THE HOLY SPIRIT REPOSES IN JUST SOULS LIKE THE DOVE IN HER NEST

April is the month devoted to the Holy Ghost. I only learnt this recently, after I I looked it up online (catechesis by way of Google search). I had wanted to devote this month's posts to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, but time did not allow for me to do enough research and reading, and in the time of coronavirus, I felt an urgency to write on the healing and protection afforded by devotion to the Holy Name and the value of making a Spiritual Communion in our days of church closures and streaming Masses as opposed to assisting in the flesh. But I can't let April slip by without meditating on the Holy Ghost, which is also a preparation for Pentecost. For this purpose, I have relied on the golden insights from a famous sermon given by the the Curé of Ars:

"Man is all earthly and all animal; nothing but the Holy Spirit can elevate his mind, and raise it on high. Why were the saints so detached from the earth? Because they let themselves be led by the Holy Spirit. Those who are led by the Holy Spirit have true ideas; that is the reason why so many ignorant people are wiser than the learned...That is the reason why the most Holy Virgin never sinned. The Holy Ghost made her understand the hideousness of sin; she shuddered with terror at the least fault…. The proud are those who have not the Holy Spirit….A Christian who is led by the Holy Spirit has no difficulty in leaving the goods of this world, to run after those of Heaven…A soul that possesses the Holy Spirit tastes such sweetness in prayer, that they cannot find sufficient time to pray... Such a heart, before our good Savior in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, is a bunch of grapes under the wine press. The Holy Spirit forms thoughts and suggests words in the hearts of the just….

You, who are not great saints, you still have many moments when you taste the sweetness of prayer and of the presence of God: these are visits of the Holy Spirit....The Holy Spirit reposes in just souls like the dove in her nest….The Holy Spirit leads us as a mother leads by the hand her child of two years old, as a person who can see leads one who is blind….The Sacraments which Our Lord instituted would not have saved us without the Holy Spirit. Even the death of Our Lord would have been useless to us without Him. Therefore Our Lord said to His Apostles, “It is good for you that I should go away; for if I did not go, the Consoler would not come”. The descent of the Holy Ghost was required, to render fruitful that harvest of graces. It is like a grain of wheat–you cast it into the ground; yes, but it must have sun and rain to make it grow and come into ear. We should say every morning, "O God, send me Thy Spirit to teach me what I am and what Thou art"."