Dear Friends,
Cooperating with the Holy Spirit. The key to the spiritual life, our saints and theologians teach us, is to
recognize and cooperate with the promptings of the Holy Spirit by developing a disposition or interior quality of our soul attentive to what is happening in us and around us. Whether we’re confronted with constantly competing demands in a busy schedule, or lethargic and bored with no apparent purpose in life, we DO have the ability, with God’s grace, to distinguish the promptings of the Holy Spirit from those of the flesh and of the word. Easier said than done. The problem is that because we have a wounded nature, we tend to be drawn in a disordered way toward created things (money, pleasure, fame, etc.), viewing them as an end in and of themselves rather than as a means that point to the end where true happiness is found: in God, our Creator. How is it that we have this ability to keep all these “promptings”—of the Holy Spirit, the world, and the flesh—in a properly ordered way? The answer lies in today’s 2nd reading (Rom 5:1-2, 5-8): “…because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The Holy Spirit plays a fundamental “synthesizing action” in the human soul—if we understand how this happens and take our part in bringing it about.
I will be sharing more about how the Holy Spirit works in this way through charity in my 2nd of three Lenten Bible & Catechism Talks: “Because the love of God has been poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5). Distinguishing the promptings of the Holy Spirit from those of the flesh and the world” on Thursday, March 23, 7 PM at Our Lady of the Chesapeake in the church (and also live-streamed). While I will be drawing from some of the greatest theologians and saints of the Church—including Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis and his The Imitation of Christ (the most widely-read devotional book after the Bible), and Raniero Cantalamessa (Preacher of the Papal Household since 1980)—it will be FILLED with practical advice and aids (handouts) you can take home and immediately start using to bring greater depth to your Lenten pilgrimage.
The third and final Lenten Bible & Catechism talk will be at St. Jane’s on Thursday, March 30, 7 PM in the church (also live-streamed) on the topic: “I will open my graves and raise you …I will put my spirit within you (Ezekiel 37:12-14). The great paradox: How suffering demonstrates that God is all-powerful and all loving.”
To get the most out of these talks, bring your Bible and Catechism!
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Jim
