Holy Ghost

GENERAL ARTICLES ON THE HOLY GHOST
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Article 1
The Forgotten Friend

Not Very Important
Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Ghost. It is a feast of supreme importance in the eyes of the Church. To impress its importance on our minds, she celebrates it with the same solemnity with which she celebrates the great feasts of Christmas and Easter. We could call these a “Trinity” of Feasts. In spite of this, however, most people, in general, do not seem to participate in her celebration of Pentecost with the same festive spirit that is so evident in their celebration of Christmas and Easter. They enter fully into her spirit of delight in the possession of the Incarnate Son of God at Christmas. They do not seem to have caught, in any great measure, her spirit of exuberant joy and gladness in the possession of the Holy Ghost.

Holy “Who”?
It is not surprising, of course, that in a certain sense, the feasts of Christmas and Easter should prove more appealing to us than the feast of Pentecost. It is only natural that the Divine Person Who presents Himself to us, clothed in a body and soul as we ourselves are, should, at first glance, appear more attractive to us than the Divine Person Who is not united in this same way to our human nature. At best, we are left with images of doves and tongues of fire!

This has led to the phenomenon of the Holy Ghost being treated like “Forgotten Friend” or Friend that you don’t know what to do with! It is almost as though the Holy Ghost has been placed on the back-burner or in some cupboard—we can’t get rid of Him (that would really be a sin against the Holy Ghost!), so we shelve Him.

The Holy Ghost Is the Spirit of Christ
It was so, for example, with the Apostles. At the Last Supper, when Christ promised to send them the Holy Ghost, they did not manifest any great enthusiasm. Perhaps they did not relish the idea of exchanging the warm companionship of Christ's human presence, for what may have seemed to them, at first, the cold comfort of His Spirit. Even in the presence of the Risen Lord Himself, they felt ill at ease at first, because they thought He was a spirit, and no longer a human being like themselves.

The Master knew how deeply attached to His Sacred Humanity the Apostles had become during the three years He had been with them. He wanted their love for Him as a Divine Person to be even greater. That they might know something of His Divine Personality as the Only-begotten Son of God, He spoke to them constantly of His Father. That they might know still more, He promised to send them His Holy Spirit. “He shall glorify Me” He told them, “because He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you” (John 16:14).

Enlightened by this Divine Spirit, they would come to see more clearly the glories of His Divinity. They would see that He was never alone, but that always His Father and His Spirit were with Him in the unity of the indivisible Godhead. They would see more clearly too into the depths of His Sacred Humanity. They would see in His Sacred Face not only the reflection of the beauty of the Son, but traces also of the majesty of His Father and the sweetness of His Spirit.

What the Holy Ghost Did for the Apostles
At the Last Supper, the Apostles apparently could not understand why their Divine Master attached so much importance to the coming of the Holy Ghost. He had told them that the presence of this Divine Spirit in their hearts, would mean much more to them than would even their continued possession of His own human presence. “It is expedient to you that I go,” He told them, “for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7). When this Divine Spirit, however, actually came down upon them on the day of Pentecost, they realized at once that Christ had not exaggerated in the slightest the importance of what the Holy Ghost was to do for them. They found that He kindled in their hearts a far greater love for Christ than they had ever known before.

A New Found Friend
They had thought they had loved Christ and were willing to die for Him, but they had every one abandoned Him. Now, however, in the company of His Holy Spirit, they went forth into the whole world to confess Him fearlessly, counting it a privilege to suffer for His Holy Name. They found, too, that side by side with this new love, there grew up in them likewise a new awareness of the presence of Jesus. Though they could no longer see His face or hear His voice, they found that the Holy Ghost kept them in constant touch with their beloved Master, just as really, though in a different way, as when they walked the roads of Galilee by His side.

As this new and greater love for Christ was born within them, there was born in them also a deep and lasting gratitude to the Divine Spirit Who had kindled it in their hearts.

As they experienced this new and greater intimacy with Christ, their hearts went out in glad surrender to the Holy Ghost, that He might bind them ever closer to their beloved Jesus. They recognized now that this Divine Spirit was just as delightful a Personality as they had found Christ Himself to be. Henceforth their enthusiastic appreciation of the Holy Ghost knew no bounds. A zealous devotion to Him filled their hearts and flowed over to leave its witness in loving profusion on the Scriptural record of their words and works.

What the Holy Ghost Does for Us
The attitude of the average Catholic towards the Holy Ghost is unfortunately too much like the attitude of the Apostles at the Last Supper. Our Divine Lord in His Sacred Humanity has won the affection of our hearts as He had won that of the Apostles.

Like them, we do not feel any desire for, or even any need of, another Comforter. We do not seem to realize how much we already owe to the Holy Ghost. We forget that we could not have any true devotion at all to our Divine Lord, if it were not for the operation of the Holy Ghost within our souls: “No man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 12:3).

Our devotion to Him will increase, too, only inasmuch as we co-operate with the loving impulses of His Holy Spirit. As the Holy Ghost kept the Apostles in close touch with the Divine Master Whom they could no longer see or hear, so He will keep us in touch with Him, too.

We often wish that the supernatural presence of Christ's humanity in the Blessed Sacrament would convey to us the same sense of reality that the natural presence of His body and soul conveyed to the Apostles. If only He were as vividly real to us in His sacramental life as He was to them in His public life! We pray to Our Lord as the Apostles did: “Increase our Faith” (Luke 17:5).

We seldom think to ask the Holy Ghost to increase in us His gift of Understanding, and yet it is precisely an abundance of that gift that we need, if our supernatural vision is to become as acute as we should like it to be.

Faith—The Divine Microscope
Faith is, as it were, a divine microscope, given to us to enable us to perceive what is not visible to the naked eye. Unless the microscope is properly focused, however, the image we see will be vague and blurred. It is only the Holy Ghost Who knows how to focus properly the divine microscope of Faith that is in us.

He is the Finger of God, and as He adjusts the microscope for us by His gift of Understanding our vision will become clearer, and we shall see with the eyes of our mind illuminated by the light of Faith, that the Host before our eyes contains in very truth our Divine Lord and Master Himself. And as we approach to receive Him, the Holy Ghost will also quicken in us by His gift of Wisdom our supernatural sense of taste, so that we can relish the exquisite flavor of this heavenly food.

As the Holy Ghost fills our mind with the knowledge of Christ and floods our hearts with His love, we shall come to know more about this Divine Spirit also. We shall learn that our Divine Lord has far more love for us than He could ever express through His Sacred Heart alone; that His love for us is not only a human love, it is also the love of a Divine Person; and that it is to satisfy His Divine Love for us that He sends us His Holy Spirit, because the Holy Ghost is the Person of Love in the Blessed Trinity. It is in the Holy Ghost that the Father and the Son love both themselves and us (Summa Theologica 1a, q. 37, art. 2).

The Kiss of the Father and the Son
At Pentecost, therefore, the Church calls on us to rejoice, because there is given to us the Holy Ghost, Who is “the Kiss of the Father and the Son” (St. Bernard). It needs little reflection to see that we could have no greater cause for joy.

If we really love Christ, we shall long for an ever increasing participation of His Spirit, and we shall pray to receive It because Christ Himself has told us “...how much more will your Father from Heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask Him” (Luke 11:13). Since, however, the Holy Ghost is Himself a Divine Person, we should extend to Him the courtesy of a direct invitation, beseeching Him in the words of the Church: “Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.”

On the day of Pentecost, therefore, and on every day of our lives, we should open our hearts in cordial welcome to the Divine Spirit, Who comes to take up His abode within us. Instead of offering Him merely our implicit, if not perfunctory adoration, we should pay constant and eager attention to this Divine Guest, listening for His every word, and anticipating His every desire.

Under His loving guidance, we shall learn to serve God in the same spirit of abounding love and glad enthusiasm that characterized the early Christians, and that now characterizes those whose piety is truly Christian, because it is inspired by the Spirit of Christ. As we gaze on the face of our Redeemer, we shall raise our minds also, in prayer, to the Holy Ghost, Who applies the fruits of Christ's redemption to our souls.

Whoever is thus devout to the Holy Ghost—thinking of Him, praying to Him and listening to Him—will, like the Apostles, soon discover that He is indeed, as the Church tells us, “of all consolers best.”

Article 2
The Role of the Holy Ghost

Power and Fecundity
As we have seen, our first intimacy is with the Holy Spirit because He is the first Gift of God, the excelling Gift. Through the Holy Spirit, the Father gave us His Son, for He gave Him to us through love. The Spirit brought to the Virgin Mary the divine fecundity of the Father, and the Word was made flesh. “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee,” said the Archangel Gabriel to Mary (Luke 1:35).

Behind the Scenes of Jesus’ Life
The Evangelists are careful to show us the Holy Spirit in the principal mysteries of Jesus, to make us understand that each time Jesus is given, the giving is inspired and, as it were, preceded by the divine Gift par excellence. The Holy Spirit leads Jesus to the desert when He begins His public life (Matthew 4:1). He appears in the form of a dove over the head of Jesus in the Jordan, and as a luminous cloud on Thabor (Luke 3:22; Matthew 17:5). That same Love impelled the eternal Priest to perform the supreme act of His life: the double immolation of the Last Supper and of Calvary. For St. Paul tells us that Christ “through the Holy Spirit offered Himself unblemished unto God” (Hebrews 9:14).

The Divine Cycle
And Jesus returns to the Father, taking with Him regenerated humanity. As His life on Earth is about to end, He gives us a synthesis of His divine mission: “I have glorified Thee on Earth; I have accomplished the work that Thou hast given Me to do.... I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world.... But now I am coming to Thee ... that they may be perfected in unity ... Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me; in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world” (John 17:4, 6, 13, 23-24.). The cycle of love is completed in the Father, for all things find their full perfection when they return to their origin.

