Perspective
From the heart
By Sr Ann Shields SGL
The Spirit is given to us that we may know the Father and the Son. The Spirit is given to us that we may become the image of God's only Son.
Through the grace given to us in our baptism, our personal lives truly become temples of the Holy Spirit. The Lord knew what was ahead for us in the Church and in society. He poured out his Spirit to equip us. Unfortunately, we often see the gift of the Spirit as something primarily for us, our friends, our prayer group, our parish. The gifts were given that we may become the image of God's only Son and to equip us to help others come alive in Christ and grow into His very image.
But we are myopic, shortsighted, and self focused; we often try to put a spin on our selfishness by giving it other labels, but the truth is that in our wounded natures we are selfish, self concerned, and self focused. When I am taken care of, then MAYBE I will look to the needs of others. But when I am hurting, it usually crowds out most of the needs of others. To put it bluntly our priorities are: me first, then others, then God…
Yet, even our sin does not change the purpose of our creation and re-creation in Baptism. I am created to reflect His only Son. How do I go from where I am now, to respond to this call, this ultimate purpose of my life on earth?
In today's world we need the Holy Spirit far more than we can grasp. In a homily given in April of 2005 Benedict XVI said, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism, which does not recognise anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires.”
Do we understand the battle we face? We need to!
“Western history is moving out along the lines Pope Benedict suggested in his pre-conclave sermon, revolving around a struggle between an increasingly despotic man-centered culture and the God centered one from which the West came. As the secular West girds itself against encroaching dictatorships from the Muslim world, it blindly sustains a dictatorship of its own; it worries about losing ‘freedom' to the terrorists, then robs God-given liberty from Westerners in the name of its own skewed ideology.
If the dictatorship of relativism succeeds if all who enter the public square are eventually forced to submit to secularism's inversion of morality Western culture will have vanished long before the arrival of Islamic terrorists. The Church is nothing less than the West's last hope…” (George Neumayr, Catholic World Report, March 2007, p.1)
We need the Holy Spirit to teach us to know fact from fiction . The gifts were given that we may become the image of God's only Son and to equip us to help others come alive in Christ and grow into His very image.
We need to ask the Spirit to give us a hunger and thirst for the truth. We need the Holy Spirit to gift us with wisdom to know the one true God; to hunger for His word. We need courage and fortitude and prudence and patience. We need faith and hope and love, whether we are called to speak to thousands or to the clerk in the local grocery store. We are to be the bearers of Christ: light in the midst of the growing darkness. The only light worth looking for is the light that shines from the face of Christ. It is the only light that can penetrate the darkness of lies and deceptions, of false promises and empty dreams, of broken relationships and the bondage of addictions.
Where do you look for the light? Back in 2000, John Paul II exhorted us to gaze on the face of Christ. Gaze on His suffering face, gaze on His glorious and resurrected face.
Gaze until you are blinded to all but Him! Let the radiation therapy of gazing on the face of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament have its full effect.
“Come, Holy Spirit! Come great Fire of God! Enkindle in us the fire of your love; transform us that we may become the image of God's only Son!”
Let this be our daily cry. Ask God to take our minds, darkened by sin and selfishness and to bring them more and more under his Lordship by the power of the Holy Spirit. ...for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We need to destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2Cor 10:4-5) May God give us eyes to see what He sees, ears to hear His truth, wisdom and courage to reflect His face to those we meet.
The light of Christ has power to penetrate darkness, to convict, to heal, to confront and to console. Let his grace have its full effect in you.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As I write this, I am being fitted for a new and bigger splint that will help my wrist and elbow to hopefully regain flexibility. God seems to be asking for greater patience on my part through the pain. I am sure I am not the only one with this “cross.” Let us pray for one another that we may love His will in all circumstances.
Gaze on His suffering face, gaze on His glorious and resurrected face. Gaze until you are blinded to all but Him!
Taken from Renewal Ministries' newsletter 2007