Saturday of the 7th Week of Eastertide
Acts 28:16-20,30-31 | Psalm 10(11):4-5,7 | John 21:20-25
Saints Charles Lwanga and his Companions, Martyrs
2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14 | Psalm 123(124):2-5,7-8 | Matthew 5:1-12
Last night, I attended a talk by Fr. Paul Staes at our parish, in preparation for the great feast of Pentecost.
The title was deceptively straightforward: “No Spiritual Life Without The Spirit”. His delivery was similarly gentle, hiding the gut-punch of personal admission that we were mostly sleepwalking through our spiritual lives, always wanting to be “in charge” of our secular and spiritual lives, but left with aimless and meaningless repetition of ancient formulas and actions in both arenas.
It’s no wonder we often see each other as angry bees, rushing breathlessly around in our busyness, ignoring each other as much as possible, funeral faces firmly bolted on.
✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞
Over the past year, I’ve written quite often about how pleasurable it is to be pleasant to everyone around me, especially those who are providing me service in one form or another.
I hope that the recipients of my little kindness were “infected” just enough to pass some joy and hope on to others. Perhaps some of those folks were teetering on the cliffs of despair, and that small ray of human sunshine they received from my friends-in-passing helped them pull back from a literal plunge to their end.
It sounds like a heartwarming scene in a movie, with swelling music to match, doesn’t it? It seems like an improbable fantasy, but so’s hope in a world determined to cling to bleakness. Why not let a few flowers of love blossom in men’s hearts?
So on this last day of the Novena to the Holy Spirit, let us reflect on how we can “pollinate” the souls of those around us, by living out the 3 Be’s as Fr. Paul described them to us:
- Believe the words of faith that we now utter without thought, through active pondering and prayer.
- Belong to our parish community, rather than holding others at arm’s length, so that we may come to depend on them, and they on us.
- Behave like true children of God, overflowing cornucopias of joy and hope for the world.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit perfect the supernatural virtues by enabling us to practice them with greater docility to divine inspiration. As we grow in the knowledge and love of God under the direction of the Holy Spirit, our service becomes more sincere and generous, the practice of virtue more perfect. Such acts of virtue leave the heart filled with joy and consolation and are known as Fruits of the Holy Spirit. These Fruits in turn render the practice of virtue more attractive and become a powerful incentive for still greater efforts in the service of God, to serve Whom is to reign.
Come, O Divine Spirit, fill my heart with Thy heavenly fruits, Thy charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, faith, mildness, and temperance, that I may never weary in the service of God, but by continued faithful submission to Thy inspiration may merit to be united eternally with Thee in the love of the Father and the Son. Amen.