But that divine cycle must be repeated; always commencing, always ending, until the end of time. The Holy Spirit comes down again on the feast of Pentecost, not only in the bosom of the Most Pure Virgin, but over all flesh, in order to reproduce Jesus mystically in the Church, and to renew in her, across the centuries, the mysteries of His life. At the end of time the Church will have the right to exclaim, like Jesus in the Cenacle: “I have glorified Thee on Earth.... But now I am coming to Thee ... that they may be perfected in unity.” And in the splendid glory of the last day, the great cycle of love will be consummated in the bosom of the Father.

Ongoing Transformations
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange speaks of the second conversion in the spiritual life, which is necessary for the soul if it is to leave the way of beginners and enter upon the way of proficients, or the illuminative way. As we have seen, many authors hold that this second conversion or transformation took place for the Apostles at the end of the Passion of Christ, and for Peter in particular after his triple denial.

Transformations of the Apostles
But this was not enough. There was a further conversion or transformation that had to be undergone and this would happen on Pentecost Sunday. Peter and the Apostles were slow to believe in the resurrection of Christ, in spite of the account which the holy women gave them of this miracle so often foretold by Jesus Himself. The story they told seemed to them to be madness. They were correspondingly anxious, says St. Augustine, to see the complete restoration of the kingdom of Israel such as they imagined would come to pass, as seen from the question which they put to Our Lord on the very day of the Ascension: “Lord wilt Thou at this time again restore the kingdom of Israel?” And so spiritual writers have often spoken of a third conversion or transformation of the Apostles, which took place on the day of Pentecost. Let us see first what this transformation was in them, and then what it ought to be, proportionately, in us.

The Closer to Christ, the Closer to Suffering
The Apostles were prepared for their third transformation by the fact that from the time of the Ascension they were deprived of the perceptible presence of Jesus Himself. When Our Lord deprived His Apostles forever of the sight of His sacred Humanity, they must have suffered a distress to which we do not perhaps sufficiently advert. When we consider that Our Lord had become their very life — as St. Paul says: “for me to live is Christ” — and that they had become daily more and more intimate with Him, they must have had a feeling of the greatest loneliness, like a feeling of desolation, even of death. And their desolation must have been the more intense since Our Lord Himself had foretold all the sufferings that were in store.

Similar to a Spiritual Retreat
We experience something of the same dismay when, after having lived on a higher plane during the time of retreat, under the guidance of a priestly soul full of the spirit of God, we are plunged once again into our everyday life which seems to deprive us suddenly of this fullness. The Apostles stood there with their eyes raised up to Heaven. This was no longer merely the crushing of their sensibility, as it was during the time of the Passion; it was a complete blank, which must have seemed to take from them all power of thinking. During the Passion Our Lord was still there; now He had been taken away from them, and they seemed to be completely deprived of Him.

It was in the night of the spirit that they were prepared for the outpouring of the graces of Pentecost.

The Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles
“All These Were Persevering In One Mind In Prayer, With The Women And Mary The Mother Of Jesus.”

The Acts of the Apostles give us an account of the event: “When the days of Pentecost were accomplished they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a mighty wind coming; and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost; and they began to speak with divers tongues according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak.”

Outward Sign of an Inward Grace
The sound from Heaven, like that of a mighty wind, was an external sign of the mysterious and powerful action of the Holy Spirit; and at the same time the tongues of fire which rested upon each of the Apostles symbolized what was to be accomplished in their souls.

It happens not infrequently that a great grace is preceded by some striking perceptible sign which arouses us from our inertia; it is like a divine awakening. Here the symbolism is as clear as it can be. As fire purifies, enlightens and gives warmth, so the Holy Ghost in this moment most deeply purified, enlightened and inflamed the souls of the Apostles. This was truly the profound purging of the spirit. And St. Peter explained that this was the fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had foretold: “It shall come to pass in the last days (saith the Lord) I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.... And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The Meaning of the Tongues of Fire
The Holy Ghost already dwell in the souls of the Apostles, but by this visible mission He came into them to increase the treasures of His grace, of the virtues and the gifts, giving them light and strength in order that they might be capable of witnessing to Christ even to the ends of the Earth, and at the peril of their lives. The tongues of fire are a sign that the Holy Spirit enkindled in their souls that living flame of Love of which St. John of the Cross speaks.

Then were the words of Christ fulfilled: “The Holy Ghost Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and will bring to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you.” Then the Apostles began to speak “in divers tongues the wonderful works of God,” so that the foreigners who were witnesses of this marvel, “Parthians and Medes, Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia... Jews, Cretes and Arabians... were all amazed and wondered, saying... We have heard them speak in our own tongues.” It was a sign that they were now to begin to preach the Gospel to the different nations, as Our Lord had commanded them—“Go ye, and teach all nations!”

The Effects of the Descent of the Holy Ghost
The Acts show us what were these effects: the Apostles were enlightened and fortified, and their sanctifying influence transformed the first Christians; there was a transport of intense fervor in the infant Church.

First of all, the Apostles received a much greater enlightenment from the Holy Spirit regarding the price of the Blood of the Savior, regarding the mystery of Redemption, foretold in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New. They received the fullness of the contemplation of this mystery which they were now to preach to humanity for the salvation of men. St. Thomas says that “the preaching of the word of God must proceed from the fullness of contemplation.” This was most fully verified at that time, as we may see from the first sermons of St. Peter related in the Acts and from that of St. Stephen before his martyrdom. These words of St. Peter and St. Stephen recall the saying of the Psalmist: “Thy word is exceedingly refined and Thy servant hath loved it.”

The Apostles and the disciples, men without education, were still asking on the day of the Ascension: “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?” Jesus had answered: “It is not for you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in His own power. But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the Earth.”

Once Afraid of a Woman, Now Afraid of No One
And now behold Peter. He who before the Passion had trembled at the word of a woman, who had been so slow to believe the resurrection of the Master, now stands before the Jews, saying to them with an authority that can come only from God: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you... this same being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain. Him God hath raised up [as David foretold].... This Jesus God hath raised again, whereof all we are witnesses... He hath poured forth this which you see and hear.... Therefore let all the house of Israel know most certainly that God hath made both Lord and Christ this same Jesus Whom you have crucified.” Herein lies the whole mystery of the Redemption. Peter now sees that Jesus was a willing victim, and he contemplates the infinite value of His merits and of the Blood which He shed.

The Acts add that those who heard this discourse “had compunction in their heart and said to Peter: What shall we do? Peter answered. Do penance and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” And so it came to pass, and on that day about three thousand persons were converted and received the sacrament of Baptism.

Article 3
Soldiers of Christ and Warriors of the Holy Ghost

Pentecost Sends the Apostles to War
“If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you … They will put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything. But these things I have told you, that when the hour shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. Because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart. But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you ... In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world ... Amen, amen I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (extracts from the Last Supper discourse, Gospel of St. John).

Kill or Be Killed!
We need to get things straight in our minds! We are in a war—whether we want it or not, whether we like or not, whether we fight or not! It is a war of Faith! Even though the axiom insists: “It takes two to make a fight”—in this particular war, the enemy will fight us even if we refuse to fight—and then we are lost. We should rather focus on the axiom that says: “Kill, or be killed!” That is closer to the truth of the matter in the fight that we must fight.

Holy Scripture is loaded with quotes on the war that we must wage against the enemies of our Faith, we will just present a few of the hundreds to be found:

A Life-long Warfare
“The life of man upon Earth is a warfare” (Job 7:1)—notice it says the “LIFE” meaning the entire life, and not just “part of man’s life”! “Do not think that I came to send peace upon Earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword! For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law! And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household!” (Matthew 10:34-36)—meaning that you may even have to fight your own parents, spouse, children and relatives for the sake of the Faith—“He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37).

We Must Fight
“Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour! Whom resist ye, strong in Faith―knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world!” (1 Peter 5:8). “Laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us!” (Hebrews 12:1). “Fight the good fight of Faith … whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Blessed be the Lord my God, Who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war!” (Psalm 143:1).

Fight With the Word of God
“The word of God is more piercing than any two edged sword!” (Hebrews 4:12) … “And from his mouth came out a sharp two edged sword!” (Apocalypse 1:16) … “I will fight against them with the sword of My mouth!” (Apocalypse 2:16) ... “The high praise of God shall be in their mouth; and two-edged swords in their hands―to execute vengeance upon the nations, and chastisements among the people!” (Psalm 149:6-7). “And they shall fight against thee, and shall not prevail―for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee!” (Jeremias 1:19).

Confirmation made you a Soldier for Christ
This whole idea of warfare in the service of Christ is the foundation of the Sacrament of Confirmation. When we are confirmed, we become Soldiers for Christ. The Holy Ghost grants to our souls, among other graces and gifts, the Gift of Fortitude or courage for the fight. This is also indicated by the slap (now a gentle tap) that the bishop administers on the cheek of the confirmand—as a reminder that he or she will have receive blows from the enemy in the fight for the Faith unto which they are called.

Who are the enemy?
We all know the superficial off-the-cuff answer by heart: the devil, the world and the flesh! But let us look at the enemy in some more depth—especially since, at the present time, the enemy certainly has the upper-hand in the battles being waged throughout the world.

