BEAUTIFUL QUOTES ON THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR YOUR PERSONAL PRAYER
LINKS
1. PERSONAL DEVOTION TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
2. CORRESPONDENCE TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
3. THE ACTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR SOUL
4. FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
5. THE HOLY SPIRIT, SOUL OF THE CHURCH
6. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE VIRGIN MARY
1. PERSONAL DEVOTION TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
Get to know the Holy Spirit, the Great Unknown, the one who has to sanctify you.
Be devout: don’t fail to keep up a constant relationship with the Great Unknown and the Great Solitary One. This is what I call the Holy Spirit and Christ humbled and hidden in our tabernacles. Through the Holy Humanity of Christ you will meet the Paraclete, who comes as the fruit of the Cross. You will reach the Father: our whole life, in which the divine and the human are intimately united, will be a lasting dialogue with the Blessed Trinity. sake (St. Josemaria).
He that loves has the Holy Spirit within himself ,and having him, merits to receive him more abundantly, and having him more abundantly, therefore loves him with more intensity. The disciples had within themselves the Holy Sprit, whom the Lord had promised, and without whom they could not call him Lord; but they did not yet possess him with the fullness our Lord had promised. They had him and did not have him, because as yet they did not have him with the fullness with which they should have had him. (St. Augustine)
By the Holy Spirit, our actions, which could have been like those of an animal, become those of a Christian, namely supernatural (St. Josemaria).
In the Acts of the Apostles we find the early Christian community described in a single sentence, brief but full of meaning: and they continued steadfastly in the teaching of the Apostles and in the communion of the breaking of the bread and in prayers. This is how the early Christians lived, and this is how we too should live: meditating on the doctrine of our faith until it becomes part of us; receiving our Lord in the Eucharist; meeting him in the personal dialogue of our prayer, without trying to hide behind impersonal conduct, but face to face with him. (St. Josemaria).
We have from God a great helper and protector; a great teacher of the Church; a great combatant who fights for us (St. Cyril of Jerusalem).
Love the Third Person of the most Blessed Trinity. Listen in the intimacy of your being to the divine motions of encouragement or reproach you receive from him. Walk through the earth in the light that is poured out in your soul. And the God of hope will fill us with all peace, so that this hope may grow in us more and more each day, by the power of the Holy Spirit. (St. Josemaria).
2. CORRESPONDENCE TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
If we want to grow in fidelity to the constant motions and inspirations of the Holy Spirit in our soul, we can fix our attention on three fundamental points: docility, life of prayer and union with the Cross.
First of all docility, because it is the Holy Spirit who, through his inspirations, gives a supernatural tone to our thoughts, desires and actions. It is He who leads us to be receptive to Christ’s teaching and to assimilate it in a pro found way. It is He who gives us the light by which we perceive our personal calling and the strength to carry out all that God expects of us (St. Josemaria, Christ is passing by, 135).
In the second place, a life of prayer, because the giving of one’s self the obedience and meekness of a Christian, are born of love and lead to love. And love leads to a personal relationship to conversation and friendship Christian life requires a constant dialogue with God, One in three Persons, and it is to this intimacy that the Holy Spirit leads us …Let us acquire the habit of conversation with the Holy Spirit, who is the one who will make us holy. Let us trust in him and ask his help and feel his closeness to us. In this way our poor heart will grow: we will have a greater desire to love God and to love all creatures for God’s sake (St. Josemaria, op cit, 136).
And finally, union with the Cross, because in the life of Christ, the Resurrection and Pentecost were preceded by Calvary. This is the order that must be followed in the life of any Christian… The Holy Spirit comes to us as a result of the Cross — as a result of our total abandonment to the will of God, of seeking only His glory and of renouncing ourselves completely (ibid, 37).
If we let ourselves be guided by this life-giving principle, who is the Holy Spirit in us, our spiritual vitality will grow. We will place ourselves in the hands of our Father God, with the same spontaneity and confidence with which a child abandons himself to his father’s care. Our Lord has said: Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the old and well-known “way of childhood,” which is not sentimentality or lack of human maturity. It is a supernatural maturity, which makes us realize more deeply the wonders of God’s love, while leading us to acknowledge our own smallness and identify our will fully with God’s will (St. Josemaria).
We must be docile to the Paraclete, because it is the Holy Spirit who, with his inspirations, gives a supernatural tone to our thoughts, desires and actions. It is he who leads us to receive Christ’s teaching and to assimilate it in a profound way. It is he who gives us the light by which we perceive our personal calling and the strength to carry out all that God expects of us. If we are docile to the Holy Spirit, the image of Christ will be formed more and more fully in us, and we will be brought closer every day to God the Father. For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God.”
For this reason, Christian tradition has summarized the attitude we should adopt toward the Holy Spirit in just one idea: docility. That means we should be aware of the work of the Holy Spirit all around us, and in our own selves we should recognize the gifts he distributes, the movements and institutions he inspires, the affections and decisions he provokes in our hearts. The Holy Spirit carries out in the world the works of God. He is, as we read in a liturgical hymn, the giver of grace, the light of our hearts, the soul’s guest, our rest in work, our consolation in sorrow. Without his help there is nothing innocent or valuable in man, since he is the one who cleanses the soiled, heals what is sick, sets on fire what is cold, straightens what is bent and guides men toward the safe harbour of salvation and eternal joy.
