Surely this is completely senseless! Why did our sweet Lord Jesus call Judas his friend, and he called none of the others by that name? And how have these creatures of yours responded to that infinite goodness which so much wished to ennoble, elevate and enrich them? Her writings can be divided into two clearly distinct types, The first and more numerous, written for her spiritual director, gives an account of the supernatural experiences her soul had undergone, and of the tests and consolations she had experienced in the practice of holiness. It was the wisdom of the divine Word that impelled his loving heart to desire this great gift for us and that directed and governed his most holy humanity; for these two natures were so united that when Jesus Christ spoke, the divine Word spoke; therefore he knew what he was asking, and he knew when and how he should make his request in order to obtain it. On this point Satan made a big mistake; he thought that if he seduced the first two human beings, Adam and Eve, God would punish them as he had punished him and that God would thus be deprived of the joy he got from loving and being loved by man. From the feast of the Ascension to Pentecost, the Church recalls the days the Apostles spent in prayer awaiting the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. How are you to be loved when you are not known? Amen. My sorrow is that the third Person, whom we all call the Holy Spirit, is not known; and my ardent desire is that all men should know him, because he is unknown even to those who serve you and are consecrated to you. And when you praise someone for fasting and doing penance and say that he is a saint because he does them, how can you know whether he is acting in those things with the purity of intention he should have, whether he omits to give God the honor he asks of him, whether he is not even doing things he should not do at all, or whether he is not doing things in order to be praised for it? None but God alone deserves praise, and cursed is he who praises anyone else but him alone, for he is the only thing that exists worthy of praise. Believe me, he always looks on us as children, because in relation to him we always act as children. April 22, 2018. It is true, Lord, that stones are insensitive to fire. Direct and govern us in all things, teach us to glorify you, so that beginning in this life, we may thus continue for ever and ever. This is the love the Holy Spirit gives us, and this is the love with which God wishes to be loved and honored. The Holy Spirit insists again and again on how displeasing it is to God that we should treat or speak to our neighbor deceitfully; and he forbids us to expose, manifest or express in any way whatever the weaknesses, imperfections, faults or sins of our neighbors. But let us leave aside those joys for the moment and continue to consider the teaching methods of this most admirable and wise Teacher. So, O my Teacher, take us all into your school so that, like the blind man, we may see what you are, for no one else can describe you to us. Infinite greatness, tell me why it is you permit that the three Persons who exist in you should not be equally well known by your faithful. Magnificent Works of the Holy Spirit 3. For no reason, since we have nothing and can give him nothing; he loves us for the sake of loving us. Then immediately the soul feels itself with all its faculties being carried away and lifted up by some superior force outside itself which it does not understand. The Ten-Day Devotion to the Holy Spirit is a long-standing custom encouraged by the Church that begins ten days before Pentecost on Ascension Thursday, the day that Jesus our Lord ascended into Heaven. Amen. Faith, of course, is his main target, for if he manages to injure this one he is sure of the other two also, because any injury to faith is fatal. The day before you begin this ten-day devotion, which is the eve of the glorious Ascension of our divine Redeemer, you must prepare yourself, by making a firm resolution to live an interior life and, once you have begun, never again to abandon it. Another impulse of his infinite mercy and love prompted him to become God-Man in order to redeem created man and raise him up after his fall to even greater heights, with no benefit whatever to himself in this. From self-love and self-judgment deliver us, O Holy Spirit. In this school what we learn, and the objects of all the lessons, is just that: continuous mortification. I came out of that battle with a faith stronger than I ever had before; and now I can truthfully say this: My Lord, you have given me the strongest possible faith and yet I now live without any faith, because, having gone through that cruel struggle against Satan, I have been granted the gift of possessing, feeling, enjoying and holding all the things I believe; therefore I say that now, after the faith has struck such deep roots in my soul, that no one can taken it from me, now that you have given me such a shining faith, I live without any faith; because now I have and possess what formerly I believed and hoped for. She does not think of punishing us, because she sees the serious hurt we have done ourselves and her only concern is to cure us. We are ignorant, for we do not know where the truth is or where we seek it. What great things the most august Trinity has prepared to give us on that day when we shall go to the paternal house to celebrate our longed-for union, in a celebration that will last for ever and ever! He does all things as his great wisdom plans, designs and disposes. In order to fulfil God’s commandment properly, we must show this love for our neighbor, not with the affections of our heart which should be reserved for God alone, but with deeds; and we should rejoice and never mention any of our neighbor’s defects, which would show that we are displeased to hear him praised or complimented. There is no intelligence, whether human or angelic, however great it be, capable of describing it to us, for all greatness except the