BECOMING FRIENDS WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 5.5.

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Have you ever stopped to wonder at how close God is to us? Certainly God made us, he holds us in existence and inspires in us every good action. He is the power by which we live and move and love. When we sinned and abandoned God’s friendship to

choose selfishness and fear, He pursued us, and choose to be born of the Immaculate Virgin. God in the Flesh, comes to save us. In Jesus Christ we see the very face of God Himself, his selfless love and compassion, reaching out to us, calling us to life and freedom. In the agony of the Cross Jesus confronted the reality of sin and death, and offered himself for us, so that we could be one with God the Father again. Bursting from the tomb and ascending to the Father, he now offers us eternal life and joy. But there is more here. God is not content remain outside of us, rather he wants to make us His own temple. In the mystery of Pentecost, he does just that. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Trinity, comes to live and move and act WITHIN US, taking up his home within our souls. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to live the life of Jesus now, because He brings that life to life within us. He is the true life our of souls. This is how close God is to us; He has built His home within us! During this retreat we will be given the opportunity to invite the Holy Spirit to bring his presence within us to its full completion. At the moment of your Baptism, God came to dwell within your soul, making you another Christ. The Father now looks on you as His Beloved and is calling you to allow Him to make you completely His. Let us welcome the Holy Spirit, pure fire from Heaven, and let him bring about his purpose with us. This is the sure way to happiness and joy. Indeed, those who are full of the Holy Spirit are those whose joy is radiant, because they are the dwelling place of God Himself. This booklet contains our daily prayers and some thoughts for you to ponder over this week. May the Lord bring to completion all that he has in store in us.

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Daily Prayer during our retreat. Come, Holy Spirit. Spirit of truth, you are the reward of the saints, the comforter of souls, light in the darkness, riches to the poor, treasure to lovers, food for the hungry, comfort to those who are wandering; to sum up, you are the one in whom all treasures are contained.

Come! As you descended upon Mary that the Word might become flesh, work in us through grace as you worked in her through nature and grace. Come! Food of every chaste thought, fountain of all mercy, sum of all purity. Come! Consume in us whatever prevents us from

being consumed in you. Amen - St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi-

DEVOTIONS AFTER THE MEDITATION EACH DAY. Litany to the Holy Spirit

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit.Come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Lord, have mercy on us.God the Father of Heaven,God the Son, Redeemer of the world,God the Holy Spirit,Holy Trinity, One God,Divine Essence, one true God,Spirit of truth and wisdom,Spirit of holiness and justice, Spirit of understanding and counsel,Spirit of love and joy,Spirit of peace and patience,Spirit of meekness,Spirit of goodness,Love substantial of the Father and the Son,Love and life of saintly souls,Fire ever burning,Living water to quench the thirst of hearts,From all attachments to the things of the earth, Deliver us, O Holy Spirit.From all hypocrisy and pretence, From all imperfections and deliberate faults, From our own will, From slander, From deceiving our neighbours, From our passions and disorderly appetites, From our inattentiveness to Thy holy inspirations, From despising little things, From debauchery and malice, From love of comfort and luxury, From wishing to seek or desire anything other than Thee, 

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From everything that displeases Thee, 

Most loving Father,forgive us.Divine Word,have pity on us.Holy and divine Spirit,leave us not until we are in possession of the Divine Essence, Heaven of heavens.Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,Send us the divine Consoler.Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,Fill us with the gifts of Thy Spirit.Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,Make the fruits of the Holy Spirit increase within us.Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful,And enkindle in them the fire of Thy love.

Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created,And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.

O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructed the hearts of the faithful, grant us by the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation.Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Come, Holy Spirit. Spirit of truth, you are the reward of the saints, the comforter of souls, light in the darkness, riches to the poor, treasure to lovers, food for the hungry, comfort to those who are wandering; to sum up, you are the one in whom all treasures are contained. Come! As you descended upon Mary that the Word might become flesh, work in us through grace as you worked in her through nature and grace. Come! Food of every chaste thought, fountain of all mercy, sum of all purity. Come! Consume in us whatever prevents us from being consumed in you. Amen.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Have mercy on us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Pray for us. All your Holy Martyrs of England. Pray for us.

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Day 1. The Spirit of Love.

Receiving the gift of Prayer.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he

justified, he also glorified. Romans 8. 22-30. *

Saint Theresa of Avila teaches us that prayer is nothing other than the raising of the mind and heart to God. When we pray we turn to God, for whom our hearts long,

and we pour out before Him the deepest things of our hearts, and by this, He unites us to Himself. This is the purpose of prayer; to be united to God Himself. God

desires this for us because He is our greatest friend. As we turn to him more and more, and we fall deeper and deeper in love with Him, we begin to be transformed by Him, into the image of Jesus. We become what we love. But we need the Holy Spirit to create the space within us so that we can hear and respond to what the Lord speaks to us in prayer. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches us that “prayer is the voice of our desire”, that is, when we pray, the Holy Spirit shows us what it is that we truly desire. So He sets our hearts on the desire which God Himself has for us.

