similar: A piece of wood is thrown into the fire. The fire envelops, penetrates, and possesses it. To the wood, being possessed by the fire and burning are the same thing. But, at first, the wood is not wholly burned, because the fire has not penetrated it completely. Penetration and possession come about little by little as the wood burns, until, perfectly penetrated by the fire, it is converted into it and burns with the same fire and has all the characteristics of fire.

The Holy Spirit is rightly called fire, a living fountain, charity, because He is Love. The spiritual life is nothing else but the penetration of the soul by that divine fire. The Holy Spirit possesses the soul, and the soul burns — that is, it loves. Charity is the intimate fire that burns the soul, but the Holy Spirit, quite as intimately present in the soul, is both the cause of that fire and its glorious end. At first, the soul does not burn totally, because it needs to be purified in order that the divine fire may perfectly penetrate and possess it. Little by little, the divine penetration is effected, and the soul gradually burns more thoroughly, more profoundly. The divine penetration becomes so perfect, the spiritual combustion so complete, that the soul is “deified”; one might say that it is changed into fire, into love. It may be said to burn with the fire of God, and to love with the Holy Spirit, for the divine Spirit moves it to love so intimately and fully that, in all truth, this love is attributed to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God loves in us the way we ought to love in the Holy Spirit!

As the wood, when perfectly penetrated by the fire, takes on the very character of fire, so the soul that loves with the love of the Holy Spirit participates in the divine characteristics of eternal Love. Who can describe this love? As the Scriptures say, it is “intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, benefi­cent, kindly, firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, and pervading all spirits, though they be intelligent, pure, and very subtle.” Is not Love perhaps the Spirit of Wisdom?

A beautiful and profitable commentary could be made on this passage from the Scriptures. How easy it would be to find in per­fect love all the participated characteristics of infinite Love! We would see all the multiple kinds of love in that perfect Love! By understanding it, how well we would comprehend the new life, the life “hidden with Christ in God” of which St. Paul speaks to us and which is nothing but participation in eternal love — unut­terable intimacy with the Holy Trinity! How well we would understand the divinity, the fruitfulness, the abnegation, the heroism, the tenderness, and all the goodness of love of neighbor if we understood how we ought to live in the Holy Spirit!

When this acme of love is reached, the soul is perfectly possessed by the Holy Spirit, for He moves it entirely at His good pleasure; and the soul possesses the Holy Spirit perfectly, for, in the sense already explained, it loves with Him. The mystery of love is completed; the soul has attained with love the most perfect union that is possible on earth. What else is love but aspiration toward unity, fruition of unity, expansion of unity?

Then the soul fully enjoys the Gift of God. The words of St. Thomas are realized to their fullest: the soul shares in eternal love in such a way that it freely loves God with complete rectitude. This glorious liberty and holy rightness are the result of the wondrous unity brought about between the Holy Spirit and the soul.

From the heights of this perfection, the degrees of the mutual possession of the Holy Spirit and the soul can be contemplated, as, from a mountaintop, one looks down on the winding paths that lead up to it. In each stage of the mystical ascension, the soul is letting itself be possessed by the Holy Spirit, and possesses Him exactly in the proportion in which it is possessed; for the Holy Spirit is the soul’s Gift in the degree in which He directs it, in the measure in which He moves and possesses it. This mystical possession, these two aspects of a unique possession, form a sort of divine ring: love, which, as it grows greater, as it becomes perfect, unifies, simplifies, and deifies the soul; for all these ineffable things — love, simplicity, and unity — are reflections of God, who is unutterable unity, infinite simplicity, and eternal charity.

This article is from a chapter in Archbishop Luis M. Martinez’s True Devotion to the Holy Spirit, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.