August 1, 2011
St. Alphonsus Liguori
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Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children! May this time be for you a time of prayer and silence. Rest your body and spirit, may they be in God's love. Permit me, little children, to lead you, open your hearts to the Holy Spirit so that all the good that is in you may blossom and bear fruit one hundred fold. Begin and end the day with prayer with the heart. Thank you for having responded to my call." (July 25, 2011)
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Mother Mary asks us to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit so that all the good that is in us may blossom and bear fruit one hundred fold. First of all, isn't it good news that there is good in each of us! Our Lady sees the good in each one of us, all the good! She wants us to capitalize on that good within. That good within was planted by God when we were conceived. In the DNA we received, all kinds of gifts and blessings were encoded. And like beautiful seedlings they are waiting to develop, flower and produce fruit.
But we have to understand that only God knows how to "grow" those seedlings. He knows how He made us, what gifts He has given us, and how to apply them. We need to allow the Lord to show us how He made us. We need the Holy Spirit to guide us, to inspire us to do the good we are capable of doing. And we need to understand that each one of us has our own unique set of gifts, we are each unique.
Fr. Jacques Philippe writes about this very thing in his book, In the School of the Holy Spirit. He writes:
"A second reason why we don't become holy simply by drawing up a plan for ourselves is that there are as many forms of holiness, and hence also ways to holiness, as there are people. For God, each person is absolutely unique. Holiness is not the realization of a given model of perfection that is identical for everyone. It is the emergence of an absolutely unique reality that God alone knows, and that he alone brings to fruition. No individual knows what his own holiness consists of. Holiness is only revealed to us by degrees, as we journey on, and it is often something very different from what we imagine so much so that the greatest obstacle on the path to holiness may be to cling too closely to the image we have of our own perfection.
"What God wants is always different, always disconcerting; but ultimately it is infinitely more beautiful, because only God is capable of creating totally unique masterpieces, while we humans can only imitate.
"This uniqueness has an important consequence. To reach holiness, we cannot be content merely to follow the general principles that apply to everyone. We also need to understand what God is asking of us in particular, which he may not be asking of anyone else. How can we discover what it is? In different ways, naturally: through the happenings of our lives, in the advice of a spiritual director, and in many other ways as well.
"Among these ways, there is one that is so fundamental and important that it merits an explanation: the inspirations of divine grace. In other words, the inner promptings, the movements of the Holy Spirit in the depths of our hearts by which God make
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Father Philippe examines the need for the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in detail in this little book. It is very helpful for growing the fruit of goodness in our souls and lives. We each have goodness within, and the way to grow that goodness is particular to each one of us. How exciting it is to know this and to see it actually happening all around us! So much goodness, and so varied and beautiful! Come Holy Spirit!
In Jesus and Mary!Cathy Nolan
©Mary TV 2011
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