We learn to obey Him. Only by His power can we begin to be open and attentive to the gifts which God wishes, in his love, to lavish upon us. It is by the Holy Spirit

that we are able to be attentive to the voice of the Beloved as he calls out to us, and draws us closer and closer into union with Him. If we allow the Holy Spirit to enter into our lives, our whole life can become a prayer. An unceasing moment of loving

union with God himself. Am I trying to live a regular life of prayer? Do I pray to be moulded by the Holy Spirit? Am seeking to grow in faith and confidence that the

Lord really desires me to meet with him?*

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Saint Isaac of Nineveh "When the Spirit dwells in a person, from the moment in which that person has

become prayer, He never leaves him. For the Spirit himself never ceases to pray to him. Whether the person is asleep or awake, prayer never from then on departs from

his soul. Whether he is eating or drinking or sleeping or whatever else he is doing, even in deepest sleep, the fragrance of prayer rises without effort in his heart. Prayer never again deserts him. At every moment of his life, even when it appears to stop, it is secretly at work in him continuously, one of the Fathers, the bearers of Christ, says

that prayer is the silence of the pure. For their thoughts are divine motions. The movements of the heart and the intellect that have been purified are the voices full of sweetness with which such people never cease to sing in secret to the hidden God."

Day 2. The Spirit of Understanding.

Allowing the Holy Spirit to Inspire us. “When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will never speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare

to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the father has is mine. For this reason I said

that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16: 13-15

For many people, God is an unseen force acting in secret and subtle ways. Even Christians can fall into the error of doubting God’s personhood, especially in regards to the third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. But, as Blessed John Henry Newman identifies in his meditation, “The Paraclete, the Life of my Soul,” the Holy Spirit is God with us; truly, He is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

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Pope Francis

The Holy Spirit plays a role in teaching and remembrance. Jesus told us: “the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14: 26). The Holy Spirit does not bring a different teaching, but renders alive and brings into effect the teaching of Jesus, so that the passage of time may neither erase nor diminish it. The Holy Spirit instills this teaching in our heart, helps us to internalise it, making it become a part of us, flesh of our flesh. At the same time, he prepares our heart to be truly capable of receiving the words and example of the Lord. Every time the word of Jesus is received with joy in our heart, this is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Day 3 The Spirit of Adoption.

Knowing ourselves as Sons and Daughters of God the Father.

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we

might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a

slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. Galatians 4. 4-7

*When the Lord Jesus came from heaven, he came to make us the beloved Sons and Daughters of God. By nature Jesus is the Son of God. He receives all that He has from the Father, and returns all to Him in love, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus only concern is to do the will of the Father and to glorify Him in all things, and in Him, the Father is well pleased. He is the delight and joy of the Father’s heart. But God the Father wants many children. His desire is that by the free gift of His grace, we too can become His Sons and Daughters, men and women fully alive with the life of Christ. This is our divine destiny, to become just like Jesus, and by the Holy Spirit, God has made this possible. Abbot Marmion puts it this way.

“By nature God has only one Son; by love He wills to have an innumerable multitude. To mere creatures God will give the condition and sweet name of children”.

When we begin to realise that we are children of God, our whole lives change. The way we see ourselves, the way we treat one-another, the way we see God himself. We see our innate dignity, the beauty of all human life and the splendour of our vocation. But there is more here. By becoming Children of God, we become an “alter-Christus”, ”another Christ” to the world, filling the world with the light and life of Christ Himself. Am I aware that I am the beloved Child of God the Father? Do my life choices look like the choices of a child of God? Am I filling my family and my community with the life of Christ?

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Saint Jose Maria To all who received Him -the Word made flesh- He gave the power to become sons of God" (Jn

1:12). For a Christian, this is not just a way of speaking, or a designation. Awareness of divine filiation is rooted in a divine gift that transforms a person from within. St. John puts it this way: "See what love the Father has for us, that He has called us sons of God, and so we are!...We are

truly children of God" (1 Jn 3:1-2). Whoever is unaware of this is unaware of his innermost truth; he has not yet discovered the deepest reality of his being, nor the meaning of his existence on this

earth.

Day 4 The Spirit of Renunciation.