The Devil
Our Lord calls him the “prince of this world” and the “father of lies” and a “murderer”! Holy Scripture adds that “by the envy of the devil, death came into the world” (Wisdom 2:24). Who needs friends like that? St. Peter warns us that “the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour!” (1 Peter 5:8). St. Paul says: “Give not place to the devil!” (Ephesians 4:27), to which St. James adds: “but resist the devil, and he will fly from you!” (James 4:7). Jesus calls the devil the “prince of this world” (John 14:30) and further states that “now shall the prince of this world be cast out!” (John 12:31). So we have a lifelong fight against the devil, who hates us more than we can imagine and who never ceases nor sleeps in his fight against us.

The World
St. James clearly tells us that the world and God are incompatible—that they are enmity with one another—and this is understandable if Jesus calls the devil the “prince of this world” (John 14:30) and that “now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). The world is the devil’s tool and his playground—that is why the world is one of the triple enemies of our soul. “The field, is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. And the cockle, are the children of the wicked one.” (Matthew 13:38). St. James could not say it any more clearly than when he states: “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4). “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

Surrounded by Cockle
Sadly, however, our family, relatives, friends and work colleagues can be the cockle! Even Our Lord had this problem, as many of His relatives were not enamored with His teaching—“For neither did His brethren believe in Him!” (John 7:5). Which leads Jesus to complain: “Amen I say to you, that no prophet is accepted in his own country!” (Luke 4:24). “And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren, and kinsmen and friends; and some of you they will put to death!” (Luke 21:16). “The brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death!” (Mark 13:12).

God Comes Before Family
“He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me!” (Matthew 10:37) ... “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple!” (Luke 14:26). “Everyone that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My Name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting!” (Matthew 19:29).

Our Lord could not put it more clearly than this: “Think ye, that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, no―but separation! For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three! The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law!” (Luke 12:51-53).

This does not mean that we have to literally “hate” what is not evil. The law of Christ does not allow us to hate even our enemies, much less our parents: but the meaning of the text is, that we must be in that disposition of soul, as to be willing to renounce, and part with every thing, how near or dear soever it may be to us, that would keep us from following Christ. If those nearest and dearest to us risk leading us away from Christ and our salvation—then we are to hate that sinful behavior and separate ourselves from it—much as Christ said to St. Peter: “Go behind me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me! Because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!” (Matthew 16:23). Shocking words indeed, but St. Peter was trying to turn Our Lord aside from the path He had chosen to take.

The Flesh
The third enemy is our flesh, this means more than just the body, but our whole selves, body and soul with all passions and concupiscences included. If the devil is called the “father of lies”, then we are not very far behind, for we are inclined to lie to ourselves and to others to cover our tendencies, guilt and true intentions. We are proud as peacocks, slow as tortoises, slimy as toads, slithery as snakes, with an eagle-eye for the faults of others, yet blind as a bat to our own faults, timid as mouse when it comes to spreading the Faith, roaring like a lion when offended, and bristling like a porcupine or hedgehog, smelly as a sinful skunk ... yet God still wants to save us! But to be saved we must fight and overcome ourselves! For “the kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away!” (Matthew 11:12) and that violence is primarily directed at ourselves with our passions and concupiscences. That is why Our Lord tells us: “unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:3).

So Fight We Must
Some of the above scenarios are not what we dream about and look forwards to—far from it—they are very painful to envisage and even more painful to have to live through. Abel suffered at the hands of Cain; Jacob at the hands of Esau; Joseph at the hands of his brothers and so on through history. We will not be the first, nor will we be the last. What we have to do is to clearly place, before our minds and hearts, the fact that God comes first—that we cannot serve God and mammon; that we cannot please our family and friends if it means not standing up for God; that we cannot reconcile two irreconcilables—God and the world, Christ and Belial, believers and unbelievers (Matthew 6:24; 2 Corinthians 6:15). We cannot, at the same time, pine for the fleshpots of Egypt and the milk and honey of the Promised Land. We must make a choice and fight for the choice we have made. If we choose not to fight, it does not mean the enemy will not fight. They will kill us, or at least kill the life of grace in our soul. Let us not be afraid—“Fear not, little flock” (Luke 12:32) ...”I say to you, my friends: ‘Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you Whom you shall fear―fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell! Yea, I say to you, fear Him!’” (Luke 12:4-5). So “Fight the good fight of Faith … whereunto thou art called!” (1 Timothy 6:12).

Armor and Weapons
“Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light!” (Romans 13:12). “Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil! For our wrestling is not [just] against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places! Therefore, take unto you the armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect! Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace! In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one! And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God!” (Ephesians 6:11-17).

Article 4
Welcome or Unwelcome Guest?

Is He Welcome? Can He Stay?
The sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost in our soul is like the artist’s delicate reproduction of his ideal on canvas or in marble. But before the artist begins work in earnest, the canvas must be properly prepared. Likewise the soul, for the Holy Ghost is not going to twist our arm to make us follow His lead. We must be properly disposed to receiving Him and be truly desirous of cooperating with Him and intent on following His lead. If He finds us thus prepared, then the Holy Ghost enters into the most interior part of our being, possesses us, lets Himself be possessed by us, and, through His Divine Love, produces in our souls the transformation He desires through His Seven Gifts.

At the Last Supper, Jesus promised that the Spirit of Truth would come to us and teach us all things. The Holy Ghost, even though He is our Divine Guest, does not come to our souls to be idle. The Holy Ghost, residing in our souls, is motion. He will sanctify us by directing all our activities with the sweetness of His love and the efficacy of His Divine Omnipotence. He is the only One who can move us in this way, because He alone can penetrate into the hidden sanctuary of the soul, the enclosed garden, invisible to creatures. He is the only One who can move us in this way, without depriving us of our freedom, because He is omnipotent.

His Way is the High Way
It is important to remember that the Gifts of the Holy Ghost are not like the Virtues, though some have the same name as some of the Virtues—for example, the Gift of Fortitude and the Virtue of Fortitude. The Gifts are the means by which the Holy Ghost takes us over and directs us—like a puppeteer who may use seven strings to control his puppet. However, unlike the puppet, we have our free will—and the sublime art of the Holy Ghost is to make us do things His way, while at the same time causing us to really want to do things His way. Yet His way is often the high way, or the superior way, or the more difficult, or more frightening way.

The Guest Comes on His Terms
Before we are properly disposed and prepared to receive the Holy Ghost and to fully feel the effects of His Gifts, the Holy Ghost assists our weakness, but leaves the management of our acts to our superior faculties: which means that our reason (mind) directs and deliberates, while the will works in the region of its own activity, commanding and getting things moving. But if we are disposed and prepared for His Seven Gifts, then the Holy Ghost takes up His abode in the deepest, the most intimate and most active part of our being. He makes Himself the immediate director of the soul, which, in its full strength and freedom, moves only under His inspiration. In other words, the Guest moves in with us and takes over the show!

We Cannot Fool the Holy Ghost, Only Ourselves
This intimate and very special action is the work of love. It is founded on love, caused by love, and leads to love. If we have little love of God, then we have little foundation for the Holy Ghost and His Gifts. The Holy Ghost must be intimately united to a soul in order to move it (which sadly rules out most people today, because they do not, in all sincerity, wish to be told what to do by the Holy Ghost—for they fear He will demand too much).

As We Sow, So Shall We Reap
But if we truly want Him to take over, He will move us because He loves us and because He see that He is loved by us. He moves us in the measure of our mutual possession. If He sees that we love Him little, little will He move us. As we sow, so shall we reap. We must not take the Holy Ghost and His Gifts for granted. We are not spoiled children and He will not spoil us—there are no spoiled children of God.

Yet, on the other hand, God is willing to give unbelievably abundant graces to those who truly love Him with their hearts and not just lips: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me!” (Matthew 15:8). “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart!” (Luke 10:27). “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Walking In-Step with God
We might say that His actions and movement, in properly disposed souls, are the caress of infinite Love; that the Holy Ghost moves us because, in His intimate fusion with our soul, which is the work of charity, His divine actions and movements make themselves felt throughout the whole man, if man is one with Him. We must walk in-step with the Holy Ghost, not out-of-step.

Fire of Love Extinguishes the Fires of Purgatory
Without this action and movement of the Holy Ghost, it is impossible, normally, to save our souls and especially impossible to attain Christian perfection—which is necessary if we are to avoid Purgatory. The fires of love in our souls can put out the fires of Purgatory due to us after our death—but those fires of love have to be great. “I am come to cast fire on the Earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Luke 12:49). Come, O Holy Ghost, and enkindle in us the fires of Thy love!

No Chance Without the Master
Man’s reason, even when assisted by God’s light and enriched with the supernatural virtues, is no more than a young pupil in the divine art. Now, the pupil will never accomplish a great work of art, such as the reproduction of Jesus, if he does not depend on the direction and immediate intervention of the Master, who alone is in possession of the ideal in its magnificent fullness and who holds the secret method of His art.

Undoubtedly it is the part of the pupil, under the careful direction of the Master, to prepare the canvas on which the fine lines of Jesus will be sketched by the Artist’s hand; it is the pupil’s obligation to make ready the marble, so that the Holy Ghost can breathe into it the light of His ideal, for God disposes all things with admirable gentleness. But the exquisite work, the delicate and perfect art, the masterful strokes—only the Master’s hand can impart these to the stainless canvas, the immaculate marble, of our souls. In every art there is something incommunicable that belongs only to genius; in the divine art there is something incommunicable and infinite that belongs only to God. “Without Me, you can do nothing!” (John 15:5).

