God’s great love and care again manifests itself on this Feast of Pentecost. The dwelling of Holy Spirit in us is central to the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales.
Love is the life of the heart. The Holy Spirit who has been given to us pours divine love into our hearts. The Spirit is like a fountain of living water that flows into every part of our hearts so as to spread its grace. Grace has the power to entice our hearts. Through the Holy Spirit, God awakens and enlivens our hearts to their own good. We often need to be stirred up and led by the hand to put our strength and skills to proper use.
If we wish to become aware of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we must wean ourselves from our willfulness and adjust our will to that of God’s will. We must be like clay in the hands of the potter, so that God may shape us and lead us to true spiritual health. While we can not prevent God from inspiring our hearts, we do have the power to reject God’s desire to love us. Also, the Spirit has no wish to work in us without our consent. Yet, even if we give just a little of our consent to God’s inspirations, what happiness results!
The sole fruit of the Holy Spirit, divine love, gives us inward joy and consolation together with great peace of heart, which is preserved in adversity by patience. Holy love makes us kind and gracious in helping our neighbors with a heart-felt goodness toward them. Such goodness from the Holy Spirit is constant and persevering, and gives us an enduring courage that renders us mild, pleasant and considerate of all others. We put up with their moods and imperfections. We live a life of simplicity that testifies to our words and actions. Divine love is the virtue of all virtues. Let us cherish and nurture the indwelling of the Spirit so that God’s love may reign in us.
(Adapted from the writings of St. Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal).
