Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Hai Tuần thứ 5 Phục
Sinh
"Ai yêu mến Thầy, thì sẽ giữ lời Thầy. Cha của Thầy sẽ yêu mến người ấy. Cha của Thầy và Thầy sẽ đến và ở lại với người ấy. " (Jn 14:23) Đây là lời hứa của Chúa Kitô đã hứa với chúng ta. Điều này cũng cho chúng ta thấy mối quan hệ mật thiết giữa Chúa Giêsu và Chúa Cha và qua đó Chúa Giêsu cũng đã muốn lôi kéo chúng ta đến một mối quan hệ gần gũi hơn với Thiên Chúa Cha. Bằng cách này, chúng ta được mời gọi để phụ thuộc hoàn toàn vào Thiên Chúa như Chúa Giêsu và qua Ngài mà Thiên Chúa đã thấy được những dấu lạ mà Chúa Giêsu đã làm. Tất cả cuộc sống của Ngài là một sự phản ánh của những sự tốt lành, quyền lực và tình yêu của Thiên Chúa. Chúng ta được mời gọi đến với cuộc đời này trong đức tin với Chúa Giêsu, như là khí cụ bình an , tình yêu và công lý của Thiên Chúa, do đó chúng ta có thể đem lại sự sống và hạnh phúc cho những người khác qua Chúa Giêsu. Điều này cũng được thực hiện bởi quyền năng của Chúa Thánh Thần luôn liên tục hành động trong và qua chúng ta. Tuy nhiên, chúng ta thường hay bị thất bại trong mối quan hệ này với Thiên Chúa bởi vì chúng ta để cho những thứ ham muốn và quyền lực của thế gian này làm ảnh hưởng và kiểm soát cuộc sống của chúng ta.
Lạy Chúa, xin ban cho chúng con những ân sủng của Chúa để chúng con luôn luôn được nhắc nhở là chúng con phải biết tập trung và tuân theo tất cả những gì mà Chúa đã dạy chúng con và chúng phải biết dựa vào Chúa Thánh Thần của Chúa để chúng con có thể được hướng dẫn trong ánh sáng cứu rỗi của Chúa..
Monday on 5th Of Easter Acts
14:5-18; Jn 14:21-26
‘If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and
we shall come to Him and make our home with Him.’ This is the promise of Christ
to us. This also reveals the intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father that draws us to a
closer relationship with them. By this, we are called to have total dependence
on God like Jesus through whom God is made visible by the signs Jesus did. His
whole life is a reflection of God's goodness, power and love. We are called to
this life of faith in Jesus as God’s instruments of peace, love and justice,
thus giving life to others through Jesus.
The purpose of this promise is to express the unrestricted scope of the personal relationship between God, Jesus and the believers. This is also made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit who continues to act in and through us. However, we often fail in this relationship by allowing worldly values to influence and control our lives. We lose track of the ‘focus’ and like the ‘crowd’ in the first reading, we become attached to worldly things — wealth, power, fame and status and other inordinate attachments. We need to remain faithful and persevering in our response to the love God has so graciously given us.
Lord, grant us the grace to always be reminded of all that You have taught us and to rely on Your Holy Spirit for guidance and light.
Monday 5th Easter 2024
“I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” John 14:25–26
Sometimes we forget all that God has spoken to us. For example, we may have some clear experience of God’s presence in our lives, such as a powerful spiritual insight gained through prayer, a deep conviction of His voice spoken through a sermon, the transforming freedom encountered through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or some form of unmistakable clarity imparted through the reading of the holy Scriptures. When God speaks to us, imparting His Truth, strength, forgiveness and every other form of grace, we are spiritually consoled as we sense His closeness. But when trouble comes our way, those moments of clarity can be easily lost.