The Gifts Surpass the Virtues
Both the Master and the disciple have their own instruments of work. The disciples are the virtues; the Master, the Seven Gifts. The virtues are undoubtedly the precious means of sanctification for us (if we use them and practice them), but they are our means; the Seven Gifts are the instruments in the hands of the Holy Ghost. The virtues are divine brushes, made by God but they are used by the hand of man. We need both the brushes and hands to paint. The Seven Gifts are the hands of the Master Himself. If the Gifts did not come to his aid, the pupil’s work could hardly be accomplished. The masterpiece is the handiwork of the Master and it is achieved by these divine, mysterious instruments, the Gifts.

Now this is the essential difference between the Virtues and the Gifts: the Virtues are made to be exercised under the direction of man’s human reason; the Gifts are exercised under the immediate direction of the Holy Ghost.

Imperfection of Virtues
The Virtues in the supernatural order are without doubt divine; as to their origin, for God infuses or ‘plants’ them into our souls with their ‘soil’, which is sanctifying grace, at our Baptism. They lead to God and produce the work of sanctification; but the Virtues are managed by men, and they have consequently a human mark, just as the pupil’s timid, faltering style is revealed in his first hesitating lines. They do not yet show the mark of genius, the fullness, the boldness, the sublimity, of the Master, the divine stamp of Him who is called “the Finger of God’s right hand.”

The Gifts Perfect the Work of the Virtues
The Seven Gifts, on the contrary, do bear this stamp of genius. Without the Seven Gifts the work of perfection is impossible. As we have said, it requires the immediate direction of the Holy Ghost; and our human faculties could not receive the motion of the Spirit without the Seven Gifts, which He Himself makes the source of our activity. Through these Gifts we receive His sanctifying motion, His divine inspirations, His vivifying breath.

Forgotten Gifts
The Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost have been forgotten, like the Holy Ghost Himself. Many desiring to be “practical and solid” think too much about the work of man, and little, much too little, about the work of God. They exalt the virtues, and that is well; but they forget the Gifts, and that is ingratitude and baseness.

The Gifts are also necessary to salvation, and furthermore the finest, the most exquisite part of the work of sanctification belongs to them. Perhaps it is because the gifts are forgotten, that so many souls miss the designs of God and are straying from the path to Heaven, and so many others, capable of high perfection, drag themselves along in effortless mediocrity and lukewarmness—not having the fire kindled that Our Lord wanted to kindle.

Article 5
You Are a Temple of the Holy Ghost

Tent or Temple?
Like the traveler pitching his tent in the desert, the Holy Ghost takes possession of souls as their most sweet Guest. But unlike the traveler, who folds his tent as morning breaks, the eternal Guest stays on. The tent—that He pitches on the soil of our soul’s barrenness—is something divine, a sketch, a reflection, a foretaste of our heavenly home. This image or foretaste is seen in the grace of God that divinizes the soul; seen too in divine charity, the supernatural image of the Holy Ghost, Who pours Himself into our hearts; and seen in all the virtues and gifts. These are the conditions of His indwelling in our soul, so that He may begin His work of sanctification, and direct us with the strong, gentle influence of love. The Holy Ghost may pitch His tent, but it only in order to build a temple in the long run. For the Israelites, wandering in the desert after their exodus from Egypt, their initial temple was a tent—but when they arrived in the Promised Land, the tent was replaced by the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem! The same has to occur in our lives!

Jesus in the Model or Ideal
The Holy Ghost’s purpose and ideal, is to produce Jesus in us, and through Jesus and with Jesus, to eventually take us to the bosom of the Trinity, in order to glorify the Father with the supreme glorification of Jesus. For nobody has glorified the Father like the Son, and the more we resemble the Son, the more we glorify the Father. Let us try and see how, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, souls are purified, illuminated, and enkindled until they are transformed into Jesus, Who is the ultimate ideal and work of God’s love, and for us, the glorious summit of the mystical ascent where we find peace and happiness: where we find God the Father with Jesus and the Holy Ghost.

Devotion to the Holy Ghost
What is devotion to the Holy Ghost but a loving and constant cooperation with His divine influence, with His sanctifying work? To be devoted to the Holy Ghost is to open our soul for Him to dwell there; to enlarge our heart so that He may anoint it with His divine charity; to deliver our whole being up to Him, so that He may possess it and direct it with His Seven Gifts; to give Him our life that He may transform it into a replica of divine life; to put into His hands the shapeless block of our imperfection, so that He may mold it to the divine image of Jesus.

To be devoted to the Holy Ghost is to possess Him and to let ourselves be loved and moved according to His good pleasure; to permit the divine Artist to destroy in us all that is opposed to His holy designs: all the bad, all the earthly and worldly, and all the humanly weak; and to let Him infuse into us a new life, the marvelous participation in the life of God.

What broad and heavenly pathways spread-out before us, if we meditate on these truths with the help of God’s light and grace! Yet, will you give time to the Holy Ghost? Will you withdraw yourself from your preoccupation with earthly and worldly things, to give yourself over to the contemplation of divine things? We cannot love God and mammon! We cannot possess two spirits at the same time—the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God.

Cooperation Means Consecration
We have seen, very briefly, the action of the Holy Ghost in our souls. Now we shall examine our cooperation with His wonderful influence. This cooperation must be a “consecration” — a word sometimes taken in a very superficial sense. When a temple is consecrated to God, it is a place set apart for God alone. The greatest possible purity and solidity, the truest and best art, are used in its construction; and, after it is magnificently decorated, it is offered to God, to be His forever. All around the temple is the land that belongs to the children of men—but the temple belongs to God. The temple is the gate of Heaven, the house of God; outside it one can do all that is lawful; within that temple, one can only give glory to God. Now the Scriptures tell us very definitely that we are temples of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

More Than Just Superficial Prayer
Some think that in order to consecrate themselves to the Holy Ghost, it is just enough for them to recite devoutly some prescribed prayer. The prayer may be beautiful and meaningful, but the wealth of thought and beauty it embodies will often remain unrealized; its influence will be only theoretical but not practical, it will be temporary, but not lasting. It is a good and holy thing to say the prayer, provided that it is said, not as a mere formula, but as a sincere expression of the promises we intend to fulfill during our whole life: provided it is the desire to truly begin a new life. Otherwise, we are merely ‘two-timing’ the Holy Ghost—conducting ‘love-affairs’ with both Him and the world. God the Holy Ghost is a jealous God, He can stand no rival love! “Adore not any strange god. The Lord, His name is Jealous, He is a jealous God!” (Exodus 34:14). “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves, and He said to them: ‘It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves!’” (Matthew 21:12-13). “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God!” (James 4:4).

Two-Faced Two-Timing World
Just because we live in a ‘two-timing’ and ‘two-faced’ world, does not make that acceptable to God. Just because most Catholics might be ‘two-timers’ and ‘two-faced’—professing to love God, yet loving the world just as much if not more—does not mean that it is alright to copy them. Theirs is not the path of salvation—“for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat!” (Matthew 7:13). They may have been baptized, but not all baptized souls are saved! “For many are called, but few chosen!” (Matthew 20:16).

Temples from Our Baptism
We were consecrated temples of the Holy Ghost on the day of our Baptism. This is clearly set down in the ritual for the administration of the Sacrament: the priest breathes three times in the face of the one who is going to be baptized and says: “Go out from him, unclean spirit, and give place to the Most Holy Ghost!” And making the Sign of the Cross on the forehead and breast, he says: “Be faithful to the heavenly precepts, and may your actions be such that you may now enter the temple of God!” In a later exorcism, he orders the devil to go out from the creature of God, whom the Lord has deigned to call, “in order that he may become a temple of the living God and the Holy Ghost may dwell in him.” Before the regenerating water is poured, the one being baptized is freed from the empire of the devil and made to renounce the satanic works and pomps; then, when his will is confirmed in its desire to be consecrated to God, he is baptized, and the Holy Ghost takes possession of His temple.

Every Christian is a temple of the Holy Ghost; every Christian is consecrated to Him; and nothing else may be done in that temple in which God dwells except that which will give glory to Him. The Apostle St. Paul taught that even the most ordinary actions of the Christian should be done to this end: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or do anything else―do all for the glory of God!” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Is not this the ratification of the baptismal offering, the renewal of the promises made at that time, the free and loving acceptance of the life that God infused in our souls, when the Church received us into her maternal bosom? True devotion to the Holy Ghost is not something separate from the Christian life; it is the Christian life thoroughly understood, seriously practiced, and deeply enjoyed.

Elevated Dignity
To be a devotee of the Holy Ghost is to understand the elevated dignity of the Christian, his holy mission, and his arduous duties, but which are sweetened by love. To be devoted to the Holy Ghost is to establish oneself in truth, to be faithful to the sacred promises of Baptism, to be what one ought to be, and then to strive for that perfection to which every Christian should aspire and is meant to attain—nothing short of sanctity and perfection.

No Compromise
For, like all consecrations, our consecration to the Holy Ghost must be total. He is Master of our whole being, because of His divine sovereignty, because of our loving surrender of ourselves at Baptism, and because our love gives Him full possession of all that belongs to Him. Infinite Love wishes to possess us totally, without anyone sharing with Him. Therefore St. Paul has said: “What fellowship has light with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what part has the believer with the unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God!” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16).

No Room For Idols
If, then, we are to belong to the Holy Ghost, all idols must be thrown out of His temple; all darkness must be dispelled in order that God’s light may shine there; all ties that bind us to Belial must be destroyed; there must be separation from all that is impure and earthly. Then we may become in truth “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people”; one fit to “proclaim the perfections of Him” Who has called us “out of darkness into His marvelous light!” (1 Peter 2:9).

