(POST CONFIRMATION
CATECHESIS)
Belonging
to Christ evokes the idea of having a personal transforming encounter with
Christ (Ad Gentes 13; Ecclesia in Africa
57; Africae Munus 165; Vision Statement A4). It is more commonly referred to as having a
personal relationship with Christ.
The
outcome of such an encounter, “a Damascus
moment,” is that one experiences a renewed awareness of the presence of
God, of the Love of the Father, of the closeness of Jesus, of the warmth of
the Spirit. It is difficult to
describe this moment as different people experience it differently. Suffice it to say it is an experience
of the heart and not the head. It is
human and physical rather than theological and intellectual. Christ becomes real. The relationship is personal, not impersonal
or theoretical. Like Andrew, one can say
“I have found the Messia” (John 1:40) or with St Paul “Christ lives in me”
(Gal. 2:20). This sense of belonging to
Christ, of being personally bonded to Christ flows over to the relationship and
membership of the Church. It is an
emotional bonding rather than a rational bonding.
Belonging
to Christ is intimately linked to the universal call to holiness of Vatican II “Everyone
is called to a profound interior renewal so that, having a lively
awareness of their personal responsibility for the spreading of the gospel,
they may play their part in missionary work among the nations” (Lumen Gentium Ch. 5; Ad Gentes 35;
Redemptoris Missio 77; Novo Millennio 30; Africae Munus 129)
Missionary
drive has always been a sign of vitality just as its lessening is a sign of a
crisis of faith (RM 2). “The evangelizing
activity of a Christian community is the clearest sign of a mature faith” (RM
48). Of course the pastoral care is
necessary, but it is a question of how the dynamic of evangelizing has been
allowed to diminish. Evangelizing over
time became the prerogative of missionary congregations and with diminishing
vocations to the religious life this evangelizing thrust has weakened. It is
time that the laity become aware of their vocation: they are missionaries by
virtue of their baptism (RM 71). Through
Baptism the person is incorporated into the mission of Jesus, the other
sacraments are a deepening or confirmation of the calling to mission, that is
to proclaim the Gospel and to spread the Kingdom of God. (SACBC Consultation Phase 3)
---oooOooo---
SIGNS OF NEW LIFE IN THE
SPIRIT : ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI
1. The Person 0f Jesus comes alive for us. After all, did Jesus not promise “If anyone
loves me .... I shall love him and show myself to him”? (Jn. 14:2)
This
has happened dramatically in the lives of many saints. But I would like to examine one of the
greatest and most loved saints in history:
St Francis of Assisi. He became “bananas for Jesus”! His biographer says of him: ‘He was always
occupied with Jesus; Jesus he bore in his heart, Jesus in his mouth, Jesus in
his ears, Jesus in his eyes, Jesus in his hands, Jesus in the rest of his
members... Many times as he went along the way meditating on and singing of
Jesus, he would forget his journey and invite all creation to praise
Jesus’. (1 Cel. 115)
2, Seeing Jesus in all Creation. One begins to see the whole of creation as a
forest of symbols pointing beyond themselves to Christ, ‘for in Him were
created all things in heaven and on earth’. (Col. 1:15) Gerard Manley Hopkins said that ‘all things
are charged with love are charged with God ... and flow and ring and tell of
Him’.
St
Francis of Assisi exalted in this knowledge for it was said of him that ‘he
beheld in fair things Him who is most fair’ (i.e. Jesus).
The
great St Augustine once wrote: “All these beautiful things which you see, which
you love, He made. If these are
beautiful, what is He Himself? If these
are great, how great must He be?
Therefore, from those things which we love here, let us the more long
for Him, that by that very love we may purify our hearts by faith and his
vision, when it comes, may find our
hearts purified”. (Commentary on the
84th Psalm)
3. The word of God comes alive in a
dramatic way, not just nice, appealing parts of the Gospel, but also the
‘hard sayings’ of the Gospel – in fact, the Full Gospel.
The
Word of God came alive for St Francis at his Conversion. He once said: “It is good to read what
Scripture testifies, good to seek out Our Lord in it. For my part, I have fixed in mind so much of
the Scriptures that it now suffices most amply for my meditation and
reflection. I do not need very much ....