The disciples would have had many clarifying experiences during the three years of Jesus’ public ministry. They marveled at the spiritual authority they encountered in His sermons, witnessed countless miracles, looked on as sinners were set free, saw Jesus transfigured in glory, and watched our Lord enter deeply into prayer with the Father. Each time they encountered the power of God at work, they would have grown in their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the World. But Jesus also knew that these disciples would soon have their faith in Him shaken. He knew that as they looked on from a distance in fear as Jesus was arrested, beaten and killed, they would start to forget all that they previously experienced. Fear can cause confusion, and Jesus knew that His disciples would soon fall into that trap. For this reason, Jesus spoke the words above to His disciples. He promised them that the Holy Spirit would soon come upon them to teach them everything and to remind them all that He told them.
How nice it would be if every lesson we ever learned from God remained front and center in our lives. How nice it would be if we never allowed fear to confuse us and cause us to forget all that God has spoken to us in varied ways. Just as Jesus knew the disciples would need the help of the Holy Spirit to remember, He also knows that we need the same help from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the words spoken to the disciples above are also spoken to us. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
What lessons of faith have you learned in the past that you need to be reminded of? It is the role of the Holy Spirit to bring those lessons to mind every time we need them. Therefore, as we move closer to the glorious celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost, it is a good time to pray to the Holy Spirit and ask for the gift of remembering the many ways that God has revealed Himself to us. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit work in perfect harmony with each other, but each has a distinct role in our lives. The Holy Spirit’s role is especially to lead us day-by-day into the fulfillment of the Father’s will of becoming perfectly conformed to the Person of Christ Jesus.
Reflect, today, upon this powerful promise that our Lord gave to His disciples and to us. Pray to the Holy Spirit. Open yourself to the Spirit’s ongoing direction in your life and never allow fear to lead to confusion. Instead, allow God to dispel all confusion and to remind you of all that He has spoken to you throughout your life.
Most glorious Lord Jesus, You promised the disciples and all Your people that the Holy Spirit would be sent to us to remind us of all that You have revealed. Holy Spirit, please continuously descend upon me, teach me and guide me. Help me to never forget the many lessons I have been taught so that I will never let fear lead to confusion. Jesus, I trust in You.
Monday 5th Easter 2025
Opening Prayer: Lord God, send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth. Inflame my heart with the grace of your Spirit. Enlighten my mind with the wisdom of your Spirit. Remind me of all that your Son did and taught. Help me to be docile to your commandments.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Love in Action: At the Last Supper, Jesus teaches his disciples that love is not merely a passive feeling or emotion, but something much deeper. True love – love for God above all things and love of neighbor – is expressed in action, sacrifice, and self-giving. Love is connected by Jesus to observing his commandments and keeping his word. He commands us to put God in the first place, to resist the temptations to power, pride, pleasure, and possessions, to be detached from earthly goods, to serve the poor, and to be docile to the Spirit. Keeping Jesus’ word means frequently meditating on His teachings and parables, especially those related to the Kingdom of God, and putting them into practice. It means listening to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and embracing the life Jesus lived – a life, for example, of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
2. Love and Indwelling: Jesus complements his teaching on love and keeping the commandments by speaking at the Last Supper about the mystery of divine indwelling. Keeping the commandments is not the goal of our lives or the covenant with God, but is the way we stay in a loving and covenant relationship with God. It is the way we maintain the divine life we have gratuitously received from God the Father through Jesus Christ. Through our baptism and the effusion of divine grace, the triune God dwells within us in the depths of our being. The presence of the Word within us especially guides our thinking through the gift of wisdom. The presence of the Spirit within us especially guides our actions through the gift of charity.
3. Our Loving Advocate: Knowing that he will be crucified the following day, Jesus reveals the mystery of the Spirit at the Last Supper. He promises that the Father will send the Spirit to us in his name and that the Spirit will accomplish two important works. First, the Spirit will teach us everything. This plays out in our individual lives and the history of the Church. Jesus is the definitive Word of the Father and the fullness of divine revelation. But the Spirit guides the Church to understand what Jesus, the Word of God, has revealed. The second work of the Spirit that Jesus highlights is remembrance – the Spirit will remind the Apostles and us of what Jesus told them. Some of this is captured in a written form in the four Gospels. Over the course of a few decades, the four evangelists were at work: the Apostle Matthew wrote down what he heard Jesus say and what he saw Jesus did; the evangelist Mark wrote down what Peter preached to the Gentiles in Rome about Jesus’ words and life, the evangelist Luke wrote down what eyewitnesses and others, like Paul, knew about Jesus’ teaching and actions, and the Apostle John complemented what the other evangelists wrote through what he taught the early Christian community about Jesus’ signs and teaching. All four were inspired by the Holy Spirit, who guided their writing by reminding them of what Jesus told his disciples and accomplished in his public ministry.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, thank you for sending the Spirit to teach and guide the members of your Body, the Church. I love you, Lord, and desire to obey the commandments of you and your Father. Reveal your love to me and comfort me with your merciful grace.
