We Need the Holy Spirit!

[MariaChristi]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My husband Thomas has a blog entitled “Renew the Church Blog” and occasionally I post an entry on CAF which I think might interest members here. Today’s blog entry is brief but it contains a link to an article just published on-line, at the website of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, the article is titled The Church Needs the Holy Spirit!.

Please visit the blog HERE and follow the link to read the article in HPR which Thomas wrote. I believe it will encourage you! You can post comments on the blog itself or you can post comments at the website of HPR. Comments are always appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Reuben_J]

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My husband Thomas has a blog entitled “Renew the Church Blog” and occasionally I post an entry on CAF which I think might interest members here. Today’s blog entry is brief but it contains a link to an article just published on-line, at the website of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, the article is titled The Church Needs the Holy Spirit!.

Please visit the blog HERE and follow the link to read the article in HPR which Thomas wrote. I believe it will encourage you! You can post comments on the blog itself or you can post comments at the website of HPR. Comments are always appreciated. Thanks.

*“Do we not all have the Holy Spirit already? We all are, after all, baptized and sacramentalized, are we not? Well, there is a problem: the holy grace and divine Presence given us at Baptism, and in the other sacraments, can be weakened (or, indeed, lost completely) by sin, leaving us tepid, lukewarm, “institutional-only” Catholics—in profound and dire need of repentance, restoration, and renewal!

First repentance, then life-receiving faith!”*

Can’t find anything that I would disagree on there.

Restoration and Renewal will not happen without repentance. It was rightly put that repentance was mentioned first.

For an onlooker and probably a person who will be benefited by the working of the Holy Spirit to restore and to renew his life, he would first of all need the catalyst to trigger his personal repentance. Do you have a formula to affect that?

 

[tawny]

Thank you for the link.

 

[RPRPsych]

Great article.

 

[Katherine438]

Thank you for posting this … enlightening.

 

[fide]

*“Do we not all have the Holy Spirit already? We all are, after all, baptized and sacramentalized, are we not? Well, there is a problem: the holy grace and divine Presence given us at Baptism, and in the other sacraments, can be weakened (or, indeed, lost completely) by sin, leaving us tepid, lukewarm, “institutional-only” Catholics—in profound and dire need of repentance, restoration, and renewal!

First repentance, then life-receiving faith!”*

Can’t find anything that I would disagree on there.

Restoration and Renewal will not happen without repentance. It was rightly put that repentance was mentioned first.

For an onlooker and probably a person who will be benefited by the working of the Holy Spirit to restore and to renew his life, he would first of all need the catalyst to trigger his personal repentance. Do you have a formula to affect that?

Hello Reuben, I think the answer is suggested in the article:

The Kerygma

St. Peter, newly filled with the Holy Spirit in power and truth, demonstrated the model very well in his post-Pentecost sermon to the people of Jerusalem. Following that sermon, in the concluding passage (Acts 2:36-40), we see the model: “You have sinned!” His hearers were “cut to the heart,” and cried out to know what they should do. Peter answered their cry: “Repent, and be baptized … Save yourselves!” And the result, the fruit: “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:41)
When, I ask, is the last time “we Catholics” have heard such a sermon? When is the last time “we Catholics” have preached such a sermon? Do we need such preaching, today?
I say we do need such preaching…

Peter used the “model” - it is in the Truth of the Cross: man in sin put Jesus on the Cross! There, in the Truth of the Cross, is the truth that can pierce the heart of a seeker that repentance might flow out, even as His holy blood flowed out of His pierced heart. “You have sinned!” Looking at, gazing into the suffering Innocent One, realizing “I - I - ***I ***have sinned!” Here one can find the grace of repentance.

The key could well be pray - pray before a crucifix - pray for the insight that the Holy Spirit can effect in one’s soul.

 

[MariaChristi]

Thank you for posting this … enlightening.

Dear Katherine, RPRPsych, tawny, and ReubenJ,

Thank you all so very much for your replies and for reading and pondering the blog and article. I sent it to all our parish Bible Study Members and also to the Legion of Mary. We need to encourage others in this need we have truly to be docile to the Holy Spirit. He has been sent by the Father and the Son to bring us into all truth but…are we opening our minds and hearts truly to receive Him? Are we listening and doing the Truth we hear?

Please let us continue to pray for one another, for the Church and for all those in most need of His Mercy!

