Living Icons of Jesus through The Holy Spirit

During these days of prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our world and our lives, the Liturgy presents us, once again, with the beautiful reading of St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit.
I have commented before (here) some parts of this text but it is well worth reading and re-reading it. This is a great hymn and a consoling prayer that can give us theme for a quiet, contemplative time in the secret of our inner room.
I'm copying the text from the Liturgy of the Hours:

   

The Work of the Holy Spirit

The titles given to the Holy Spirit must surely stir the soul of anyone who hears them, and make him realise that they speak of nothing less than the supreme Being.

Is he not called:

            the Spirit of God,

               the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,

                  the steadfast Spirit,

                     the guiding Spirit?

But his principal and most personal title is the Holy Spirit.

To the Spirit all creatures turn in their need for sanctification;

all living things seek him according to their ability.

His breath empowers each to achieve its own natural end.

The Spirit is the source of holiness, a spiritual light, and he offers his own light to every mind to help it in its search for truth.

By nature the Spirit is beyond the reach of our mind, but we can know him by his goodness.

The power of the Spirit fills the whole universe, but he gives himself only to those who are worthy, acting in each according to the measure of his faith.

Simple in himself, the Spirit is manifold in his mighty works.

The whole of his being is present to each individual; the whole of his being is present everywhere.

Though shared in by many, he remains unchanged; his self giving is no loss to himself.

Like the sunshine, which permeates all the atmosphere, spreading over land and sea, and yet is enjoyed by each person as though it were for him alone, so the Spirit pours forth his grace in full measure, sufficient for all, and yet is present as though exclusively to everyone who can receive him.

To all creatures that share in him he gives a delight limited only by their own nature, not by his ability to give.

The Spirit raises our hearts to heaven, guides the steps of the weak, and brings to perfection those who are making progress.

He enlightens those who have been cleansed from every stain of sin and makes them spiritual by communion with himself.

As clear, transparent substances become very bright when sunlight falls on them and shine with a new radiance, so also souls in whom the Spirit shines become spiritual themselves and a source of grace for others.

From the Spirit comes

     foreknowledge of the future,

       understanding of the mysteries of faith,

         insight into the hidden meaning of Scripture,

           and other special gifts.

Through the Spirit we become citizens of heaven, we enter into eternal happiness, and abide in God.

Through the Spirit we acquire a likeness to God; indeed, we attain what is beyond our most sublime aspirations – we become God.

From the treatise On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil the Great, bishop

The last paragraph makes a very bold statement on our destiny and our identity as human beings. We are created with the image and likeness of God in us (Gen 1:26) like a seed that we need to nurture and allow to grow over time in order to bring it to fruition. 

In Jesus the Christ we have the perfectly accomplished human image of God. Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life is One with God, and like Him, we too are called not only to union but to oneness with God through identification and participation in Christ.

Thus our earthly journey is about becoming like Christ, becoming Christ. We are presented in the Gospels with the Model we need to imitate in our lives with our free decision to follow Him every day. But our actions, our efforts are not enough to make us like Him. For this to happen a real transformation has to take place. We call it holiness, which is a divinization not only of our actions but also of our faculties, of our mind and our psyche, of our feelings and desires. 

Jesus fulfills his promise not to leave us orphans (Jn 14:18) by becoming, through the workings of His Spirit, the yeast of our transformation that sculpts in us his own likeness and makes of us his Living Memories, his Living Icons when and where we surrender and entrust the whole of our being to the Divine Artist who is recreating in us the human face of God.

Come Spirit of Jesus!

The Spirit of Truth

As Jesus' post Resurrection departure approaches we can sense in the liturgical texts that the focus of attention is slowly shifting -or rather expanding- towards the fulfillment of Jesus promise, the coming of the Spirit.

"If you love me, 

you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father,

and He will give you another Advocate, 

to be with you forever.

This is the Spirit of Truth, 

whom the world cannot receive,

because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

You know Him, because He abides with you,

and He will be with you." 

