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Another year opens out before us, full of uncertainties, perhaps heavily laden with anxious forebodings; we feel concerned for ourselves, those dear to us, the world at large. How shall we steady our minds and hearts under these lowering clouds, and cross the threshold of the New Year with peaceful serenity and a calm sense of security for ourselves and for those entrusted to our pastoral care? - Dominus vobiscum - If the Lord be with us, all will be well, under any circumstance. Let us then determine to live this year intensely with God, or rather to let God lead us on every moment, in our own personal life and in the work of our ministry.
DOCILITY TO THE HOLY SPIRIT
The practical way to secure that intimate union with God in our daily life is to cultivate a great docility to the Holy Spirit. This will secure for us not only fervour and holiness but also happiness and joy. For the more we are under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit, the more we shall find our soul filled with His gifts; under these direct operations of God, the practice of virtue will become more intense, easier and sweeter; we shall reap in the garden of our soul the fruits and the beatitudes of the Holy Ghost and thus be made to taste "quam suavis est Dominus".
Alas, that we are so little alive to the presence of those hidden springs of holiness and supernatural happiness in our life. If so many souls consecrated to God remain stagnant in their spiritual life and rarely rise above the drab, commonplace exercise of very ordinary virtue, is it not because they fail to cultivate that docility to the Boly Spirit? They are not eager enough for His inspirations, not recollected enough to perceive them nor prompt and generous enough to follow them up . .. Yet in the degree in which we are led by that Spirit, in that degree does God enter into our life: "Quicumque spiritu Dei aguntur, ii sunt filii Dei."
* Let us recite meditatively the "Veni, Sancte Spiritus". . . rouse ourselves to eager desires of perfect docility to those transforming operations of the Holy Spirit in us . . . and look forward with unhesitating confidence to the true and solid happiness we are made to pray for: "Et de Ejus semper consolatione gaudere."IN OUR OWN SPIRITUAL LIFE
We must seek that fidelity to the Holy Spirit, first and foremost, in our own interior life. All our spiritual progress depends upon it. God's grace is for ever working in our soul, and if we are not saints, it is because we do not let God have His way with us. He draws us on to perfection by the ordinary graces which make us understand, relish and adhere to His commandments and counsels, and by the special inspirations which reveal His loving designs for each individual soul.
It must be our constant preoccupation, then, to be truly "docibiles Dei", to keep ourselves ready for divine communications and to surrender generously to His impulses and invitations. These we shall find especially in all our hours of prayer, in the reception of the Sacraments, above all of the Eucharist, in a life of union with God and with Christ by habitual recollection and a frequent remembrance of the presence in us of the "Dulcis Hospes animae".
* Let us examine whether indeed our prayer habitually brings us in close contact with God: Do we recite our vocal prayers, especially the liturgical prayers of the Mass and breviary, slowly and devoutly enough to let the words convey to us the sublime meaning they contain?IN OUR MINISTRY
Is our mental prayer always a time of real intimacy with God, "a familiar intercourse" with Him ?
Do we go to the Blessed Sacrament (visits, Holy Communion, Holy Mass) with an ardent longing that Jesus may communicate to us His life and spirit which is none other than the grace of the Holy Ghost?
In the midst of our occupations do we keep sufficiently recollected for God to make us feel His divine presence, and do we often raise our mind to Him by ejaculatory prayers, so that we truly spend the day with the Lord: "Dominus vobiscum"?
Docility to the Holy Spirit is also the condition of fruitfulness in our ministry. It is not our work but God's work we are doing: "Dei adjutores sum us". It is not in our name but with Christ's power that we act: "Pro Christo legatione fungimur". What matters, then, above all, is that we keep ourselves in immediate dependence on the Divine Master. He will use us as channels of His more abundant graces in the degree in which He finds us faithful instruments in His hands.
We must aim at that close dependence on God, first by habitual docility to the Holy Spirit in our own spiritual life; then by seeking God's help and guidance in all our apostolic undertakings so that in the choice and the method of them we may be truly led by the inspirations of the Holy Ghost; and of course we must ever be mindful that the most secure manner to be faithful instruments of God's will is obedience to legitimate authority: "The first inspiration is always obedience" (St Francis de Sales).
* Are we solicitous to secure the blessings of obedience for our ministry?"O lux beatissima, Reple cordis intima Tuorum fidelium. - Sine tuo numine Nihil est in homine, Nihil est innoxium."
Keen in seeking the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit in all our pastoral work: v.g. in the pulpit, confessional, direction of souls, conversion of sinners and pagans, etc.?
Do we pray before, that the Lord may be with us and through us radiate His love and His peace: "Et Deus pacis et dilectionis erit vobiscum"?
"Dirigat corda nostra, quaesumus, Domine, tuae miserationis operatio: quia tibi sine te placere non possumus. Per C.D.N."
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Adapted from Alter Christus, Meditations for Priests by F.X. L'Hoir, S.J. (1958)
Meditation 25.
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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood.
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