Total Consecration
Consecration to the Holy Ghost must be total: nothing must draw us away from His loving possession. Undoubtedly ditherings and deficiencies are part of our imperfection, but even so, our love must not be extinguished. Rather, it must lift its divine flame toward infinite love in the midst of all human ups and downs.

True devotion to the Holy Ghost, therefore, is not something superficial and intermittent, but something profound and constant, like Christian life itself; it is the love of the soul that responds to the love of God; the gift of the creature who tries to be grateful for the divine Gift; the human cooperation that receives the loving and efficacious action of God. As divine love is eternal, its gift given without repentance, and its action constant, it is our part to have our heart always open to love, ready to receive the unspeakable Gift, and to keep all our powers docile to the divine movement of the Holy Ghost at all moments of the day.

The Perfect Example of Mary
“It was through the most holy Virgin Mary that Jesus came into the world, and it is also through her that He has to reign in the world!” … “Mary is the excellent masterpiece of the Most High, the knowledge and possession of which He has reserved to Himself!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

Mary the Temple of God
“Mary is the sanctuary and the repose of the Holy Trinity, where God dwells more magnificently and more divinely than in any other place in the universe!” … “Mary is the terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, where He was made flesh by the operation of the Holy Ghost, in order to work there incomprehensible marvels! She is the grand and divine world of God, where there are beauties and treasures unspeakable!” … “She had no inclination on Earth more powerful or more constant than that of hiding herself, from herself as well as from every other creature, so as to be known to God only… she begged to be hidden!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

Mary Makes Other ‘Christs’ with the Holy Ghost
“God the Holy Ghost, being barren in God―that is to say, not producing another Divine Person―is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has espoused. It was with her, in her, and of her that He produced His Masterpiece, which is God made Man, and that He goes on producing daily, to the end of the world, the predestinate and the members of the Body of that adorable Head. This is the reason why He, the Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and inseparable spouse, in any soul, the more active and mighty He becomes in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in Jesus Christ!” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

“God the Holy Ghost wishes to form elect for Himself in her and by her! …. The Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady―though He had no absolute need of her―to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ and His members” … “The first man that is born in Mary is the Man-God, Jesus Christ; the second is a mere man, the child of God and Mary by adoption. If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her, then the predestinate, who are the members of that Head, ought also to be born in her, by a necessary consequence” (St. Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary).

Article 6
Let the Holy Ghost "Tune-Up" Your Faith!

Divine Demands
By its very essence, the Christian life is the mutual possession of God and the soul; true devotion to the Holy Ghost, as already noted, is the loving acceptance of that life and its full realization. It follows that, in order to be truly devoted to the Holy Ghost, we must continue perfecting that mutual possession, adapting ourselves to His divine demands: our love to His love, our activity to His gifts, our efforts to His action.

More Than a Guest
That we may grasp consecration to the Holy Ghost in all its fullness, it is necessary to analyze what is demanded of us by each one of the sanctifying offices, as we call them, that the Holy Ghost exercises in our souls. If He is our Guest, we must give Him a place in which to dwell; if He is our Director, we must submit to His inspirations; if He is our Gift, we must possess Him; if He is the Artisan or Sculptor Who, in a divine way, brings our soul to its perfection, we must let Him work, we must be submissive to His loving designs.

Each aspect of His mission in our souls imposes special duties on us; each one of His gifts demands the loving adaptation of our soul. Let us begin by examining what the divine Spirit, as the most delightful Guest of our soul, asks of us.

Duties toward the Guest
Our duty toward a guest is to remain with him while he is in our house. The Holy Ghost dwells permanently in our souls, which have been consecrated as His temples. He is not our Guest of a single day, but our eternal Guest. Consequently, our duty is to live with Him, to live always in His presence. How sweet and fruitful, then, our lives would be! For there is no bitterness in His treatment of us, and His divine conversation causes no weariness.

A Life of Mutual Love
The intimate life with the Holy Ghost is, in reality, love. If He is our Guest, it is because He loves us. The Scriptures, as we have seen, speak of charity and of the Holy Ghost’s dwelling in our souls as being the same thing. St. Thomas says very clearly: “The Holy Ghost dwells in us by charity.” In the same way, we live with the Holy Ghost if we love Him; and our life with Him will be perfect in proportion to our love.

Nothing is more just than to love Him, for He is infinite Love. “Love is not loved,” Jacopone da Todi used to cry through the streets in the excess of his love. Love is not loved! Is it not the lack of a living Faith as well as the deep misery of our hearts that explains this anomaly?

To love Love is to live with Him, it is to allow ourselves to be possessed by Him, it is to impregnate ourselves with His divine fire and to let ourselves be consumed by it. At first that fire is hidden in the depths of the soul, under the ashes of our wretchedness. Our heart is God’s, but the greater part of our thoughts and acts escape His loving dominion. The soul has, as it were, the principle of the presence of God, but this is not yet developed, and our spirit wanders among creatures without ever fixing itself complacently on God.

Consuming Fire
But love, like fire, is absorbent; little by little it extends its sweet demands until it pervades our whole being with its victorious influence. Each day our thoughts and our acts get nearer and nearer to love’s source, until the thought of God and His loving presence becomes a divine obsession.

Is not love the obsession that enslaves all our faculties, that absorbs our life, admits no rival, and is satisfied with nothing less than our whole being? Is not love the fortunate conqueror who entered through the gates of our heart, we knew not when, and after having gained possession of us, inch by inch, planted his triumphant standard to wave above us, leaving in his victorious path the bleeding shreds of what we formerly loved, casting from the soul all that is not his, to become the only master of our thoughts?

The Mystery of Love
What a mysterious thing is love! Nothing is so strong and nothing so gentle! It is death and it is life; it ruthlessly kills all thoughts that do not correspond to its unique thought, all affections that are not fused in its unique flame, all acts that are not the pedestal of its greatness. And when it destroys, it builds; when it kills, it gives life, new life, full and fruitful.

When love has accomplished its work, there is perfect harmony in the human soul; all is united, all is blended in its marvelous unity. Therefore, for one who loves God perfectly, it is imperative to live in His presence. When our eyes do not behold the Beloved everywhere, and our thoughts do not go to Him as the sunflower turns to the sun; when our heart does not rest in presence of the Beloved, or does not search for Him with torturing anxiety when He seems to go away; when all the strength of our being does not throw itself upon the divine Beloved as the impetuous torrent that rushes toward the ocean — then love has not yet attained its perfect development; it still has not succeeded in pouring the fullness of its life upon the mortal remains of the old affections.

The Heart’s Treasure
If we are to obtain intimate life with the Holy Ghost, and to have the sweet presence of the divine Guest, there is only one definitive and efficacious means: it is love. “Where thy treasure is, there also will thy heart be!” said Jesus (Matthew 6:2). And we may add: Where your heart is, there is your whole being. The secret of recollection and of the presence of God is in the heart; if one is dissipated among many concerns, it is because his heart has not yet found its treasure; other affections dispute with the true one for dominion over the soul; love has not yet fully accomplished its work of death and destruction.

Happy the soul that is emptied of all affection for created things, and that lets itself be invaded by the divine obsession of love. Its life is celestial, even in exile, for it lives on love; in intimate communion with infinite Love!

Exercising of the Virtues of Faith
We have spoken of the negative part of our duties to the Holy Ghost as our Guest, namely, of the necessity of emptying our soul that the divine Spirit may enter there. When God wishes to fill a heart with His greatness, all that is created must go out of it. This emptiness is demanded by the Holy Ghost, who aspires to fullness of possession; it is required by the holy exigencies of a “love ... strong as death” (Canticles 8:6) which separates and mercilessly roots out everything else from the soul and leaves the profound and delightful solitude of union.

Love Perfects
But if love separates, it is in order to unite; if it roots out, it is in order to plant; if it empties, it is to fill; if it puts the soul in solitude, it is to bring plenitude. Those who love should be left alone to look at each other without interference, to love without disturbance, to speak without witnesses, to pour out their hearts in isolation, in the most pure and intimate union.

The delightful Guest of our soul aspires to this union, and the mystery of it is accomplished by the theological virtues. Our natural intelligence, no matter how clear, profound, and brilliant it may be, is not sufficient to enable us to discern the Holy Ghost; our human heart, no matter how tender and ardent, is not sufficient to enable us to love Him; our weakness is powerless to touch Him, to embrace Him. More penetrating eyes are needed, a new heart and stronger arms to reach out to Him. The natural prerogatives of the most perfect of the seraphim are not enough to enable them to touch God in the supernatural and divine manner to which He has condescended to call us in the excess of His mercy and of His love.

For we must not forget that the intimacy with God which the Holy Ghost communicates to the soul, that intimacy whose seed comes with grace, whose fullness is sanctity, and whose consummation is Heaven, is something divine, above all created strength, and requiring supernatural and divine principles of activity.

We Communicate with God by Theological Virtues
While these principles that the Holy Ghost communicates to the soul in taking possession of it are many and varied, only the theological virtues can touch God intimately. The other virtues purify the soul, remove from it the obstacles to union, draw it nearer to God, adorn it, beautify it; but none of these other virtues nor even all of them together can make the soul touch God, because God is not their proper object.

Even the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the exceedingly noble instruments of the heavenly Artist, exquisite supernatural realities which elevate the soul to divine regions, and are superior to the infused moral virtues — even these cannot of themselves touch God. Rather, they are at the service of the theological virtues, regulated and directed by these superior forces which have God for their proper object, and consequently the ineffable privilege of touching Him.

