“And I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit in their bowels: and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19).
After Jesus ascended into heaven, He sent the Holy Ghost to establish the Church, His Mystical Body, and to apply to Her the fruits of the Redemption. By His descent upon the early Community under the form of tongues of fire, the Holy Ghost indicates that He comes as the Spirit of Charity for the transformation of stony hearts into hearts of flesh. On that Pentecost Sunday, God established the perfect Society, and there and then, He impelled Peter and the rest of the Apostles to go forth throughout the entire world preaching Christ crucified, repentance for the remission of sins, and the establishment of Christ’s reign over all nations.
Having received of the graces merited by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ through the Mass, we also should now go out into the world radiating the goodness with which we have been blessed, devoting ourselves to our daily duty with joy and peace, and according to our state of life, performing the corporal and spiritual works of Mercy.
With His gifts, the Divine Paraclete enlightens the intellect and strengthens the will to enable us to do supernatural acts. Trying to advance on our own human initiative along the path of sanctity will only prove futile because we would be acting in a purely natural way towards a supernatural end. Since the Paraclete is the third Person of the Trinity, He operates within us in a divine manner. It is only with the aid of the Holy Ghost that one is able to fulfill the two greatest commandments of God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
We see that the spiritual life is not an entirely personal, individualistic matter. Fr. Fahey writes in The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism, “[A]ll Christ’s members form one organism under Christ, battling for the Divine Order of the world” and “The whole body grows in charity and union with Christ, when each part supplies what it is destined to give, according to its position and function.” The most charitable thing we could do for our non-believing “neighbors” is to sacrifice ourselves in union with Christ for the transformation of society, such that the supernatural life of grace entrusted to Holy Mother Church, may more easily be discerned and grasped by those most in peril of damnation.
Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, who didst send the Holy Ghost upon Thy disciples when they continued praying; cleanse, I beseech Thee, my heart from all sin, that there, the same Holy Ghost may always dwell with His manifold gifts. Come down into my soul, O consuming Fire! Reproduce in me the likeness of the Incarnate Word, and maketh of me a docile instrument by which He might continue to work amongst men. Come, O Holy Spirit, possess me, enlighten, fortify and console me in trials and in sorrows. Then, at the end of this mortal life, deign to lead me Home, therein to dwell in eternal and perfect happiness.” Amen.
