MONDAY OF THE TWENTY-THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME LABOR DAY

-from Christ Is Alive! by Pope Francis

In these three truths – God loves you; Christ is your Savior; he is alive – we see God the Father and Jesus. Wherever the Father and the Son are, there too is the Holy Spirit. He is the one who quietly opens hearts to receive that message. He keeps alive our hope of salvation, and he will help you grow in joy if you are open to his working. The Holy Spirit fills the heart of the risen Christ and then flows over into your lives. When you receive the Spirit, he draws ever more deeply into the heart of Christ, so that you can grow in his love, his life and his power. Ask the Holy Spirit each day to help you experience the great message. Why not? You have nothing to lose, and he can change your life, fill it with light and lead it along a better path. He takes nothing away from you, but instead helps you to find all that you need, and in the best possible way. Do you need love? You will not find it in dissipation, using other people, or trying to be possessive or domineering. You will find it in a way that will make you genuinely happy. Are you seeking powerful emotions? You will not experience them by accumulating material objects, spending money, chasing desperately after the things of this world. They will come, and in a much more beautiful and meaningful way, if you let yourself be prompted by the Holy Spirit.

May I suggest an exercise that may expand your heart? Try praying through these beautiful words of Pope Francis using she instead of he as the pronoun for the Spirit. Remember that both the Hebrew and Greek for Spirit, ruah and pneuma require the feminine article, just as cat la chatte is a feminine noun in French. English does not make such a distinction between nouns.

Father Bill +