Monday 5th Easter 2024
Opening Prayer: Lord God, send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth. Inflame my heart with the grace of your Spirit. Enlighten my mind with the wisdom of your Spirit. Remind me of all that your Son did and taught. Help me to be docile to your commandments.
Encountering the Word of God
1. God’s Plan: God brings to fulfillment his plan of salvation through Jesus’ redemptive passion and death on the cross. This plan is crowned by the sending of the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the new people of God and accomplishes the redemption of all nations. This redemption is accomplished by the Spirit in different ways. On the one hand, the gift of saving grace is given through the Gift of the Holy Spirit. On the other, the Spirit is the Spirit of truth, who after Christ’s departure to the Father, preserves “among the disciples the truth which he had announced and revealed” (John Paul II, May 17, 1989). The essential task of Christ’s apostles and disciples is to remain in God’s truth and be led by the Holy Spirit to the knowledge of all truth (John 16:3). The Spirit bears witness to Christ and disclose the content of revealed truth within the Church, so that she may proclaim it to the whole world (John Paul II, May 17, 1989).
2. The Spirit and the Christ: The Holy Spirit does not present
another revelation apart from Christ but rather recalls the words and deeds and
saving mystery of Christ. The Spirit glorifies Christ and reveals what has
already been said by Christ. “Thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, the
Church not only recalls the truth, but remains and lives in the truth received
from her Lord” (John Paul II, May 17, 1989). The Spirit is man’s true
Counselor; he is the Defender and Advocate of man, the Mediator who intercedes
for us. He is the one who takes our side, even though we are guilty of sin. He
defends us from the penalty due to our sins and saves us from the danger of
losing eternal life and salvation (John Paul II, May 24, 1989). To save the
world, the Spirit convinces the world of sin and demonstrates the guilt of the
world in rejecting Christ and turning its back upon God.
3. The Empowering Spirit: In the First Reading, from the Acts of the
Apostles, the Spirit empowers Paul and Barnabas to speak out boldly on behalf
of Jesus the Lord. God confirms their word by granting signs and wonders to
occur through their hands. The two apostles are persecuted by the people, but
defended by the Holy Spirit, who moves them to flee to the cities of Lystra and
Derbe, where they will again proclaim the Gospel. The Spirit is close to the
Apostles when they must profess the truth, justify it, and defend it. The
Spirit inspires them and speaks through their words (John Paul II, May 24,
1989). Like Jesus and Peter, Paul heals a crippled man, who professes belief in
Jesus Christ. Paul and Barnabas have to react quickly to the reaction of the people,
who mistakenly equate them with Greek gods and want to offer sacrifice to them.
The healing of the crippled man is not a proclamation of the Apostles’
divinity, but a confirmation of the truth of the Gospel message, namely, that
the people should turn from pagan idols to the living God, who is the creator
of all things. Creation speaks to all men and women of the one, true God’s
goodness, beauty, power, and providential care.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, thank you for sending the Spirit to teach
and guide the members of your Body, the Church. I love you, Lord, and desire to
obey the commandments of you and your Father. Reveal your love to me and
comfort me with your merciful grace.
Living the Word of God: Just as he opened the minds and hearts of those who
heard Paul and Barnabas, so also the Spirit opens our minds and hearts to the
mystery of God, who is at work in human history, and of his incarnate Son,
Jesus Christ. In faith and through faith, we are guided by the Holy Spirit to
the understanding of the Gospel and urged on by the Spirit to preach the Gospel
to all men and women. Am I willing to let God open my mind and heart? What is
the Spirit urging me to do today?