Dying to ourselves and living for the Jesus.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased

at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6. 19-20

*God’s intimacy with us has another effect, according to St John Henry Newman: that of keeping us close to Him.We are prone to wander, as the hymn goes, but the action of the Holy Spirit can keep us from sin. Newman writes,

“O my God, can I sin when Thou art so intimately with me? … My God, I have a double security against sinning; first the dread of such a profanation of all Thou art to me in Thy very Presence; and next because I do trust that that Presence will preserve me from sin.”

In this meditation Newman expresses two attitudes toward repentance, both of which God accepts in His mercy. The first is a contrition based on fear of punishment, or losing God; the second, and more perfect contrition, is the desire to change for love of God.  Moved by the Holy Spirit, Newman was contrite for past sins and tried to overcome any defects that would keep him from remaining in union with God. If we would share Newman’s deep awareness of the Spirit’s residence within, we know that some personal changes are called for. But of what kind? Are we asked simply to “make room” for the Spirit by quitting one or another of our bad habits, reducing the clutter in our interior life so as to accommodate a distinguished presence? The Lord never wants us only to sweep the house clean and leave it tidy but empty. More than rearranging furniture—shifting the contents of our inner life—the Holy Spirit demands an entire handing over of the keys to our house, the “earthly, fleshly, wretched tabernacle,” so that He might, as in Newman’s prayer, take full possession of it. When the Lord takes possession of us, he bring us joy. His possession of us is not to make us less of ourselves, but to make us who we truly are meant to be. Today ask the Holy Spirit where you need him to help you clean your house and allow him to fill it. It will bring you more joy than you can imagine.

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St. Gregory Dialogos, on Pentecost "'And my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'

My friends, consider the greatness of this solemn feast that commemorates God's coming as a guest into our hearts! If some rich and influential friend were to come to your home, you would promptly put it all in order for fear something there might offend your friend's

eyes when he came in. Let all of us then who are preparing our inner homes for God cleanse them of anything our wrongdoing has brought into them."

Day 5 The Spirit of Discipleship. Following the Lord Jesus.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.Ephesians 4. 1-7.

*We are following the Lord Jesus. He is our pattern and our way. All that we do, we want to do with Him and for Him. If we spend time with Jesus, we learn from Him how to become like Him. Things which once seemed impossible, with Jesus are suddenly possible. Think of the person you struggle to forgive. With the Lord Jesus, it is possible for us to learn how to forgive slowly. Think of the times that we think that we have reached the end of our tether. With Jesus as our constant guide, we learn to turn again towards Him and find the grace we need. But we need to spent time with Him. The first task of the disciple is to pray. All of our actions flow from our vital relationship with Jesus which is nurtured in prayer. God calls us to pray and follow him, not for himself but for us. He does all things for love of us. Listen to Saint Irenaeus of Lyons.

God did not tell us to follow Him because He needed our help, but because He knew that loving Him would make us whole.

If we want to be effective disciples, spreading the life and light of Jesus in the world, lets prioritise our relationship with Him today. Let’s pray for the grace to see that all of our efforts flow from our prayerful encounter with the Lord. We need to drink deeply from the well of Christ in order to water the dry world with the water of life. How do I understand myself as a disciple? Am I trying to make the Lord the centre of all I do? Where do I need the Lord to shed the ray of His light in my life? What areas in my life do I least want to allow Jesus to reign in? Say, “I invite you into my life, I want to follow you”.

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Saint Edith Stein. If we place our hands into the hands of the divine Child, if we say “Yes” to the

“Follow me”, then we are His, and the way is free for His divine life to flow into

Day 6 The Spirit of Purity.

Learning to love the Lord Jesus with Our Lady.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. Gal 5: 16-18

St Paul explains to us that our personal life is marked by an inner conflict, a rupture between the impulses that come from the flesh and those that come from the Spirit; and we cannot follow them all. Indeed, we cannot be both selfish and generous, follow the tendency to dominate others and at the same time feel the joy of disinterested service. We always have to choose which impulse to follow and we can do so authentically only with the help of the Spirit of Christ. In the life of Our Lady, we have the example of a person who loves God with her whole body and soul. She has allowed the Holy Spirit to take full possess and is radiant with his life.

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Pope Benedict XVI St Paul — as we have heard — lists the works of the flesh. They are the sins of selfishness

and violence, enmity, discord, jealousy and disagreement; they are thoughts and actions that do not let us live in a truly human and Christian way, in love. This direction leads to the loss of one’s own life. The Holy Spirit on the contrary leads us to the heights of God, so that we may already experience on this earth the seed of divine life which exists within us. St Paul

says in fact:  ...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to

Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Day 7 The Spirit of Unity.

Taking our place in the Church, send out by the Holy Spirit. *

The whole structure (The Church) is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Eph. 2:21-22.

