Introductory Prayer
Come, O Holy Spirit! Enlighten my understanding in order to know your commands; strengthen my heart against the snares of the enemy; enkindle my will ... I have heard your voice, and I do not want to harden my heart and resist, saying, “Later ... tomorrow.” 'Nunc coepi!' Right now! Lest there be no tomorrow for me.
O Spirit of truth and of wisdom, Spirit of understanding and of counsel, Spirit of joy and of peace! I want whatever you want; I want because you want; I want as you want; I want whenever you want ...
Ref: St Josemaria Escrivà, “Prayer to the Holy Spirit”. In Postulation for the Cause of Beatification and Canonization, “Historical Registry of the Founder of Opus Dei” 20172, p145.
Wisdom, understanding and counsel
The first gift of the Holy Spirit is ‘wisdom’, which consists in understanding how to appreciate things at their real value. ‘Sapientia a sapere’ (wisdom and understanding). Before receiving this gift, did the Apostles esteem and value the things of God and their own eternal salvation more than all the fleeting pleasures of this world?
No, they were men of earthly minds, occupied entirely with the care of their bodies, and the desire to rise in the world and in their Master’s favor. “There was a strife among them, which of them should seem to be greater” (Mk 9:34), and they cared but little, in comparison, to watch or pray with Jesus.
Behold what the Apostles were, and what we all are, without the gift of wisdom -- cold and indifferent in spiritual things, in exercises of piety, humility, mortification, penance; finding a thousand excuses for shortening or omitting them. We are full of activity about worldly matters and all that concerns our temporal welfare.
We see clearly in the Gospels what the Apostles were before they received the gift of ‘understanding’, before they were supernaturally enlightened to comprehend the divine mysteries.
They never understood those ‘mysteries of the kingdom of heaven’ which Jesus explained to them. They always interpreted his words in a material sense, and merited from him the severe rebuke, “Are you also yet without understanding?” (Mk 7:18; 8:21)
This was their condition, and is ours, too without the gift of understanding. We are incapable of comprehending the things of God or of contemplating his divine perfections. The very world in which we live clearly puts them at our very face.
We do not see, like blind persons before a picture! The most touching spiritual books are explained to us; but we understand nothing as if we had literally no power of comprehension.
What were the Apostles without the gift of ‘counsel’? Inconstant and vacillating in their thoughts, affections, conduct; drifting with the stream; feeble and inconsistent. Desiring to follow Jesus, and yet cherishing earthly hopes in their hearts. One day full of zeal and courage, the next cast down and sad.
We often behave as they did. Full of hesitation, darkness of mind, and rash judgments; the victim of our imagination, illusions of the devil, and of circumstances. Beginning and giving up, willing and unwilling, changeable as the wind, fickle, unable to make any progress. Do we often complain of these before God?
Ref: cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp283-5
Mary, Bride of the Holy Spirit
St Francis of Assisi prayed to the Virgin in this way: “Holy Virgin Mary, there is no one similar to you born in the world among women, daughter and maidservant of the All High King, the heavenly Father, mother of the holiest Lord Jesus Christ, bride of the Holy Spirit”; pray for us with St Michael the Archangel and with all the powers of heaven, and with all the saints, to your most holy beloved Son, our Lord. (“Officium Passionis”).
In his encyclical “Redemptoris Mater”, Pope John Paul II refers to Mary in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost: “In a sense her journey of faith is longer. The Holy Spirit had already come down upon her, and she became his faithful spouse at the annunciation, welcoming the Word of the true God.” (25 March 1987)
In this context, the expression ‘Mary, bride of the Holy Spirit’ signifies ... the mystical but fertile union between the person of Mary and the Spirit who ‘gives life’. ... Mary is ‘mother’, that is, fertile, not according to human necessity ... but because she has been made so by the Spirit, whose task is only to make present and visible the invisible, ‘to make the Word flesh’.
To engender Christ, Mary has no need of human intervention. She is the living transparency of the Spirit ... He who creates and gives life to the universe ... has given life to Mary’s womb, making fertile her virginity.
Thus to initiate the earthly life of Jesus, the Spirit had need of the womb and free collaboration of a virgin; ... Mary’s cooperation with the Spirit is not limited to giving a body to the humanity of Jesus but continues today in building the body of Christ, the Church.
Ref: Cf Theological-Historical Commission, “The Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life”, 1997, pp85-6
God’s providence is over all
Remember our great principles: 1. That there is nothing so small or apparently trifling, even the fall of a leaf, that is not ordained or permitted by God. 2. That God is sufficiently wise, good, powerful and merciful to turn the most seemingly disastrous events to the good and profit of those who are capable of adoring and humbly accepting all these manifestations of his divine and adorable will.
Let us be perfectly persuaded that God arranges everything for the best. Our fears, our fussiness and our tendency to worry often make us imagine trials where there are none. Let us follow the leading of divine Providence one step at a time; as soon as we see what is asked of us, we also will desire it and nothing further. God knows far better than we (poor blind creatures that we are), what is good for us.
Our pains and troubles often come from the granting of our wishes. Let us leave everything to God, and all will go well. Let us abandon everything to him ‘in toto’; that is the only way to provide surely and infallibly for our true interests. I say: our ‘true’ interests, for we have also false interests leading to our ruin.
My self-abandonment to divine Providence, as I conceive and recommend it, is not so heroic or so difficult as you think. It is the centre of the solid peace of the soul and there only is found the unchangeable repose which the most trying events cannot ruffle.
Ref: “The Fire of Divine Love: Readings from Jean-Pierre de Caussade”, Edited by Robert Llewelyn, 1995, p38
Concluding Prayer
Holy and divine Spirit! Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, your spouse, bring the fullness of your gifts into our hearts. Comforted and strengthened by you, may we live according to your Will and may we die praising your infinite mercy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Ref: Fr James Socias, ‘et al’ (Editors), “Daily Roman Missal”, 1989, p2080
• Dedication of Our Lady du Val, of the Order of Citeaux, seven leagues from Paris, under Louis XIII on the 18th of April, 1616 — Manuscripts of Church. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; www.bethlehemobserver.com)
• Our Lady of Marienthal (Germany, 13th Century). (www.divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Our Lady of the Valley or Marienthal (Germany). (http://mariedenazareth.com)
• Our Lady of the Valley of the Cistercian Order. (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html); (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.miraclehunter.com/marian_apparitions/calendar/index.html)
• Our Lady, Queen of Apostles. (“Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia”, 1991, p630)
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