Epriest-Monday 5th Easter
1. The Danger: It is easy to forget you, Lord, especially with all the images that are around me. Every image I harbor in my heart, every emotion I abandon myself to leaves its mark. These can come from the radio, the Internet, songs, novels… anywhere. They seem to swamp my mind and make it easier to forget you. These images and emotions can also impoverish, degrade, limit and reduce my ability to extract from life its magnificent content, usefulness, and happiness. You remind me that I should use everything only in as much as it helps me to reach you, my final goal.
2. The Gift: On the other hand, I know you have sent us the gift of the Holy Spirit. As you promise in this Gospel, he will never stop reminding me of you. All I have to do is let his projector fill my imagination with images, with thoughts, with insights. Of course, I also have to use the world’s media correctly and in moderation. Holy Spirit, I know you are near; take possession of my soul and make it all your own. Guide my every decision so that I choose what is right and reject what is evil.
3. Accepting the Gift: When I do forget, the Holy Spirit will remind me of all that Christ has said. All of the emotions and thoughts you inspire, Holy Spirit, will enrich my ability to live enthusiastically and forcefully. You will fill my mind with great and powerful images. All I have to do is open myself to you.
“The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. […] To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart: for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2729).
Conversation with Christ: Lord, I have the option of letting myself be consumed with thoughts of anger, lust, and power—thoughts that will make me grow old and become a more intense version of myself, closed in on myself. Help me take steps to avoid these temptations. Allow the Holy Spirit to animate my mind and my soul.
Resolution: I will clear my mind by filling my thoughts with God and his things.
"Ai yêu mến Thầy, thì sẽ giữ lời Thầy. Cha của Thầy sẽ yêu mến người ấy. Cha của Thầy và Thầy sẽ đến và ở lại với người ấy. " (Jn 14:23) Đây là lời hứa của Chúa Kitô đã hứa với chúng ta. Điều này cũng cho chúng ta thấy mối quan hệ mật thiết giữa Chúa Giêsu và Chúa Cha và qua đó Chúa Giêsu cũng đã muốn lôi kéo chúng ta đến một mối quan hệ gần gũi hơn với Thiên Chúa Cha. Bằng cách này, chúng ta được mời gọi để phụ thuộc hoàn toàn vào Thiên Chúa như Chúa Giêsu và qua Ngài mà Thiên Chúa đã thấy được những dấu lạ mà Chúa Giêsu đã làm. Tất cả cuộc sống của Ngài là một sự phản ánh của những sự tốt lành, quyền lực và tình yêu của Thiên Chúa. Chúng ta được mời gọi đến với cuộc đời này trong đức tin với Chúa Giêsu, như là khí cụ bình an , tình yêu và công lý của Thiên Chúa, do đó chúng ta có thể đem lại sự sống và hạnh phúc cho những người khác qua Chúa Giêsu. Điều này cũng được thực hiện bởi quyền năng của Chúa Thánh Thần luôn liên tục hành động trong và qua chúng ta. Tuy nhiên, chúng ta thường hay bị thất bại trong mối quan hệ này với Thiên Chúa bởi vì chúng ta để cho những thứ ham muốn và quyền lực của thế gian này làm ảnh hưởng và kiểm soát cuộc sống của chúng ta.
Lạy Chúa, xin ban cho chúng con những ân sủng của Chúa để chúng con luôn luôn được nhắc nhở là chúng con phải biết tập trung và tuân theo tất cả những gì mà Chúa đã dạy chúng con và chúng phải biết dựa vào Chúa Thánh Thần của Chúa để chúng con có thể được hướng dẫn trong ánh sáng cứu rỗi của Chúa..
The purpose of this promise is to express the unrestricted scope of the personal relationship between God, Jesus and the believers. This is also made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit who continues to act in and through us. However, we often fail in this relationship by allowing worldly values to influence and control our lives. We lose track of the ‘focus’ and like the ‘crowd’ in the first reading, we become attached to worldly things — wealth, power, fame and status and other inordinate attachments. We need to remain faithful and persevering in our response to the love God has so graciously given us.
