In the introduction of the book, In the School of the Holy Spirit, Fr. Jacques Philippe quotes Sr. Faustina: “My Jesus, it is truly easy to become holy; it just takes a little goodwill! And if He finds this minimum of goodwill in the soul, he quickly gives Himself to her. And nothing can stop Him, neither our faults nor our falls, absolutely nothing. Jesus hurries to help that soul; and if that the soul is faithful to this grace from God, she can in a short time reached the highest level of holiness that a created being can attain here below. God is very generous and does not refuse His grace to anyone. He gives even more than we ask for. The shortest road is faithfulness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.”
If the shortest road to obeying the movements of the Holy Spirit is faithfulness, then the longest and crookedest road to obeying the movements of the Holy Spirit is our attachment to sin. Our unwillingness to not only be obedient to the commandments of God but to give witness to the good news of Jesus Christ in our lives.
Fr. Philippe states “we cannot receive the motions of the Holy Spirit if we our rigidly attached to our possessions, our ideas, or our point of view… if some particular thing, or habit, or relationship, or personal plan is taken from us, we don’t make a drama out of being deprived of it.”
Jesus wants us to surrender and to renounce everything in our lives that we have welcome into our minds and hearts that is not of the Him. We want to renounce and surrender, our jealousy, resentment, our bitterness, our greed, our inadequacies, our lust, our doubt, our fear, our anxiety, our addictions, our unforgiveness, our lies, our unfaithfulness, our lack of compassion and charity, our gossip, our critical judgment of others, our complacency, our lukewarmness of faith, our mediocrity, our lack of trust and I am sure I forgot some. Ask the Holy Spirit and He will reveal them to you. Jesus wants us to forgive anyone who has hurt us and He even asks us to bless them in His name.
As we continue to pray and fast in anticipation of the out pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost this coming Sunday, I invite you to take some time in your prayer this week to mediate on what road you our traveling on — the shortest or the longest.
The greatest ways to prepare your heart for this new and fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit in your life is through the Sacrament of Penance. I cannot encourage you enough to go to confession, lay it all out before the Lord before this great feast of outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit — Come Now – Come as You May