Without doubt the theological virtues need the precious aid of the gifts to accomplish the lofty and wonderful operations of the spiritual life; but the essence of the intimacy of the soul with God is in the exercise of the theological virtues and especially in the exercise of charity―queen and formative principle of all virtues―the bond of perfection that unites and harmonizes the virtues and the gifts in the divine unity of love, and constitutes the basis for the mutual possession of the Holy Ghost and the soul.

The foundation of prayer, the root of recollection, the essence of the interior life, is the exercise of the theological virtues. Perhaps sufficient thought is not given to their importance. It may be that they are not granted the place belonging to them in the spiritual life. It may be that, for lack of solid instruction, through exaggerated concern for the practical, and through a false humility, these virtues are at times neglected in the pursuit of more human ends.

Nevertheless, the theological virtues are supreme, not only by their excellence, but also by their practical importance, by the solidity of their foundation, and because they are the beginning of our intimacy with God.

Pay Attention to the Divine Guest
Our chief concern and duty toward the divine Guest is to try to be with Him. It is good to wash the feet of a guest, to seat him at table, to prepare a banquet for him. But it is even better to treat him affectionately, to be with him while he is under our roof, to look at him, to speak to him and listen to him, to give him signs of friendship and love. And if He is the Beloved, the only Love of our heart, may our eyes never lift from His beautiful countenance, our hands never rest from caressing Him, our loving heart never cease to pour itself out into His heart.

Now this loving intimacy―that the Spirit longs for and the soul sighs for―cannot be brought about except by the theological virtues. To repeat: the other virtues empty the soul, place it in the desired solitude, cleanse and adorn it; but for communicating with the Beloved in this solitude, the theological virtues are necessary.

The eyes of Faith contemplate Him among the shadows; the arms of Hope reach Him beyond time in the triumph of eternity; the heart of Charity loves Him with a created love made to the image and likeness of love uncreated. This is the bond that ties the soul close to the Holy Ghost, this is the essence of all perfection and the form of all virtue.

The presence of the Holy Ghost in our souls demands that we know it; that we have the sweet conviction of His indwelling, of our living under His very glance, of His seeking our own. How sweet to live in the light of that mutual glance! — a light at times so penetrating that it seems to plunge into the bosom of God, so bright that it resembles the dawn of the eternal day, so gentle that it seems to radiate from Heaven. Then life is easy and pleasant in the depths of the soul, in loving intimacy with the divine Guest.

Difficulties and Darkness
At times, however, the soul’s Heaven grows dark, and in the great stretches of solitude there cannot be found a single ray of light nor a vestige of the former sweetness. It seems that the heart is empty, that the soul has lost its priceless treasure. How difficult it is to be recollected; with what tedium the hours pass; and with what bitterness the soul drags itself along the path that leads to God!

But in the midst of these necessary vicissitudes of the spiritual life there is something that does not change nor end; something very solid that does not permit the soul to get lost, and which, like a sure compass, marks out its divine course. It is Faith that always reveals the divine to us wherever it is; it is Faith that makes us look at the delightful Guest, both in the shadows of desolation and in the full, celestial brilliance of consolation.

The Scriptures tell us that “He who is just lives by Faith” (Romans 1:17). It is for this reason that St. John of the Cross recommends so emphatically, for souls aspiring to union with God, this life of Faith as the straight and sure path to the summit.

Devotion Founded on Faith
Our devotion to the Holy Ghost, then, must be founded on Faith. It is the basis of the Christian life; it accomplished our first communication with God, and it initiates our intimacy with the Holy Ghost, producing in our soul that glance which unites us with the Spirit of Light called by the Church “Most blessed Light! Most happy Light!”

Faith by its very nature is imperfect; but to help correct its imperfections as far as possible, we have the intellectual gifts of the Holy Ghost. With their aid the glance of Faith becomes more penetrating, more comprehensive, and more divine.

Article 7
Hoping Against Hope with the Holy Ghost!

A Step Up from Faith
Even though Faith is our first and fundamental communication with God, Faith is not enough for intimacy with Him. We may know about someone, without that person being our friend. Such intimacy is attained through the heart, more than through the intelligence; because the Holy Ghost is Love, and, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, in this life it is better to love God than to know Him, and love is more unifying than knowledge. Man receives the virtues of Hope and Charity so that he may achieve intimate contact with God. The three Theological Virtues are our only means of communication with God and the greatest of these is Charity: “And now there remain Faith, Hope, and Charity, these three―but the greatest of these is Charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Through the theological virtue of Hope we tend or gravitate toward God, our end, our good, our happiness. And we gravitate toward Him, not with the uncertainty and inconstancy of human hope, but with the unshakable support of His loving strength. The terminus or desired destination of our Hope is in the heavenly fatherland, for there we shall have eternal and full possession of God. We have the divine promise that cannot deceive: Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not the word of God. And if, together with Hope, we have Charity in our soul, we have more than the promise: we possess in substance the Good, here below, that we shall possess fully in Heaven.

A Pledge of Heaven
The Holy Ghost, our Guest, our Gift, is the pledge of our heavenly inheritance. He is our guide to that inheritance. As St. Paul says: “And in Him you too, when you had heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and believed in it, were sealed with the Holy Ghost of the promise, Who is the pledge of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Our Hope must be firm and secure, for it has as a pledge, the possession of that very Good which we aspires to enjoy for eternity! What happiness to carry in our soul the seed of glory, the substance of Heaven! Our spiritual life can truly be the beginning of eternal life. Therefore does Jesus say: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life” (John 3:36). He does not say “he will have,” but “he has.” In truth, the life of grace and the life of glory are the same supernatural life: the seed of it is in grace, and its fullness is in the life to come. Therefore, the Church also teaches us, in the Preface of the Mass for the Dead, that when we die our spiritual life is not lost, but transformed. “The life of the faithful is changed, not taken away!”

The Means Follow the Pledge
There should follow, as a legitimate consequence, that if God has given us the hope of eternal life, then He must have given us the means for the eternal life that we hope for—otherwise, if He has not given us the means of getting there, our Hope would be hopeless! We do not travel haphazardly on our voyage to Heaven. Faith points out the definite route for us, Hope gives us unfailing support; Faith gives us light, Hope imparts confidence.

To understand the practical importance of the virtue of Hope, let us note the most common and most dangerous obstacle in the way of perfection. This is discouragement resulting from the faults, the temptations, the aridities, found in every spiritual life. It reduces fervor and generosity, and impedes progress to perfection. While we have confidence, any obstacle can be overcome, any sacrifice is easily made, and our struggles are crowned with victory. But when discouragement invades the soul it is without energy or support, and thus easily deterred, misguided, and confused.

Therefore St. Thomas teaches that, although despair is not the greatest of sins (for infidelity and hatred of God, which are opposed to Faith and Charity, are graver considered in themselves), yet so far as we are concerned despair is the most dangerous of sins. Here he cites St. Isidore: “To commit a crime is death to the soul; but to despair is to descend into Hell.”

Despondency and Discouragement Come Disguised
Despondency or discouragement is the most dangerous temptation that the enemy of our salvation can employ. In other temptations he attacks some virtue in particular, and shows himself openly: by despondency he attacks them all, but covertly. The snare is readily perceived in other temptations: one finds in religion, often even in reason, principles which condemn them. The knowledge of the evil, to which we cannot blind ourselves, conscience, and the truths of religion which are awakened, serve as helps to sustain us. But in despondency there is nothing to lean upon: we feel that reason does not suffice to enable us to practice all the good that God requires of us. On the other hand, we dare not hope to receive from God all the help we need to overcome our passions; thus we become discouraged and nearly reduced to despair, the very point to which the devil tries to lead the despondent soul.

They Have Many Disguises
In other temptations we clearly perceive that it is wrong to allow the mind to dwell upon them; but in despondency, which disguises itself under a multiplicity of forms, we see strong motives for yielding to the feeling which we do not look upon as a temptation. This feeling, however, makes us imagine that perseverance in the practice of virtue is impossible, and it leaves the soul liable to be overcome by all its passions. It is therefore of the utmost importance to avoid this snare.

Hiding Behind A Mask
The most fatal effect of despondency is that the soul that yields to it does not view it as a temptation. With the devil’s astute and malicious help, we can almost convince ourselves that we are so bad that we deserve no mercy nor any help from God. We think that we are being just in thinking this way—we do see nothing wrong with it. This false feeling seems to wear the mask of humility—except that true humility is but a stepping stone to Hope and Mercy, as is seen in the sentiments of the Good Thief alongside Jesus on the Cross, and in Mary Magdalen weeping at His feet at the banquet. Hope and confidence in God are as much a commandment as Faith and the other virtues.

Excessive Fear Blinds Us To Truth
The great danger of despondency is that, being deceived by an excessive fear which makes us blind to the truth, and being discouraged at the sight of difficulties against which we find no resource in ourselves, we nevertheless do not look upon this state as the effect of temptation. Could we only see it in that light, we should beware of the suggestions that entertain it, and should get rid of our trouble more quickly and more easily.

Despondency is a Temptation
Let it, however, be well understood that despondency is a temptation, and bears all the marks of being such; for every feeling that is opposed to the law of God, either in itself or by the consequences it may have, is evidently a temptation. It is thus we judge of every temptation to which we are liable. If we have a thought against Faith, a feeling against Charity or some other virtue, we look upon it as a temptation; we turn away from it, and try to elicit acts opposed to the thought or feeling which has put us in danger of offending God.

Now, Hope and confidence in God are commanded equally with Faith and the other virtues. Therefore the feeling which is opposed to Hope is as much forbidden as that which is against Faith or any other virtue: it has thus every feature of a real temptation. The law of God obliges us frequently to make acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity; and hence forbids us all willful feelings contrary to these sacred and necessary virtues. How, then, can despondency be viewed otherwise than as a temptation, and even as a very dangerous temptation, since it exposes the Christian soul to abandon every work of piety?