Lord, grant us the grace to always be reminded of all that You have taught us and to rely on Your Holy Spirit for guidance and light.
“I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” John 14:25–26
Sometimes we forget all that God has spoken to us. For example, we may have some clear experience of God’s presence in our lives, such as a powerful spiritual insight gained through prayer, a deep conviction of His voice spoken through a sermon, the transforming freedom encountered through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or some form of unmistakable clarity imparted through the reading of the holy Scriptures. When God speaks to us, imparting His Truth, strength, forgiveness and every other form of grace, we are spiritually consoled as we sense His closeness. But when trouble comes our way, those moments of clarity can be easily lost.
The disciples would have had many clarifying experiences during the three years of Jesus’ public ministry. They marveled at the spiritual authority they encountered in His sermons, witnessed countless miracles, looked on as sinners were set free, saw Jesus transfigured in glory, and watched our Lord enter deeply into prayer with the Father. Each time they encountered the power of God at work, they would have grown in their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the World. But Jesus also knew that these disciples would soon have their faith in Him shaken. He knew that as they looked on from a distance in fear as Jesus was arrested, beaten and killed, they would start to forget all that they previously experienced. Fear can cause confusion, and Jesus knew that His disciples would soon fall into that trap. For this reason, Jesus spoke the words above to His disciples. He promised them that the Holy Spirit would soon come upon them to teach them everything and to remind them all that He told them.
How nice it would be if every lesson we ever learned from God remained front and center in our lives. How nice it would be if we never allowed fear to confuse us and cause us to forget all that God has spoken to us in varied ways. Just as Jesus knew the disciples would need the help of the Holy Spirit to remember, He also knows that we need the same help from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the words spoken to the disciples above are also spoken to us. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
What lessons of faith have you learned in the past that you need to be reminded of? It is the role of the Holy Spirit to bring those lessons to mind every time we need them. Therefore, as we move closer to the glorious celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost, it is a good time to pray to the Holy Spirit and ask for the gift of remembering the many ways that God has revealed Himself to us. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit work in perfect harmony with each other, but each has a distinct role in our lives. The Holy Spirit’s role is especially to lead us day-by-day into the fulfillment of the Father’s will of becoming perfectly conformed to the Person of Christ Jesus.
Reflect, today, upon this powerful promise that our Lord gave to His disciples and to us. Pray to the Holy Spirit. Open yourself to the Spirit’s ongoing direction in your life and never allow fear to lead to confusion. Instead, allow God to dispel all confusion and to remind you of all that He has spoken to you throughout your life.
Most glorious Lord Jesus, You promised the disciples and all Your people that the Holy Spirit would be sent to us to remind us of all that You have revealed. Holy Spirit, please continuously descend upon me, teach me and guide me. Help me to never forget the many lessons I have been taught so that I will never let fear lead to confusion. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth. Inflame my heart with the grace of your Spirit. Enlighten my mind with the wisdom of your Spirit. Remind me of all that your Son did and taught. Help me to be docile to your commandments.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Love in Action: At the Last Supper, Jesus teaches his disciples that love is not merely a passive feeling or emotion, but something much deeper. True love – love for God above all things and love of neighbor – is expressed in action, sacrifice, and self-giving. Love is connected by Jesus to observing his commandments and keeping his word. He commands us to put God in the first place, to resist the temptations to power, pride, pleasure, and possessions, to be detached from earthly goods, to serve the poor, and to be docile to the Spirit. Keeping Jesus’ word means frequently meditating on His teachings and parables, especially those related to the Kingdom of God, and putting them into practice. It means listening to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and embracing the life Jesus lived – a life, for example, of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
2. Love and Indwelling: Jesus complements his teaching on love and keeping the commandments by speaking at the Last Supper about the mystery of divine indwelling. Keeping the commandments is not the goal of our lives or the covenant with God, but is the way we stay in a loving and covenant relationship with God. It is the way we maintain the divine life we have gratuitously received from God the Father through Jesus Christ. Through our baptism and the effusion of divine grace, the triune God dwells within us in the depths of our being. The presence of the Word within us especially guides our thinking through the gift of wisdom. The presence of the Spirit within us especially guides our actions through the gift of charity.
