Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.
(St Augustine of Hippo)
Are you begging the Holy Spirit for a new outpouring of His gifts?
The poetic text of Jesu, Nostra Redemptio sets the stage for articulating our Christian journey following the path set out by Our Lord in following Him. This text is truly an Ascension Thursday text. This journey of faith in following Jesus is a central aspect of our Christian faith that bespeaks of our desire to live in hope. The great Mother of our Savior and the apostles in the image recognize the accent of truth that is in the Divine Person of Jesus.
Ascension Thursday has a sadness to it, as the disciples part with Christ’s bodily presence among them even with the promise that the Great Comforter will be sent. It sounds strange to say “sadness” viz. the joy of the resurrection. As one theologian-friend said of the liturgical texts of the Byzantine Church, the Ascension has its “deepest theology of the feast in its Kontakion (…You ascended in glory, O Christ our God, not being parted from those who love You, but remaining with them and crying: “I am with you and no one will be against you!”). And yet, “parting is such sweet sorrow!”
Christians have an extended journey of conversion to make each year with Lent and then Eastertide, a time more intensely filled with anticipation and longing for the Divine Presence. Eastertide is not a spiritual time of standing back from spiritual work after Lent is over, but these 50 days are a new and intense phase of the Christian journey. One just has to think of the scriptures we heard proclaimed at Mass and the Divine Office during Easter. Nonetheless, the following text of Jesus our redemption sheds light and hope.
Jesu, nostra redemptio,
Amor et desiderium,
Deus Creator omnium,
Homo in fine temporum.
O Jesus, our redemption,
our love, and our desire,
God, Creator of all things,
become Man in the fullness of time.
Quae te vicit clementia,
Ut ferres nostra crimina,
Crudelem mortem patiens,,
Ut nos a morte tolleres!
What tender love, what pity
compelled Thee to bear our crimes,
to suffer a cruel death
that we, from death, might be saved?
Inferni claustra penetrans,
Tuos captivos redimens,
Victor triumpho nobili
Ad dextram Patris residens:
Into death’s dark cloister didst Thou descend,
and from it captives free didst bring;
Thy triumph won, Thou didst take Thy place,
Thou, the Victor, at the Father’s right.
Ipse te cogat pietas,
Ut mala nostra superes,
Parcendo, et voti compotes
Nos tuo vultu saties.
‘Twas a tender love, a costly compassion
that pressed Thee our sorrows to bear;
granting pardon, Thou didst raise us up
to fill us full with the splendour of Thy face.
Tu esto nostrum gaudium,
Qui es futurus praemium:
Sit nostra in te gloria
Per cuncta semper saecula.
Thou art already the joy of all our days,
Thou Who in eternity will be our prize;
let all our glory be in Thee,
forever, and always, and in the age to come.
The English text is translated by Fr Mark Daniel Kirby, OSB.
We believe that in assuming the weight of evil, Christ conquered evil. That he conquered sin and death. That he grafted onto the rot of suffering the power of the redemption and the light of hope. That is what he shares with everyone… to all those who suffer, from moral or physical evil, he never ceases to offer this graft of redemption, which comes from his cross and resurrection.
It is difficult to measure the evil which is our lot on this earth. It is a mystery greater than man, deeper than his heart. Gethsemane and Calvary speak of it, and at the same time bear witness that in the history of man, in his heart, another mystery is at work, that of the Redemption, which will work to the end to uproot evil. And in this mystery, a “new heaven and a new earth” are ripening, where… “God himself will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore.”
Saint John Paul II
Here is this year’s Easter Poster from Communion and Liberation, the concrete place in the Church where I adhere to Christ.
I wonder were I will savor the Presence of Christ in the 50 days of Easter.
Mutual prayers.
Easter Monday brings with it a new emphasis changing the old into new: old leaven is out, and new leaven brought in; new gifts recognized and offered to the Lord for the work of building up the Church. “Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough.” (I Corinthians 5:7) Easter Monday is the second day of a new beginning.
At Easter we sing this verse: “This is the day The Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice.” As people baptized into the Resurrection we can say: “You and I are the people the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice.”
Easter manifests God’s love that is more powerful than death. It’s a liberation: Easter means death no longer enslaves us. Our early Christians saw the light of Jesus Christ bursting forth from the tomb, a light that shatters of death’s bond.
The Resurrection from the dead is God’s great gift of salvation given to us. One theologian writes that the “Resurrection, God ratifies, sums up, and valorizes his material creation. Therefore, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is not just about him. It’s about all those who will participate in his Mystical Body, the Church, and it’s about all of matter. In raising Jesus bodily from the dead, the Father is raising all of matter to new life.”
The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead speaks to us as been given a New Creation radically changing the sin of Adam into a new heaven and a new earth, a new body: we are living creatures living within the life of God. In Christ Jesus we are human beings with an alive, flourishing humanity. Christians believe that heaven is not just a spiritual space that our souls go following death. It’s first a new creation on earth with the doors of heaven opened unto new life with the Holy Trinity.
