Holy Spirit

A MEDITATION, A BOOK, A VIDEO Prayer and A SAINT

ABOUT THE  HOLY SPIRIT

MEDITATION: In the Spirit

My first encounter with ‘IN’ was during third grade when this tiny word sat by itself IN a  ‘preposition’ jar made of glass. The rest of the words lingered further away –near, around, next to, by, across…

Stop and think about how many times only this tiny word will do: in love, in trouble, in a hurry, in my car, in transition, in pain, in labor, in the name of the Father…

The tiny word ‘IN’ ushers us into a most profound encounter with God, when we pray the ‘Sign of the Cross.’  IN the beginning, the middle and the end, we dare to place ourselves within the presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We plunge ourselves into a life of holiness, because Christ first became incarnate in our midst. We dare to hope that all the moments of our day will echo St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles who declares, “IN him we live and have our being (17:28)”.

When we pray with a full awareness of what we are asking of God, we are also surrendering to the Holy Spirit who stirs up the waters of our Baptism again and again. We embark upon an act of ongoing immersion.

A BOOK

Who me? You expect me to share my faith? Well, the answer is “Yes” and “No”. God gives us a choice but the Holy Spirit is the fire, the inspiration, or in fancy language, the primary agent of spreading the Good News. It is the Holy Spirit who points to Jesus and helps us do the same with our words and our lives. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us all we need, especially the grace to forget ourselves, in order to respond to the spiritual malnutrition we sense in others.

Try our newly revised and expanded booklet on surrendering to the Spirit and all the charisms God wants to give you. Available on AMAZON. Published by Franciscan  Media.

VIDEO PRAYER to the HOLY SPIRIT

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We got our tag line and some insights about evangelizing and about the Holy Spirit from St. Frances Xavier Cabrini who said, “This will be my main interest, the purpose of all my steps, my comings and goings, all my preoccupations, of all that comes my way as work: to love Jesus, to seek Jesus, to speak of Jesus and to make Jesus known.”

A SAINT ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT

Reflection from St. Frances  Cabrini’s Diary

Oh! If only devotion to the Holy Spirit inflamed the world, then should we see the face of the earth renewed, and faith and charity would triumph over everything.
 
 “Send your Spirit and create us. Renew the face of the earth.”
 
If you desire to correct your faults, and you feel you cannot; if you lanquish with tepidity and it seems you can do no good, but, still you wish to be fervent, try to be devout to the Holy Spirit, invoking him often and with your whole heart. Excite in yourselves strong desires to receive him, repeat often to him,
 
“Place your own heart in me God, put your own Spirit in me. Ready me and I will be made right, and  strong and holy.”
 
If you invoke the Spirit with a humble and trusting heart, filled with good desires, he will descend with his blessed light and inflame fire; he will come and penetrate into the very core of your heart, purifying it, changing it, enlightening it and consuming it with the flames of his holy and divine love.
 
As soon as we begin to desire him, the Spirit begins to favor us, because pious and holy desires are like forerunners of God in the soul, and as soon as we, by the grace of God, form a holy desire, the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says, will work in us with ineffable sighs. Let us supplicate him, then, to inspire us with ardent desires which will prepare us to receive him.
 
                                                                                                                               May 26, 1895