Hope Is The Antidote
To make this danger clearer to you, consider the general course of conduct among men. Is it not the hope of success, of procuring some advantage, of avoiding some evil, or of satisfying some desire or passion, which makes them act, supports them under their labors, and animates them to overcome their difficulties? Take away from them all hope, and they would soon fall into inaction. None but a madman would strive for an object which he despairs of obtaining. In religious life despondency produces the same effect; it is founded on the same principle, the want of means to reach the end which we propose to ourselves.

Feeble Efforts & Fear of Failure
When we lose all hope of overcoming the difficulties which we may find in the practice of any virtue, we do not try, or but feebly, to make the effort to do so. These insufficient efforts only increase our weakness, and being more than half overcome by despondency, we are easily led away by the passion that sways us. The sense of our weakness first throws us into doubt and into trouble. In that state, occupied only by the difficulty of the combat, we do not distinguish the principles that ought to guide us. The fear of not succeeding prevents us from employing the means which God has given us, and we are thus defenseless against our enemy. We are like a child who, seeing the approach of a giant, begins to tremble, and forgets that a stone thrown in the name of the Lord may lay him prostrate. In the same manner do we forget that we have a powerful help in the goodness of a tender Father, upon whom we have only to call, to be victorious in all our struggles.

We Rely Too Much On Ourselves
We shall now proceed to show why despondency makes such strong and fatal impressions on us. We are well convinced of our weakness, for we have often experienced it. We feel keenly the difficulty we have to overcome ourselves, as we succeed but rarely. Filled with these sad and discouraging reflections of our want of strength, and of the little we do to please God, we consider it useless to have recourse to Him, who, we think, will not hearken to our prayer whilst we are in our present state. Sad evidence of the pride of the human heart, that would wish to owe to itself the good which it does, and the happiness to which it aspires! And how opposed to the words of the Holy Ghost, “What hast thou, that thou hast not received?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)

Rely on God’s Mercy
In such a state we see and depend only upon our own efforts, so that our despondency diminishes, ceases, returns, or increases, according as we act well or ill. We do not reflect that it is only from the mercy of God we can hope for help, and not by our own merits; that when we have done well it is through the grace of God, which we have not merited, and that, in every circumstance, this mercy is ever ready to dispense to us the necessary grace.

Imitate the Saints
When these desponding souls are told that they ought, after the example of the saints, to put all their confidence in God, they will at once answer that it is not surprising that the saints had confidence in God, since they were saints, and served God with fidelity: but that they have not the same right to feel that perfect confidence in Him which the saints had. They do not perceive that such reasoning is contrary to the principles of true religion.

Hope is Only Found in God
Hope is a theological virtue, and its motive can be found only in God. These souls make it a human virtue when its source or motive is recognized in man or in his ways. The saints did not hope in God because they were faithful to God, but they were faithful to God because they hoped in Him. Otherwise the sinner could never make an act of Hope, and yet it is that very act of Hope which disposes him to return to God.

Great Humility
Observe that St. Paul does not say, I have obtained mercy because I have been faithful, but “Having obtained mercy of the Lord, to be faithful” (1 Corinthians 6:25). Mercy always precedes the good which we do; and it is from mercy alone that we have the necessary grace to do any good at all. The saints never counted upon their works to strengthen their confidence in God, for they were ever mindful of the words of Our Savior: “So you also, when you shall have done all these things that are commanded you, say: ‘We are unprofitable servants!’” (Luke 17:10). The greater saints they were, the greater was their humility. Their humility allowed them to see only the perfection to which they had not yet reached. Unlike the Pharisee in the Gospel, they found nothing in themselves to warrant their confidence, but in the mercy of God they sought and found a confidence, the foundations of which could not be shaken. This was what supported them, and this it is which must encourage you, and reanimate your fainting strength. It is of the utmost importance for you to understand this truth, that you may not again fall into the snare which your enemy has so often laid for you.

Of the True Motive for Christian Hope
According to religion the motive of Christian Hope, or of confidence in God, is the same for all men, saints and sinners. Hope, as we have already said, is a theological virtue, like Faith and Charity. Its motive, then, can be found only in God, and can rest only upon divine perfection. It follows, therefore, that we exclude from this motive our own merits. We do not hope in God because we have been faithful to Him, but we hope in Him that we may obtain the grace to be faithful.

God is Faithful to His Promises—He will Help
On what, then, is Christian Hope founded, and what is its motive, according to religion? Pope Benedict XIV, in his form of the Act of Hope, has pointed out the divine perfections, which constitute this motive. The act is this: “O my God, I hope in Thee, because Thou art faithful to Thy all powerful promises, and because Thy mercies are infinite.” In this motive there is nothing human-all is drawn from God Himself. And could there be a stronger motive to strengthen us in Hope and confidence in God? We here find the mercy of God, who is more anxious to shower His gifts upon man than man is to receive them; who desires their real good and their salvation much more sincerely than they desire it themselves, since He restrains them by His grace, which of themselves they could not merit, and since He prepares for them aid proportionate to the trials to which He exposes them-an aid which they can obtain by prayer, and with it conquer the evil one. This mercy is so infinite, that all the malice of mankind cannot exhaust it; and, after having manifested itself so wonderfully in the gift which God has granted us, His only Son for our ransom, it will not refuse us the assistance which He desires to afford us in this priceless benefit.

Effects of Divine Mercy
The effects of this divine mercy have been promised to us by the assurances which God has made us, of coming to our assistance, whenever we ask it, to work out our salvation. God, who is truth itself, cannot deceive us, and He is essentially faithful to the promises He makes His creatures. But we find in the Holy Scripture the most touching exhortations to have recourse to Him in our necessities, with the promise that He will be our support and our strength.

How, then, can we have any anxiety or seriously entertain any fear that He will reject or abandon us, when we call upon Him with confidence? Would not this be accusing God of not keeping His promise? But that would be blasphemy.

It is true that to grant our prayer God requires that we should call upon Him with confidence—but should we deserve to obtain His benefits if we asked them with a doubting heart; doubting that very goodness of which we are experiencing the effect every instant of our lives, and in so many thousand ways?

Ask With Faith
No, as the Apostle, St. James, says, “Let him ask in Faith, nothing wavering!” (James 1:6). The heart that prays with doubt and distrust shall obtain nothing. And we also know that Jesus Christ whilst on Earth granted miracles only when there was confidence: “Daughter, thy Faith hath made thee whole!” (Matthew. 9:22).

Let Hope Grow Strong
The more we advance in the spiritual life, the stronger must be our Hope, for the struggles become more terrible, the sacrifices greater, and the intimate operations of grace more profound and more difficult to understand. God being infinitely rich, possesses all good, in the order of grace as in the order of nature. Being infinitely powerful, there are none of these treasures of which He cannot make us partake. Being infinitely good, He is disposed to grant us, according to His promises, all that is necessary for our salvation. It is on these substantial motives, drawn from the perfections of God, that we should found our Hope—and only thus can our confidence have that unshaken firmness which it ought to have.

God’s almighty power gives the crowning strength to this motive for Christian Hope, seeing that He exceeds all that we can require of Him. Men often promise what they are unable to give, but it is not thus with the all-powerful God. We can find no insurmountable obstacles to His will, in the gifts which He desires to make to us. He has in the boundless treasury of His graces, infallible means to lead us to holiness. Therefore we ought never to fear asking Him too much, or asking things too difficult.

The Holy Ghost and Hope
Let us now analyze the relationship between the Holy Ghost and the virtue of Hope. The Spirit is not only light and fire, He is also strength; He is the spiritual unction that invigorates those who struggle on Earth, the strength of the Most High, the Gift of the omnipotent right hand of the Father. If we wish to consecrate ourselves to Him, it is not enough that we never take our eyes off His light and that our heart be always open to the holy effusions of His love: it is necessary also that our arm receive the support of His most strong arm, that, like the spouse of the Canticles, we come out of the desert of our need by the luminous path of Faith, enraptured by the delights of Charity and supported on the arm of the Beloved, the arm of Hope.

Faith and Charity enrich us with the light and love of the Spirit. Hope puts us in communion with the strength of the Most High and opens our soul to all the supernatural aids of which the Spirit is the living and inexhaustible source.

Hope is a supernatural capacity for receiving the Holy Ghost, who aids and sanctifies, with all the divine streams that spring from this fountain. When He Himself has satisfied the thirst of our soul, our Hope is fulfilled, for He is the Spirit of the promise and the pledge of our inheritance, as we have heard from the lips of St. Paul.

Article 8
The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Charity!

Love is the Heart of the Matter
What we have said so far about detachment from the world in order to give a loving attention to the Guest of our souls, and about the exercise of Faith and Hope, has been but a preparation for that which constitutes the foundation of devotion to the Holy Ghost: namely, love. Love is essential in this devotion, because the Holy Ghost is the infinite and personal Love of God. His work is a work of love. What He seeks and longs for, is to establish the reign of love. How can we meet love except with love? How can we fulfill its desires and satisfy its divine requirements, cooperate with its plans and utilize its gifts, except by love?

Charity is Noblest Love of All
Where we have one word, “love,” the Greeks had four words:
► agape was the word used to identify love that was selflessly committed to the well-being of another;
► phileo was the word used for the non-sexual affection of those sharing a strong bond, like “brotherly love”;
► eros was the word used for romantic feelings, like “being in love”;
► storge was the word used for fondness of someone/something through familiarity with them/it.

