Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - “Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Mt 11, 29). These words resound loudly in the hearts of those who wish to be illuminated by the Spirit of God and never tire of searching for the face of Christ. Gentleness and humility in a soul are the principal traits of the authentic working of the Holy Spirit. Men and women of spirit, through the centuries in the Church, distinguished themselves first of all for these two virtues which render Jesus present as he proclaimed: “learn from me”!
The solemnity of Pentecost, we have just celebrated, speaks an impetuous wind of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. The Church was just beginning and needed power to be able to show herself to the world convincingly. Today, two thousand years later, our communities continue to need signs. The Spirit, today as never before, needs men and women who are docile to His working, who put aside their personal interests and animated solely by a desire for the glory of God, allow themselves to be led by Him like feathers in the wind.
The Holy Spirit is continually effused upon the universal Church and in every heart seeking Jesus who “gives the Spirit without reserve” (Jn 3, 34). To receive Him we need to empty ourselves of our self love which sadly often rules our lives. The process of transformation in Christ is a spiritual process in which through sanctifying grace, the spirit of the old man gives way to the new Spirit of Christ, who inspires “new ideas”, “new intentions”, “new sentiments”, “new desires”, “new attitudes”. All that is “new” is proper to Christ, who has taken the place of the “old” which is proper to us.
A person who is willing to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, as Saint Paul says, must discard his old 'habit', and out on the new “habit” of Jesus. Precisely this change from old to new is the most wonderful, unique, extraordinary adventure of our lives! It means flying high, or we may remain sluggish or be caught in tortuous paths which in the end lead not upwards to the summit but down to the valley!
How many illusions fill the heart of the person who does not give God first place, letting Him retrocede, be ignored and in the end forgotten! The prophet Jeremiah says “Cursed is the man who trusts in man” (Jeremiah 17, 5), while he proclaims “blessed” is he who “trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord ” (Jer. 17, 7). We are “blessed” if we do what Jesus commands in the Gospel: the will of God! Precisely when we feel the world is falling on top of us, when our dreams are crushed on the rocks of the crude reality, when things fail to go as we wish … then perhaps is the moment when the Spirit of Jesus knocks on the door of our heart and asks to enter and “eat with us”. We must always start from the Cross, from every human cross, in order to recognise and welcome the breath of the Spirit. Those who avoid the cross who want to “save their life” here on earth, will as Jesus said, “lose it”: they will lose the wonderful opportunity to become a new person, a new creature for Heaven!
Our Lady who at Pentecost was with the Apostles and was already “full of grace” yet always open to the newness of the Spirit, teaches us to let ourselves be inundated by the Love of God: Mary the “all holy”, at Cana, and in Nazareth, in Bethlehem and on Golgotha, was always turned towards her Son listening to every word and making it her own. “Do whatever he tells you”: this is the path for the effusion of the Holy Spirit. When Mary says “Do whatever he tells you ” she not only encourages us but, as our Mother, she helps us do so: She invokes the Spirit with us, She opens us to the Spirito, She offers us to the Spirit. If Our Lady had not been invited to Cana the glory of Jesus would not have been manifested there! What an important lesson for our communities; let us never forget to invite her to our meetings with Jesus!
In Cana, without her, the wine jars would have remained empty and the good wine would have remained a dream in the hearts of the wedding guests; instead, the presence of Mary di Maria - “the Mother of Jesus was present” - changed everything and joy spread everywhere. The saints teach us that where hearts open to the presence of Mary the miracle of the Spirit is worked and hearts become meeker and life is better. The wine at Cana, produced directly by Jesus was good, but that wine was “co-produced” by Mary his Mother. May we let ourselves be guided by Mary day by day, step by step, and the miracle of the transformation of our hearts will happen! (Agenzia Fides 30/5/2007 - righe 52, parole 805)