But our faith in the Holy Spirit must be complete. It is not a vague belief in his presence in the world, but a grateful acceptance of the signs and realities into which he has poured forth his power in a special way. When the Spirit of truth comes, our Lord tells us, he will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit sent by Christ to carry out in us the work of holiness that our Lord merited for us on earth (St. Josemaria).
3. THE ACTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN OUR SOUL
The Holy Spirit acts especially in all who are pure in intentions and affections (St Basil the Great).
The Holy Spirit is one, but at a mere sign from God the Father, and in the name of Christ, he produces a variety of virtues. He uses the tongue of one person to communicate wisdom, he enlightens the mind of another with the gift of prophecy; on this one he confers the power of casting out demons, and on that one the ability to interpret Sacred Scripture. In one he strengthens temperance; another he teaches all that refers to the works of charity; someone else he instructs in fasting and the ascetical life. He moves this person to scorn material possessions, while he prepares that person for martyrdom. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem).
God, my children, in addition to enlightening those who believe in him with the clear light of the official teaching of the Church, does not cease to carry out the firm, gentle, and quiet action of the Spirit, who instructs souls as a Teacher within them.
And so, there cannot be faith in the Holy Spirit if there is not faith in Christ, in his sacraments, in his Church. A man cannot act in accordance with his Christian faith, cannot truly believe in the Holy Spirit, unless he loves the Church and trusts her. He cannot be a coherent Christian if he limits himself to pointing out the deficiencies and limitations of some who represent the Church, judging her from the outside, as though he were not her son. (St. Josemaria).
Our divine Teacher holds his school within the souls of those who ask him and who really want to have him as their Teacher (F.J. del Valle, About the Holy Spirit, Day 4).
His action is preceded by the beaming rays of his light and knowledge. He comes with the truth of the real protector; for He comes to save, to head to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, to console, to illumine in the first place the mind of the person who receives Him, and through that person ‘s works, the minds of others (St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 16 on the Holy Spirit, 1).
The coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was not an isolated event in the Church’s life. The Paraclete sanctifies it continually as He also sanctifies every soul. This He does through the innumerable inspirations which are all the attractions, motions, rebukes and interior compunctions, lights and intuitions which God works in us. So He strengthens our heart with his blessings, with his care and fatherly love, so as to arouse us, move us, impel us and draw us to holy virtues, to heavenly love, to good resolutions: in short, to all that leads us to our eternal life (St Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, III, 18).
His action in the soul is gentle and mild… He comes to save, to cure, to enlighten (St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 16 on the Holy Spirit, 1).
4. FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
St Paul, by way of example, indicates twelve fruits, result of the gifts which the Holy Spirit has infused in our soul: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness, modesty, continence, chastity (cf Gal 5:22-23).
This first and chief fruit of the Holy Spirit is followed necessarily by joy, since the lover rejoices in union with his beloved (St Thomas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, 70,3).
To rejoice under trial, to smile in sufferings…, to sing in our heart ever more clearly, the longer and sharper the thorns.., and all this for the sake of love.., this is, together with love, the fruit that the divine Vinedresser wishes to gather from the branches of the mystic Vine. These are fruits which only the Holy Spirit can produce in us (A. Riaud, The Action of the Holy Spirit in souls, Madrid).
The soul which possesses this gift of the Holy Spirit is not impatient, nor does it harbour resentment for the offences or insults received from others, although it may feel — sometimes very vividly because of its greater sensitivity derived from its friendship with God — the bitterness and harshness, the humiliations they inflict. It knows that God uses all this to purify souls. (F. Fernandez-Carvajal, In Conversation with God, vol 2, 94.3)
5. THE HOLY SPIRIT, SOUL OF THE CHURCH
The era of the Church began with the ‘coming’, that is to say, with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, together with Mary, the Lord’s Mother (St. Pope John Paul II, Dominum et vivificantem, 18 May 1986, 25).
What the soul is to the body of man, St Augustine teaches, the Holy Spirit is in the Body of Jesus Christ which is the Church. The Holy Spirit acts in the Church as the soul acts in the members of a body (St Augustine, Sermon 267).
6. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE VIRGIN MARY
Mary, who conceived Christ through the workings of the Holy Spirit, the love of the living God, presides over the birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit Himself descends upon the disciples and pours out life in unity and in charity upon the Mystical Body of Christians (St. Pope Paul VI, Address, 25 October 1969).
She, who at the start of the Redemption gave us her Son, now by her most powerful intercession obtained for the newborn Church the prodigious Pentecostal outpouring of that Spirit of the Divine Redeemer who had already been given on the Cross (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 29 June 1943).
It was St Luke who related this fact, the evangelist who gave us the longest account of Jesus’ childhood. It is as if he wanted us to understand that just as Mary had a major role in the Incarnation of the Word, she was intimately involved in the beginning of the Church, Christ’s body (St. Josemaria, Christ is passing by, 141).
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