A friend wrote this on facebook the other day. Bingo:

I woke up with a question on my heart: what makes you truly happy? My heart responded, “Simplifying. Taking care of others, not thinking of myself.” The Spirit opened unexpected avenues for those things to happen. Yea!

“The most deadly poison of our time is indifference. And this happens although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers.” — St. Maximilian Kolbe

“If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice, forgive him—lest there be two bad men.” — St. Augustine

Today St Paul says in our first reading (2 Cor 3:11): “For if what was going to fade was glorious, how much more will what endures be glorious.”  We talk about glorious days, glorious meals, glorious skies, etc…..but this ain’t nothin’ compared to what is to come.

Without cost, you have received. Without cost, you are to give. – Jesus

Today we celebrate Mary Mother of the Church, a new feast day installed last year by Pope Francis to be celebrated the Monday after Pentecost each year. Mary is Mother of the Church. Our churches (including our domestic churches, our homes) should all have statues of Mary, pictures of her everywhere. The Church (again, also domestic church) must shine the light on Mary….for she brings us to Jesus and keeps us holy.  I remember being the associate at OLG. Once, when Msgr was on vacation, I installed a statue of Mary in front of the house. When he came back, Msgr pretended to be frustrated with me over it…but then I found him a few weeks later installing a spotlight to shine on her all night long.  How brightly are we shining our light on Blessed Mother?  Or do we prefer to keep her in the dark?

Today’s celebration of Pentecost focuses our attention on the HS, the third person of the Holy Trinity

Yes- the Holy Spirit is a PERSON!  The Holy Spirit is not an “IT”….We cannot reduce the Holy Spirit to an “IT”, simply some power or force…The Holy Spirit is a PERSON of the Trinity, with whom we are to have a relationship!  It is the Holy Spirit who speaks to us daily with inspirations.

• which pronoun?  He or She?
• the gender of the Holy Spirit has been the subject of some debate from earliest times. The grammatical gender of the word for “spirit” is neuter in Greek (πνεῦμα, pneûma) and masculine in Latin (spiritus)….and so we traditionally assign the masculine pronoun since we believe the Holy Spirit to be the Spouse of Blessed Mother (who conceived in her womb JESUS),
• The Spirit CREATES and CONCEIVES IN US too!!!!!!!!!!!!

Point is: the Holy Spirit is always talking to us, creating in us and through us, renewing hte world in us and through us (did you hear out pslam today?)….but HOW???

By means of HOLY INSPIRATIONS — call them impulses, promptings, feelings inside, inspirations….it means you hear the Spirit dwelling within telling you to do something!

St Faustina wrote: “The shortest way to holiness is faithfulness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.” Faithfulness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit is also the shortest way to heaven, to spiritual health, to making heaven on earth, to happiness, to all the gifts and fruits of the Spirit which I list in the bulletin this weekend

Two things we got to do to be faithful to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit – HEAR IT, DO IT (the “it” is the inspiration of the HS)
1) HEAR IT – be alert to recognize the Holy Spirit … A lot of people sleepwalk through life, a lot of people walk around in a haze, in a vacuum, so much noise they can’t hear God….
2) DO IT – put into practice the inspirations of the Holy Spirit

St. Francis de Sales says, “Those who keep their hearts open to holy inspirations are happy!”  St Paul says, “All those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God” (Rom 8:14).

The inspirations are God’s way of leading us…. and I have to think so many people are so miserable because they fight against God their whole lives…“You either do what God wants or you’ll fight him your whole life.” Msgr Tony Volz

We have to resolve to refuse God nothing…and he will do ANYTHING through us!!!!  Send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth!  He does that inasmuch as we are faihful to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit

Examples– SVDP society, adoration chapel, those who serve our parishes so beautifully, those who feel the impulse of the Holy Spirit to love when it isn’t easy to love, etc

Homework: Be on the lookout for some INSPIRATION of the Holy Spirit– some prompting, some inkling, some impulse, some thing you need to do something about??  Maybe a courageous conversation, maybe volunteering for something at church, maybe finally going to confession, maybe getting on a weight loss plan, who knows!

Now, then, pray about it and then DO IT

But a warning: the Devil tries to talk us into a lot of things, too.  Don’t go listening to any evil spirits.  How do you know the inspiration you’re hearing is from God?

• God never contradicts himself- he won’t tell you to break a commandment, he won’t tell you to defy the Church.
• God will never ask us to do something that isn’t in sync with your vocation.
• God never calls us to make bad fruit – an inspiration from God, if we follow it, produces sound fruit:  peace, joy, charity, communion, humility, peace.  An inspiration coming from the devil produces sadness, pride, bitterness, darkness, worry, or even sterility — the experience of the Church and the saints demonstrates this!