greatness of God has a limit and once we reach that limit we can go no further. And how well our divine Savior knew we would need him in everything we try to do! To the divine Essence, one true God, I dedicate this little book of devotions, to honor the three distinct Persons who exist in you, who by nature are in you and are called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Consider, then, how well our efforts are repaid, since they are rewarded with an absolutely free reward which we could never have deserved. There is no comparison whatever between the knowledge of God we acquire in this divine school and the knowledge we had of him before. All this we understand well in the school of the Holy Spirit. strengthen my heart For this reason, each one of us may quite accurately and truthfully call the Holy Spirit the God who lives with us. I want what you want, We can pray for strength, to know ourselves better, or for a particular petition. This most wise Teacher has such skilful ways of teaching us that they are wonderful to watch. Accept this expression of the affection I feel for you in the Father who created us, in the divine Word who redeemed us and in the Holy Spirit our sanctifier, to whom in the unity of the most Blessed Trinity be ail praise, all honor and all glory for ever and ever. You constantly exhort us to love that loving Heart, wounded for love of us, which seeks and desires nothing but our love in return, whose thirst can be quenched by nothing but love, which asks for nothing but love, which needs love to live, which dies for love and to be loved. And he decided to use all his wisdom, all his knowledge and all his power to seduce our mother Eve, as the weakest point. Thank you for listening to the 10-Day Devotion to the Holy Spirit on the St. Josemaria Institute Podcast! Peace of soul: a disposition which is essential if the Holy Spirit is to dwell forever in us. When it comes to the question of practice, each person has to act according to his strength and ability; because in this school, although we all have to practice the same things, our Teacher is so prudent and discreet, so merciful and compassionate, that he never demands of us more than each one can give, and he wants each of us to read the book for himself and to do what he finds written there. Amen. Divine Essence, you gave us a Creator and a Redeemer, and you did so without limit or measure. And moving about in these new and spacious heavens the soul is eternally happy. Amen. Rita Corbett Rita grew up with her parents as missionaries in Africa, she lives in Canada with her husband Grant and daughter Chelsea and they have 5 Children. These last are your great concern; it is in them you find your greatest honor and your greatest glory, for although everything we do out of love for you is pleasing, those deeds done for the benefit and salvation of souls, these and these alone, you tell us, are for your greatest honor and your greatest glory. “And in this school of divine love souls are led along paths so secret but at the same time so sure and direct; the dangers that may be met on the way to this pure love are set out so clearly; the efforts the devil makes against the work of our sanctification are made so patent to us, that it causes wonder and amazement. In order to show the apostles and disciples how necessary it was for him to leave them, he could find no more powerful reason than to tell them: “It is better that I go, for unless I go to the Father he cannot send you the Holy Spirit.”. From 1880 to 1918 she worked generously and with a great spirit of sacrifice for the Jesuit Fathers in their dressmaking workshop attached successively to the Sacred Heart School, the novitiate and finally to the Apostolic School, all three located in Carrion de los Condes. He is the artisan of the living tradition of prayer. He is the artisan of the living tradition of prayer. And when they reach the heights, they alight on Mount Calvary and there they gaze, as if the Cross were still there with our divine Redeemer Jesus nailed to it, like chaste doves cooing with the love of their loves, showing the beloved, whom they love with all their soul, that they are willing with great joy to mortify themselves whenever the occasion arises. I have heard your voice, O holy and divine Spirit, by whom we were created for no other end than to enjoy God himself, his blessedness and, with him, his beauty and glory for ever and ever: you see that, although you have called the whole human race to enjoy this blessedness, very few live with the dispositions which you require to attain it. Generosity and unselfishness are as it were the touchstone of this school, for everything taught here must be practiced generously: otherwise nothing we do has any merit in the eyes of our Teacher. If we reach that stage, our Teacher tells us that this is sufficient. The first, which we pupils use, has two parts, and the name of the book is The Humanity of our Adorable Redeemer. This is the greatest thing we can ask for or desire, because he is the only thing worth loving or desiring. You see how he hated and persecuted the first Christians, putting them to death. Spirit of love and joy, have mercy on us. For he has no body, no shape, no appearance: who then can tell us what he is like? Spend a few minutes each day for 10 days, preferably with a friend, to get a great introduction to this subject. Many souls, several of them very saintly and some exceptionally eminent, have reaped fruits of great blessings from a meditative reading of this book. I make the same challenge to you. And since it sees and understands perfectly that everything in itself deserves to be detested and hated, then it detests and hates it, and makes a firm resolution to strive as hard as it can until it is all rooted out. It is for those persons that I have written this book. Ask God today and every day to fill you with all his fullness so that you can make a difference wherever God has placed you. 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