*We can imagine God’s desire to bring us back to himself when we read stories like the Prodigal Son, but the reality is more powerful than the story.  When we return to the Lord, we do not simply dwell in His house – He takes up residence in our souls. St John Henry Newman Newman writes, “But in Thine infinite compassion Thou hast from the first entered into my soul, and taken possession of it. Thou hast made it Thy Temple. Thou dwellest in me by Thy grace in an ineffable way, uniting me to Thyself and the whole company of angels and saints.” We cannot begin to understand how God possesses us without destroying our individuality, but as the life and sustenance of our souls, He is nearer to us than our own breath.

Our true individuality shines out when functioning as part of a whole. The disciple forsakes the insular world of personal interest and the gratification of the ego for the “we” of the Church. The Holy Spirit by His indwelling gravitates us towards the life of the ecclesial community in which we find our identity as members of Christ’s body, each serving the other to build-up the whole. In this we experience the joy of self-giving, which, when offered as a gift to those beyond the Church, becomes the most compelling witness to Christ in the world.

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Paul Claudel. How can I explain that without the Church I cannot fully be myself, I cannot fully realise myself, I cannot fully be the creature God loves? Just as the body of Christ exists whole in every portion of the host, so the whole Church is behind the individual countenance of every Christian, and expresses itself through his voice, and hears itself called “My perfect one”. It is the whole Church which has undertaken a given assignment in each one of us, for the good of the whole; it is the Church as a whole, tota pulchra es (the Bride is beautiful only because she is complete), which is the object of the Spouse's desire, and it is with the favours of the whole Church, from which nothing in time or space is absent, that each of us is called upon to overwhelm Him. At the moment of the Annunciation, Mary had already become the whole Church. A single soul, a single eye, may mirror the whole image of God. "With one glance of your eyes, with one bead of your necklace/' says the Bridegroom of the Canticle. There are many souls, he continues, but only one is "my dove, my perfect one."

Day 8 The Spirit of Freedom.

Being consecrated to the Holy Spirit. *

Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.2 Corinthians 12-18.

*When Pope Saint John Paul II wanted to hold WYD in Denver, he was advised that Denver was atheistic, opposed to the faith and that young people would not turn out. His response was a simple. “That’s why we must go there”. At the final Mass some 90,000 young people gathered together. When a stunned reported asked the Archbishop why so many young people had gathered, he said this. “These young people recognise that John Paul is a free man”. Where the Holy Spirit reigns, He brings His freedom. That’s not a freedom to do simply as we like, but the courageous freedom to choose goodness and life. This a freedom that expands our capacity to love God and our neighbour, come what may, because we are no longer moving in our own power. Rather, we are standing in the power of Christ, who makes what seems impossible truly possible for us. A characteristic of this freedom is the growing desire and willingness to go wherever Jesus needs us to go. It begins when we encounter Him in prayer, and then, compelled by the Holy Spirit, we go out to meet Him in those around us. The whole world is alive with men and women whom God Himself is calling to Himself. No one is excluded from His call and we are those who are sent out, in full freedom, to witness to His power to change and to save. We need to grow in this divine freedom, to be entirely at God’s disposal, to allow Him to have His way and to allow Him to bring about our transformation. The result of our transformation is that we will discover the beauty of Christ which has no parallel, and in His beauty, discover ourselves to be truly beautiful. Let us say to Him, with full faith. “Lord, have your way in me. I am yours”.

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Pope Saint John Paul II “What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless… It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.”

Final Consecration to the Holy Spirit.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit.Come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.nAnd I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. John 14. 15-21

We pray together. On my knees before the great multitude of heavenly witnesses, I offer my- self, body and soul to You, Eternal Spirit of God. I adore the brightness of Your purity, the unerring keenness of Your justice, and the might of Your love. You are the Strength and Light of my soul. In You I live and move. I desire never to grieve You by unfaithfulness to grace and I pray with all my heart to be kept from the smallest sin against You. Mercifully guard my every thought and grant that I may always watch for Your light, and listen to Your voice, and follow Your gracious inspirations. I cling to You and give myself to You and ask You, by Your compassion to watch over me in my weakness. Holding the pierced Feet of Jesus and looking at His Five Wounds, and trusting in His Precious Blood and adoring His opened Side and stricken Heart, I implore You, Adorable Spirit, Helper of my infirmity, to keep me in Your grace that I may never sin against You. Give me grace, O Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Father and the Son to say to You always and every- where, "Speak Lord for Your servant is listening." Amen.

Hail Holy Queen …

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Have mercy on us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Pray for us. All your Holy Martyrs of England. Pray for us.

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