sussidio 7 2014

  ALIVE WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

From the Word of God

You were called to be free; do not use your freedom as an opening for self-indulgence, but be servants to one another in love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in the one commandment: You must love your neighbour as yourself. Instead, I tell you, be guided by the Spirit, and you will no longer yield to self-indulgence. When self-indulgence is at work the results are obvious: sexual vice, impurity, and sensuality, the worship of false gods and sorcery; antagonisms and rivalry, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels, disagreements, factions and malice, drunkenness, orgies and all such things. And about these, I tell you now as I have told you in the past, that people who behave in these ways will not inherit the kingdom of God.
On the other hand the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control; no law can touch such things as these. All who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified self with all its passions and its desires. Since we are living by the Spirit, let our behaviour be guided by the Spirit.(Gal 5: 13-14.16.19-25)
From the Documents of the Church
In the Creed we profess with faith: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life”. I would like to focus especially on the fact that the Holy Spirit is the inexhaustible source of God’s life in us. Man of every time and place desires a full and beautiful life, just and good, a life that is not threatened by death, but can still mature and grow to fullness. Man is like a traveller who, crossing the deserts of life, thirsts for the living water: gushing and fresh, capable of quenching his deep desire for light, love, beauty and peace. We all feel this desire! And Jesus gives us this living water: he is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and whom Jesus pours out into our hearts. At this point we may ask ourselves: why can this water quench our thirst deep down? We know that water is essential to life. The “living water”, the Holy Spirit, the Gift of the Risen One who dwells in us, purifies us, illuminates us, renews us, transforms us because he makes us participants in the very life of God that is Love. That is why, the Apostle Paul says that the Christian’s life is moved by the Holy Spirit and by his fruit, which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).
This is the precious gift that the Holy Spirit brings to our hearts: the very life of God, the life of true children, a relationship of confidence, freedom and trust in the love and mercy of God. It also gives us a new perception of others, close and far, seen always as brothers and sisters in Jesus to be respected and loved.
The Holy Spirit teaches us to see with the eyes of Christ, to live life as Christ lived, to understand life as Christ understood it. That is why the living water, who is the Holy Spirit, quenches our life, why he tells us that we are loved by God as children, that we can love God as his children and that by his grace we can live as children of God, like Jesus. And we, do we listen to the Holy Spirit? What does the Holy Spirit tell us? He says: God loves you. He tells us this. God loves you. Do we truly love God and others, as Jesus does? Let us allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, let us allow him to speak to our heart.
( Pope Francis, General Audience,8 May 2013)

From the writings of Blessed Antonio Rosmini
To the just soul that is incorporated in Jesus Christ and is faithful to him, God gives not only what he has given to everyone but he gives himself, so that the soul is not only present to God but is united with him. He experiences God in his infinite greatness, is nurtured by him, possesses him, and embraces him intimately. God, who is supreme good, diffuses himself in him, justifies him, purifies him daily with his grace, enables him for all virtue, enriches him with precious gifts as those of the Holy Spirit, fills him with his peace, surrounds him with a certain interior glory not visible in life but that will be revealed in the next as a hidden fire that suddenly bursts into a flame that is eternal beatitude. (To Sr. Mary Felix Stedile at Borgomanero, from Stresa, 12 January 1852)
By the action called grace, God really unites himself to us and remains united to us. Through grace something divine, not present previously, is now joined and as it were concorporated with the essence of the soul. This continuous, divine immanent action of grace in the soul gives it a stable energy, imparting capacities which the soul previously lacked. Now it possesses a new power in virtue of which it can do what was impossible without grace. When God operates in the essence of the soul with a real action he produces in it a new feeling, a new principle of action called ‘the instinct of the Holy Spirit’. (Antropologia Soprannaturale, I, 51)

Let us pray (Ws 7:7-14)
I prayed, and understanding was given me;
I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me.
I esteemed her more than sceptres and thrones;
compared with her, I held riches as nothing.
I reckoned no precious stone to be her equal,
for compared with her, all gold is a pinch of sand,
and beside her, silver ranks as mud.
I loved her more than health or beauty,
preferred her to the light, since her radiance never sleeps.
In her company all good things came to me,
and at her hands incalculable wealth.
All these delighted me, since Wisdom brings them,
though I did not then realise that she was their mother.
What I learned diligently, I shall pass on liberally,
I shall not conceal how rich she is.
For she is to human beings an inexhaustible treasure, and those who acquire this win God’s friendship,
commended to him by the gifts of instruction.

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