These subtleties have been filtered-out or have been blended into one in the melting pot of a modern idea of love. Everything is rolled onto one idea. We have also developed a mental framework that equates love with abstract feelings, where love is largely all in the mind, love has become, to a large degree, a cerebral practice. “I love reading!” or “I love music!” or whatever else—all these notions are focused on self and the personal enjoyment we get out of experiencing some pleasure.

Charity is Giving, Not Receiving
“Charity,” on the other hand, is not so much about receiving, but about giving—giving of oneself, or giving of what one possesses. Charity means participating in tangible acts of loving-kindness toward all others (friend or enemy) in unconditional and self-sacrificial ways. Furthermore, Charity is a theological virtue, meaning that its object is God. Even when Charity is extended to other human beings, it does not have a natural motive, but a supernatural motive, as is seen in the Act of Charity: “My God I love Thee with all my heart, and I love my neighbor as myself for love of Thee!” Meaning that Charity does good to others to please God, because others are made in the image and likeness of God and have been created by God. God is the be all and end of all of Charity, if it is to be truly called Charity.

This is why the most perfect and excellent love is that of Charity. The divine Spirit pours into our hearts the third theological virtue, that we may have this love. St. Paul composed a magnificent eulogy on the virtue of Charity in the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. There he shows that Charity is the most excellent of the gifts of God, the form or soul of all the virtues, something divine and celestial that does not end with life but accompanies the soul into eternity.

Charity is the Image of the Holy Ghost
Charity is the most perfect image of the Holy Ghost, with Whom it has a very close relationship. When Charity is in the soul, the Holy Ghost lives in it; and when the Spirit gives Himself to a soul, He pours Charity into it. The degree of Charity, in any soul, is the measure of the mutual possession that exists between itself and the Spirit. It is the measure of all the infused virtues and of the gifts of the Spirit. It is the measure of grace and of glory.

True devotion to the Holy Ghost is a case of mutual possession—between the Holy Ghost and the soul. Clearly, then, Charity is the foundation of this devotion, as it is also the necessary element of Christian perfection. All other things either pave the way for the full reign of Charity, or are its precious consequences. St. John of the Cross teaches that “it is a great thing for the soul to exercise itself constantly in love, so that, when it is perfected here below, it may not stay long, either in this world or in the next, before seeing God face to face.” And so highly did St. John of the Cross esteem Charity that he writes: “Even one of them [these acts of love of the soul] is of greater merit and worth than all that the soul may have done in its life before undergoing this transformation, however much this may be.”

The Spiritual Glue of the Spiritual Life
There are some who think that the exercising of oneself in love is something that can only be done by those who are perfect. Without doubt it is true that, in the sublime heights of the spiritual life, the soul does nothing else but love, as St. John of the Cross expresses it: “My soul has employed itself and all my possessions in His service. Now I guard no flock, nor have I now other office, for now my exercise is in loving alone.”

But love must be exercised in all the stages of the spiritual life. Charity is in the soul from the moment of the entrance of grace, it always remains as the form or soul of all the other virtues and is their glue that holds them together, or, as St. Paul puts it, “the bond of perfection”; that is, it moves, impels, directs, and coordinates all the virtues and all the spiritual gifts. Whatever work the soul has to do, whether to purify itself, to progress, or to unite itself intimately with God, Charity is always the principle, impeller, and director.

The Different Forms of Love
Love takes many forms and accomplishes many tasks: in the first days of the spiritual life, it cleanses the soul and roots out by means of the moral virtues all that is opposed to its reign; later, it directs the gifts of the Holy Ghost so that they may complete the purification of the soul, illumine it, and prepare it for union with God. Finally, it unites the soul with God and enriches it with light, adorns it with virtues, accomplishes in it a divine work of harmony and perfection.

The exercise of Charity is a brief and delightful road for the attainment of sanctity; brief, because everything is simplified when it is treated thoroughly; delightful, because love facilitates every effort and sweetens every sacrifice. How easy is the way when one loves! How courageous, how strong, and how filled with consolation is the soul that is sustained by love!

One virtue cannot increase, of course, without the others, and any one of them can be the road by which to attain the others, since all the infused virtues are united in Charity, as St. Thomas teaches. However, there is no doubt that, since Charity is the form or soul of all the virtues, to possess the queen is to acquire rapidly and sweetly all that follow in her train. “Love and do what you will,” said St. Augustine. Is humility lacking? The most forceful motive, the most fruitful effort, toward humility will be found in love. Is it poverty we need? Nothing is poorer than a love that leaves all to gain all. Do we seek to acquire obedience? Nothing is sweeter than to submit ourselves through love to a representative of the Beloved.

St. Paul’s Litany of Charity
And so it is with the other virtues, as St. Paul says: “Charity is patient, is kind; does not envy, is not pretentious, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not provoked; thinks no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with the truth; bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). It is the practice of Charity that specifically develops the gifts of the Holy Ghost, for these precious instruments are deeply rooted in this virtue. Prayer, recollection, the spirit of mortification, all the most efficacious and necessary recourses for advancing in perfection, have their fruitful roots and powerful stimulus in Charity.

The More We Love, the More We Possess the Holy Ghost
But why go on analyzing the principles of the spiritual life? In order to understand the importance of Charity, it is sufficient to dwell on the consideration we have already stated: the more we love with the love of Charity, the more we shall possess the Holy Ghost and the more we shall be possessed by Him, the Sanctifier, the supreme Director of all our supernatural activities.

This does not mean that we need not exercise all the virtues carefully and constantly, for they prepare the soul for perfect love and later produce works of love; but we should give Charity the importance it deserves in the work of sanctification. In physical life, for example, to insist on the importance of sound nerves because the nerves rule all our vital functions, is not to deny that care must be given to the other organs, but simply to call attention to the singular importance of the nervous system.

Love is an Antidote to Lukewarmness and Weakness
This interesting point of the spiritual life can also be considered under another aspect. Frequently souls lack the guidance of a clear ideal, the impulse of a powerful force, in the constant struggles, ups and downs, and sacrifices of the spiritual life. They recognize their needs, they know the remedies, they see, imperfectly at least, the path they must follow. But they are so weak, their courage fails at each step, they waste so much time and let time slip by without taking advantage of it; and they sadly behold the years passing with no personal progress in spite of their good desires and holy intentions. What is it they lack? A precise ideal, an impelling force. If they would love, they would have an extraordinary power. Charity, when it unites us to God, our end, fixes our attention on the true ideal of our life; and, because it is love, it communicates the supreme strength, the only strength, one might say, that exists in Heaven or on Earth.

More than this, Charity joins us closely to the Holy Ghost. It puts us in contact with the divine flame, the unique source of holiness. Who would not burn if led into a glowing furnace? Who can escape being sanctified if he throws himself into the very essence of sanctity?

I Am Too Evil to Love God!
But people have so many worldly preoccupations, which are the fruits of a narrow or stunted spiritual life and an inaccurate idea of divine things. All these concerns are, no doubt, encouraged by the devil to prevent souls from attaining their proper good. How can I dare to love God, I who am full of misery and of sin? How can God love me in that miserable condition? How can there be the mutual correspondence, that love demands, between a God so good and a creature so evil?

The answer is, that loving God is not only a most precious right that we all have, but a most happy duty. Is it not the first and principal commandment? — “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength, and with thy whole mind” (Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30). In order that God be loved, He must be good; not necessarily we. The fact that we are wretched and imperfect, does not diminish His incomprehensible beauty, His infinite goodness, His boundless mercy, nor any other of the titles that are deserving of our love. Rather, our imperfections, if we consider them well, are a stimulus to love, for they cry out to us that we must look outside of ourselves for that which our heart desires; that we must lift our eyes and our soul to merciful Love, to the only One who can take pity on our miseries and tenderly cure them. For our miseries are a testimony of the immense goodness of God. Lowly as we are, He loves us, and not only gives us the right but imposes on us the duty of loving Him.

God’s Love Is Not Like Our Love
How is it that God loves us as we are? Because His love is not like ours, poor and indigent, seeking in the beloved what is lacking in ourselves. Just as Holy Scripture says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9), so too could it say: “My love is not your love: nor your love like My love, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the Earth, so is My love exalted above your love.”

No, God’s love is a love of infinite fullness and looks for nothing except a void to fill, for poor beings to make happy, for miseries to cure, because He is infinite Goodness and infinite Mercy. Like the ocean that seeks a bed, in which to pour its fullness, the infinite God seeks the immensity of our misery, in order to fill it.

Don’t Wait Until You Are Holy to Love God!
If we waited to love God and to be loved by Him until we were clean, strong, good, we could wait forever. Rather, we could despair forever. All the good that we have we receive from the love of God. He does not love us because we are pure or good; rather, if we are pure or good, it is because God loves us. Our love, an imperfect love, looks for certain qualities in the loved object; the love of God, the perfect love, does not look for these qualities, but gives them. He does not ask, but gives and gives Himself, communicates Himself without reserve.

It was precisely our love, the love of His poor creatures, that God came on Earth to seek, in the midst of the sorrows and sufferings of His mortal life; it is what He asks of us, what He demands of us. He came filled with gifts for the poor ones of Earth, whose hearts were miserable and broken, but capable of loving. He came to ask them to love Him. He came to oblige them to love Him, by the extreme tenderness and ardor of His love. After speaking of suffering and dying for love, He remained in the Tabernacle asking for our love; even as, at an earlier time, He sat on the curb of Jacob’s well and said to every soul, coming into this world, what He had said to the Samaritan woman: “I thirst. Give Me to drink!” (John 4:8).