3. Our Loving Advocate: Knowing that he will be crucified the following day, Jesus reveals the mystery of the Spirit at the Last Supper. He promises that the Father will send the Spirit to us in his name and that the Spirit will accomplish two important works. First, the Spirit will teach us everything. This plays out in our individual lives and the history of the Church. Jesus is the definitive Word of the Father and the fullness of divine revelation. But the Spirit guides the Church to understand what Jesus, the Word of God, has revealed. The second work of the Spirit that Jesus highlights is remembrance – the Spirit will remind the Apostles and us of what Jesus told them. Some of this is captured in a written form in the four Gospels. Over the course of a few decades, the four evangelists were at work: the Apostle Matthew wrote down what he heard Jesus say and what he saw Jesus did; the evangelist Mark wrote down what Peter preached to the Gentiles in Rome about Jesus’ words and life, the evangelist Luke wrote down what eyewitnesses and others, like Paul, knew about Jesus’ teaching and actions, and the Apostle John complemented what the other evangelists wrote through what he taught the early Christian community about Jesus’ signs and teaching. All four were inspired by the Holy Spirit, who guided their writing by reminding them of what Jesus told his disciples and accomplished in his public ministry.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, thank you for sending the Spirit to teach and guide the members of your Body, the Church. I love you, Lord, and desire to obey the commandments of you and your Father. Reveal your love to me and comfort me with your merciful grace.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth. Inflame my heart with the grace of your Spirit. Enlighten my mind with the wisdom of your Spirit. Remind me of all that your Son did and taught. Help me to be docile to your commandments.
1. God’s Plan: God brings to fulfillment his plan of salvation through Jesus’ redemptive passion and death on the cross. This plan is crowned by the sending of the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the new people of God and accomplishes the redemption of all nations. This redemption is accomplished by the Spirit in different ways. On the one hand, the gift of saving grace is given through the Gift of the Holy Spirit. On the other, the Spirit is the Spirit of truth, who after Christ’s departure to the Father, preserves “among the disciples the truth which he had announced and revealed” (John Paul II, May 17, 1989). The essential task of Christ’s apostles and disciples is to remain in God’s truth and be led by the Holy Spirit to the knowledge of all truth (John 16:3). The Spirit bears witness to Christ and disclose the content of revealed truth within the Church, so that she may proclaim it to the whole world (John Paul II, May 17, 1989).
1. The Danger: It is easy to forget you, Lord, especially with all the images that are around me. Every image I harbor in my heart, every emotion I abandon myself to leaves its mark. These can come from the radio, the Internet, songs, novels… anywhere. They seem to swamp my mind and make it easier to forget you. These images and emotions can also impoverish, degrade, limit and reduce my ability to extract from life its magnificent content, usefulness, and happiness. You remind me that I should use everything only in as much as it helps me to reach you, my final goal.
2. The Gift: On the other hand, I know you have sent us the gift of the Holy Spirit. As you promise in this Gospel, he will never stop reminding me of you. All I have to do is let his projector fill my imagination with images, with thoughts, with insights. Of course, I also have to use the world’s media correctly and in moderation. Holy Spirit, I know you are near; take possession of my soul and make it all your own. Guide my every decision so that I choose what is right and reject what is evil.
3. Accepting the Gift: When I do forget, the Holy Spirit will remind me of all that Christ has said. All of the emotions and thoughts you inspire, Holy Spirit, will enrich my ability to live enthusiastically and forcefully. You will fill my mind with great and powerful images. All I have to do is open myself to you.
“The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. […] To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart: for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2729).
Conversation with Christ: Lord, I have the option of letting myself be consumed with thoughts of anger, lust, and power—thoughts that will make me grow old and become a more intense version of myself, closed in on myself. Help me take steps to avoid these temptations. Allow the Holy Spirit to animate my mind and my soul.
Resolution: I will clear my mind by filling my thoughts with God and his things.
No comments:
Post a Comment