I suggest that we do a continuous Novena. Maybe use the days of the month to remind us of the day we should be on, God Bless
The Prayer this morning was for the Gift of Piety. I confess I ahve never in my entire life thought about the Gift of Piety. A shocker. I notice that one of the graces it gives is, 'Submission to legitamte authority'. My mind went at once to the USA were five police officers were shot dead. I grew up in a society of extreme injustice were I was taught not submission but to be very much a Rebel as my parents and grand parents were. In 969, inspired by DrMArtin Luther King and the American Civils Rights protestors took to the streets. we were beatedn off them and took at once to the use of the gun. I think a particular bone of contention was the poilice here who were 98% Protestant /British and very biased against we Irish Catholics. I would say our attitude towards them was fear and extreme hate. But after my conversion I learnt to forgive and to love. In a kind of way through prayer the things of this world became more and more irrelevant to me. I kind of had and have my eyes focused on the things of heaven than the things of Earth. St Paul tells us that we shoudl obey lawful authority, that we should have piety: Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Rom. 6:16). But what about unlawful authority the kind that casues us to go against our consciences? “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom. 13:1; cf. Jn. 19:11) If a Government is evil or wants us to do what is evil how far must our Piety take us? I suppose I have spent most of my life wrestling with this. May God grant me the Gift of Piety that I may understand. Help us in these difficult times. Help us to pick our Battles carefully. http://www.cuf.org/2004/04/should-i-obey-faithfully-responding-to-lawful-authority/
The Spirit Of Fortitude. People foten think being a believer makes you a sheep. I always found it the other way around, that having Faith turns people into raoring lions. For someone who does not believe in God will beleive in anything esle. They have no rock to stand on. Now that Western Societies reject God they are ebcomming fearful .Governments will manipulate them anyway they wish. Fearful epople are easily led sheep. Lord give me a bit of back bone. Teach me not to be afraid. Let me kick the ass that needs kicked.
Gift of Knowledge. I notice time and time again among the saints that it is the very littlest ones he seems to pick out. Perhaps this is because you can't fill a full buchek and you need brokeness for the Light to shine through. Padre Pio, the Cure of Arc , Fr Solanus Casey and Fe Leopold Manic were all good examples of this. They were not considered good students in fact many of their fellow preists despised them for their lack of learning. But God filled them full to the brim with wisdom . With true Knowledge. Did you ever think of the luggage we will be allowed to bring over with us to heaven. We will carry no money, no strength, no beauty, our learning will be so much hot air. But two things we will carry. A loving heart (on which we will be Judged..the bottom line) ..and Light .....which is Knowledge. Just these two. That's how important they are. Job 1:21 and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." View attachment 5148
Gift of Understanding. I am getting a little confused here between the Gifts of Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding. This is teaching me I need to read up on all this a lot more. ..and on the action of Holy SPirit generally. I always loved the idea of, 'Gifts', from God as a child. What child wouldn't? But I see I have never really understood much of this. I think the Gift of nderstanding is the process which gives us Knowledge and Wisdom? The , 'Ah ha got it moment!' I have found through prayer when I reflect on something an answer turns up pretty quick. I think this is Understanding. A very great gift. It must be terrible to look for answers and find only silence. Terrible. Oh God grant me the Gift of Understanding that I may understand the Gift of Understanding.
The Spirit of Fortitude. All over the world Christians are dying for their Faith. More Catholics are dying as martyrs than at any time in history. The Vatican has said a report of some 100,000 is, 'Credible'. https://zenit.org/articles/archbish...un-human-rights-council-interactive-dialogue/ 'Mr. President, The serious violations of the right to freedom of religion in general and the recent continuing discrimination and systematic attacks inflicted on some Christian communities in particular, deeply concern the Holy See and many democratic Governments whose population embrace various religious and cultural traditions. Credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that an estimate of more than 100,000 Christians are violently killed because of some relation to their faith every year. Other Christians and other believers are subjected to forced displacement, to the destruction of their places of worship, to rape and to the abduction of their leaders -as it recently happened in the case of Bishops Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yaziji, in Aleppo (Syria).' Some of these hateful acts bring results that seem even worse than death itself. During the week I looked at a gentleman in Pakistan who had recently had both arms hacked off simply for believing in Jesus. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...onvert-Islam-kidnapped-Muslim-extremists.html The First stirings of the Great Storm that is about to break upon us have come, grant Oh Lord that we be Faithful to the end.
The Gift of Wisdom. I have always believed that true Wisdom is the grace of referring all things back to God. In other words having God as centre in our understanding. A kind of spectacles to veiw the world. What we love the most that naturally we will think about the most. A banker may think all everyone thinks about is money. A prostitute may think the whole world spins around sex. A movie star may think the whole wrodl wants to be a star. I think the love of God reminds me of an elastic band . The stronger the love the deeper the draw back into the Sea of Wisdom , of referring all things to God. Mary Seat of Wisdom , pray for us. “Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and Seat of Wisdom, open our hearts to receive your divine Son and make them like your heart, full of your own wise and generous love.” http://www.thework-fso.org/english/?p=307
Just found this Well I am in. 2 days of prayer to the Holy Spirit is better than none. "Take up thy cross and follow me, for my yoke is sweet and my burden light."
The Fruits of the Holy Spirit Yesterday was the last day of the Novena . But I am afraid this is the last day for me. The night before last I ahd such a sleepless night I slept very little and so was playing catch up all day. There are no accidents with God however as I see a very good artilce about sleep in , 'Spirit Daily'. http://www.spiritdaily.com/sleep.htm When I think of the the Furits of the Holy Spirit I think at once of my garden. It takes patience to be a gardener, or a farmer as things take time to grow and sometimes they never get to grow at all. Wehn I was young my Spiritual Director used to warn me, 'The Spiritual Life is a Marathon, not a sprint!' A gardenr would know best of all that life is not a sprint, how to take the longer view. How to take time to relax and enjoy the garden. But things do grow, silently and slowly in the gardens of our hearts. Love does bear fruit. Galatians 5:22-23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
I had another sleepless night last night and tired to go to Gethsemane in the Garden of Olives, my favourite meditation. Instead of which I saw Jesus ourside Jeuraslem, all by Himself sitting on a wall , with the hood of His robe half pulled up around His head looking downwards. Iahve no idea what He was thinking of or praying about, but I don't think it was the Passion. He just seemd totally out of it. It rmeinded me of what Scripture tells us that Jesus liked to go to lonely places to pray. I guess in a city like Jeruslaem this was the quietest spot He could find. Anyway my meditation took a strange turn and centred al labout the robe He was wearing. At first you would hardly notice it. But as I looked I began to really appreciate it. Its colour was uncertain, at first it looked a kind of whitish, bluish greenish ,very soft pastel shades. It was very,very well woven indeed , I could see His mother had put her heart and soul into making it. The very,very finest quality , not a fault init. It reminded me in many ways of Irish tweed but much lighter and at the same time well able to give great warmth when the cold hit. It looked very,very comfortable and beautiful. Mary had woven in several different couors , very sublty into garment, so that at one time youkinda picked the blue threads out, sometimes the cream/white sometimes the brown and so on, so that the colour of the robe could seem to change. But at the same time if you looked at it superficially you would simply see a kind of very simple, poor kind of cheap off white garment. In other words in order to appreciate the robe as a masterpiece you had to give it time to see it was Mary's very great masperpiece. I guess this too could be applied to the spiritual life and the Firuits of the Spirit, you have to give them time to appreciate.