 

[Reuben_J]

Hello Reuben, I think the answer is suggested in the article:

The Kerygma

St. Peter, newly filled with the Holy Spirit in power and truth, demonstrated the model very well in his post-Pentecost sermon to the people of Jerusalem. Following that sermon, in the concluding passage (Acts 2:36-40), we see the model: “You have sinned!” His hearers were “cut to the heart,” and cried out to know what they should do. Peter answered their cry: “Repent, and be baptized … Save yourselves!” And the result, the fruit: “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:41)
When, I ask, is the last time “we Catholics” have heard such a sermon? When is the last time “we Catholics” have preached such a sermon? Do we need such preaching, today?
I say we do need such preaching…

Peter used the “model” - it is in the Truth of the Cross: man in sin put Jesus on the Cross! There, in the Truth of the Cross, is the truth that can pierce the heart of a seeker that repentance might flow out, even as His holy blood flowed out of His pierced heart. “You have sinned!” Looking at, gazing into the suffering Innocent One, realizing “I - I - ***I ***have sinned!” Here one can find the grace of repentance.

The key could well be pray - pray before a crucifix - pray for the insight that the Holy Spirit can effect in one’s soul.

Thanks. I am interested to know this. We have been doing this and what struck us is how to get people into repentance which arises deep from the heart. The rest will be a natural progression to get closer to the Lord. We have a certain ‘formula’ to achieve that though but it should never be exhaustive.

I agree that praying before a crucifix can be a great symbolism and if understood and meditated correctly can be a great realization as to what oneself and who Jesus is.

We do that but more often as a routine practice to come and pray before the crucifix.

Thanks for pointing that out.

God bless.

Reuben

 

[Reuben_J]

Dear Katherine, RPRPsych, tawny, and ReubenJ,

Thank you all so very much for your replies and for reading and pondering the blog and article. I sent it to all our parish Bible Study Members and also to the Legion of Mary. We need to encourage others in this need we have truly to be docile to the Holy Spirit. He has been sent by the Father and the Son to bring us into all truth but…are we opening our minds and hearts truly to receive Him? Are we listening and doing the Truth we hear?

Please let us continue to pray for one another, for the Church and for all those in most need of His Mercy!

God bless you and your husband in your ministry.

Reuben

 

[fide]

Thanks. I am interested to know this. We have been doing this and what struck us is how to get people into repentance which arises deep from the heart. The rest will be a natural progression to get closer to the Lord. We have a certain ‘formula’ to achieve that though but it should never be exhaustive.

I agree that praying before a crucifix can be a great symbolism and if understood and meditated correctly can be a great realization as to what oneself and who Jesus is.

We do that but more often as a routine practice to come and pray before the crucifix.

Thanks for pointing that out.

God bless.

Reuben

Thank you. I noticed of course your signature with photo that points so poignantly to the Cross. John Paul II’s encyclical on the Holy Spirit includes much beautiful reflection on the gathering of several themes that are all relevant to this question, how to communicate holy Truth to persons to help draw them toward the Lord. Sin contradicts the vocation of man to holiness - two realities, sin and holiness, that modern man has become desensitized to and can hardly understand! But the Holy Spirit can communicate to man, into man, the horror of sin and the pure light of holiness, as well as the sorrow appropriate to estrangement of man from God, because of sin.

Any authentic way that we can help men open their hearts to the Presence and works of the Holy Spirit, is good. The Spirit knows God “from the inside” so to speak, and He knows man also, “inside”. It is His work that we need: We need the Holy Spirit. He is Life.

 

[MariaChristi]

God bless you and your husband in your ministry.

Reuben

Dear Reuben,

Thanks for your prayers, and may God bless you and all your efforts to build up the Body of Christ in Love( cf Eph 4:16). By God’s Grace, I pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary not only on Fridays, but for some time now I have been praying those Sorrowful Mysteries everyday before the Crucifix.

Firmly, I believe with the Church, all graces come to us through Mary (whether we are conscious of her or not). Just as God chose to send Jesus to us through Mary by the power of His Holy Spirit, I believe He continues to send us Jesus in the same way – God is consistent!

Come Holy Spirit, kindle in us the Fire of Your Love. Overshadow us as you overshadowed Mary that as she brought Jesus into the world physically, we may bring Him spiritually to others, by Your working in us.

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray with us, and for us.