(John 14: 15-17)

I don't know how we have managed to make of our Faith a matter of beliefs. Jesus, obviously, presented us with a way of life: "if you love me you will keep my commandments". It is not about having the concepts right. It's about copying the attitudes, the life, the style, the values of Him who said,

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

It is our way of life what will make of us dwellers of the Spirit of Truth -the Spirit of Jesus, and Living Memories, Icons of Christ. 

 TRUTH is not a thing we possess, but a person by whom we must 

allow ourselves to be possessed   

Dialogue And Proclamation 19/V/1991-#49

This Spirit of Truth the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. This is the world we live in, so full of confusion, of lies, of manipulation. But it is not a Creed what makes us to be in the "right" track, rather it is a deep conversion of heart that allows Jesus to take over our lives and live in us. Then He will abide in us and be with us, and we will know the Truth.

"The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me;

and the one who loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

(John 14: 21)

  Let us pray in earnest for our personal conversion and for the gift of this revelation of the Spirit of Jesus to us, to the Church, and to the world:

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Fill me with life anew,

               That I may love the things You love,

               And do what You would do.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               Until my heart is pure,

               Until with You I have one will,

               To live and to endure.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               My soul with grace refine,

               Until this earthly part of me

               Glows with Your fire divine.

               Breathe on me, Breath of God,

               So shall I never die,

               But live with You the perfect life

               In Your eternity.

                              Amen.          (Liturgy of the Hours -Edwin Hatch -Public Domain)

Witness to Christ's Risen Life

Today's reading at Mass (Acts 14:19-28) treated us to a matter of fact account of the boldness of Paul the Apostle in the face of persecution. While Paul and Barnabas where at Lystra: 

Some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.²⁰ But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

He was left behind as a corpse. This is how badly the stoning went. When the disciples came to pick up the pieces he got up and returned into the city -kind of shaking the dust off as if nothing really had happened. The next day he was in the way again. 

 ²¹ They preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,

Paul not only did not run away or hide himself after being stoned but returned to the very territory of his attackers, back to Lystra, to Iconium and to Antioch. And we are told this itinerary in successive verses, which means that things happened one after the other; we are not talking about going back years later.

²² strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. 

I ask myself today, what kind of hardships am I willing and ready to go through in order to remain true to the faith and the Kingdom. Something to ponder and to pray about.

One of the Intercessions of Morning Prayer read this morning: Christ our Savior ... make us witnesses to your risen life. What a wonderful example of this witnessing we have in the passage of St. Paul quoted before. 

Paul's kind of courage in the face of persecution is a clear witness to the power of Jesus' Resurrection. Paul went to the desert for several years after his conversion and in the struggle of fighting his demons he surrendered his very life and being to God and became, truly, a Living Memory of Jesus, and His Apostle. This is the witness to the Risen Christ that, as Christians, we all are invited to give with our lives today too.

In our troubled times we are, again, getting almost daily news of persecutions and martyrdom, whether in India, Egypt, China or in our own countries. In some places churches are being attacked and burned, and Christians martyred. In other places teachers and doctors are removed from their jobs because they teach that abortion is murder or refuse to perform one. We may not be in those situations but maybe can think of a neighbor or a family member who is in need of a hand. 

Like Paul we too need to shake the dust off our comfortable souls and pray in earnest for our own conversion, for the healing of our blindness that prevents us from seeing Jesus in our brothers and sisters, and for the the grace to come so close to Jesus as to truly become witnesses to His risen life. 

Let us pray for each other as we request the intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, to bring to birth in our lives the passion for God that will make us Living Memories of Jesus, the Risen Christ.

Rule of Life as a Hermit

Fall season at Emmanuel Hermitage

Another "stand alone page" has been created under the title Rule of Life.

It can be accessed directly in the menu below the heading of this blog.


The post includes the complete text of the initial personal Rule of Life that served this Diocesan Hermit to step into the path of a contemplative solitary, and live it out for five years until first profession of canonical eremitical vows for the Diocese.

There are some comments on specific aspects of the Rule, and the page also touches on the identity as a Redemptoristine Hermitess.