Post Pentecost some of our study and prayer ought to work on what it means to live by the Holy Spirit and how does the Church relate to the Spirit. We need to be serious about the Holy Spirit and not leave such questions to the dust bin or the happy-clappy Christians who claim to be slain in the Spirit alone. Sometimes I get the sense that we Catholics go to extremes when it comes to Holy Spirit: either we pay no attention to the Spirit or we ascribe to much to the Spirit. We even forget that the Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity: the Bible reveals the Holy Spirit to be God.
There is nothing to fear in coming to understand the what and who the Holy Spirit is for the Catholic.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (797) teaches:
What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church. To this Spirit of Christ, as an invisible principle, is to be ascribed the fact that all the parts of the body are joined one with the other and with their exalted head; for the whole Spirit of Christ is in the head, the whole Spirit is in the body, and the whole Spirit is in each of the members. The Holy Spirit makes the Church the temple of the living God:
Indeed, it is to the Church herself that the “Gift of God” has been entrusted. In it is in her that communion with Christ has been deposited, that is to say: the Holy Spirit, the pledge of incorruptibility, the strengthening of our faith and the ladder of our ascent go God. For where the Church is, there also is God’s Spirit; where God’s Spirit is, there is the Church and every grace. (Saint Irenaeus)
Think of the difference between what happened at Pentecost and what happened at Sinai. There, the people stood at a distance. The mood was one of fear rather than love…Scripture tells us that God came down in the form of fire, and while the people stood in terror at a distance he wrote with his finger on tablets of stone…But when the Holy Spirit came, the believers were all together in one place. Instead of terrifying them by descending on a mountain top, he came into the house. Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a strong, driving wind. In spite of the noise, no one was afraid…On the mountain there was also smoke, whereas in the upper room there were only clear, steady flames. These came to rest on each one of them, and they began to speak in other tongues…Listen to a person speaking an unknown tongue: it must be evident to you that the Spirit is writing on the heart, and no longer on tablets of stone. So then, it is not on stone, but in your hearts, that the life-giving law of the Spirit has been written. In Christ Jesus, in whom the true Passover has been perfectly celebrated, this law has set you free from the law of sin and death.
A person with certitude in someone or something is going to propose that you consider making an inquiry into what is the cause of your certainty and hope. Naturally we will want to share with others and to deepen within ourselves a reality that blossoms as a beautiful new flower. The draw of that flower is no mere superficial thing: there is hope, beauty, expectation, communication, an essentiality that is unique. This is the role of the Pope who gives good example and daily tells us the cause of his joy and hope in being a friend of Jesus Christ. He encourages to look deeper into our faith in Christ and not to settle for less than what has been offered, that is, everything.
“Being Christian is not just obeying orders but means being in Christ, thinking like Him, acting like Him, loving like Him; it means letting Him take possession of our life and change it, transform it and free it from the darkness of evil and sin” (Pope Francis, General Audience, April 10, 2013).
The head of the ecclesial movement, Communion and Liberation, Father Julián Carrón reflects on what it means to be a Christian today with the help of the new pope in L’Osservatore Romano (18 May 2013), in “As Beggars of Faith.” It is a brief reflection on what he sees going on with Pope Francis leading the Church as he meets with the Church’s many ecclesial movements.
The text of Father Carrón’s reflection is here: JCarrón As Beggars of Faith.pdf
This weekend we are celebrating the Pentecost. The gift of the Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus; the Spirit is what creates and sustains us. In 2006 Pope Benedict met with members of the ecclesial movements. What follows the points he made on the Holy Spirit that I thought would be good to meditate on today. Our study and prayer to and in the Spirit is not well known in the Church so I think this material appropriate for formation and evangelization. As part of the Year of Faith observances the ecclesial movements are meeting with Pope Francis today and tomorrow. Come, Holy Spirit!
The Holy Spirit, in giving life and freedom, also gives unity. These are three gifts that are inseparable from one another. I have already gone on too long; but let me say a brief word about unity.
To understand it, we might find a sentence useful which at first seems rather to distance us from it. Jesus said to Nicodemus, who came to him with his questions by night: “The wind blows where it wills” (Jn 3: 8). But the Spirit’s will is not arbitrary. It is the will of truth and goodness.
Therefore, he does not blow from anywhere, now from one place and then from another; his breath is not wasted but brings us together because the truth unites and love unites.
Continue reading The Holy Spirit makes us sons and daughters of God
Ubisi Monastery. Ascension of Jesus detail
The Ascension is the feast of the human. With Jesus, physical, carnal humanity enters into the total dominion with which God makes all things. It is Christ who goes to the root of everything. It is the feast of the miracle, an event which by its strength recalls the mystery of God.
This is why the Ascension is the feast where all of Mystery gathers together and where all of the evidence of things is gathered together. It is an extraordinary and very strange feast, where all the faces of all things meet to cry out to unaware, inattentive, obscure, and unseeing man the light of which they are made, to give him back the meaning by which he entered into relationship with everything, to shout out to him the task he has in things, his role among things. Everything depends on him; all things were made for man.
Whoever tries to render witness to the Lord with his life is already part of the mystery of His Ascension, because Christ who ascended into heaven is Man for whom everything is made, Man who has begun to take possession of the things of the world.
Father Luigi Giussani
The Holy Rosary