(for) I know about poor Christ crucified”. (2 Cel. 105)
St
Francis is thoroughly Biblical in his writing.
He quotes from the Bible over 200 times in his very few writings as he
did not write much. He alludes to 14
books of the Old Testament and all the books in the New Testament. His famous poem (the first poem in the Oxford
Book of Italian Verse as it was
the first in the Italian vernacular) has seven phrases, which are from the Book
of Revelation alone.
There
are 2 Greek words for the Word of God to be found in the Bible;
A. LOGOS – the Word of God addressed to all
e.g. the Ten Commandments.
B. RAYMA – or ‘the individual Scripture
which the Spirit brings to our remembrance for use in time of need’. (Vine’s Expository Dict. 230) – a
prerequisite being the regular storing of the mind with Scripture, like St
Francis of Assisi who had fixed in his mind so much of the Scriptures that
the Spirit could call them to mind.
St
Francis was at Mass one day when a passage was read from the Gospel. St Francis was overjoyed and grasped the
meaning of the passage immediately and said ‘This is what I want’. When we get a personal rayma from the Lord,
it is as if that Biblical passage is meant for us alone and we know it!
We
also see this reminding by the Holy Spirit in a definite, personal way in the
life of St Anthony of the Desert (born in Egypt + 250 A.D.) He once went into Church, “It happened that
the Gospel was then being read and he heard what the Lord had said to the rich
young man, ‘If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the
poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me’. As though this reminder of the saint had been
sent to him by God, and as though that passage had been read specially
for his sake, Anthony went out immediately, and gave to the villagers the
possessions he had inherited from his ancestors”. From the (Liturgy of the Hours I, p.84)
4. Prayer becomes a delight and a need,
and not something tedious and boring.
The biographer of St Francis said that after his Conversion, St Francis
became ‘a living prayer’. Experts on St
Francis say that even though he was a dynamic and anointed preacher, he spent
75% of his time alone in hermitages praying, and in communion with God (cf. John M. Talbot, The Lover, 87),
especially the prayer of praise: ‘Sing the praises of the one who called you
out of darkness into His wonderful light’. (1 Pet. 2:9)
5. The fear we have of death goes, and
hope and longing for Heaven, our true home, increases, for ‘perfect love casts
out all fear’ (1 Jn. 4:18) and
‘To live is Christ, to die is gain’(Phil. 1:21) – is gain as it
means seeing Christ face to face in Heaven.
St Francis welcomed ‘Sister Death’ with all his heart. St Francis composed a catchy song: ‘So great
the good I have in sight, that any pain is my delight’. Like Jesus: ‘for the sake of the joy which
was still in the future, He endured the cross. (Heb. 12:2)
6. Charity, love or compassion increases
as the love of Jesus grows within us, especially for the poor, the rejects and
marginalized, for Christ came to save the lost and bring good news to the poor. St Francis said: ‘When I was in sin (before
his Conversion) I found it an exceedingly bitter sight to see lepers. Then the Lord brought me among them and I
treated them with compassion. When I
came away from them, what I found bitter was changed to sweetness of soul and
body’. (Testament) ‘Perfect love
casts out all fear’, nausea, all disgust as was the case with Jesus in
Palestine who cared for the lepers, sick and handicapped with love and mercy.
St
Paul praised the Galatians for their charity: “you never showed the least sign
of being revolted or disgusted by my disease; instead you welcomed me as an
angel of God, as if I were Jesus himself”. (4:14)
7. Joy – one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit
which we receive in Conversion (see Gal. 5). C.S. Lewis, when he was converted from
atheism to Jesus, was overwhelmed by joy.
In fact, he called his story of his Conversion: SURPRISED BY JOY.
For
St Francis, he would become so joyful, that he would pick up sticks in the
forest and, pretending to be playing the fiddle, he would dance for joy. Joyful praise overflows from the grateful
converted heart. When we experience the
joy of having all our sins forgiven by God, we desire to repay Him in some way,
if that is possible, like the Psalmist in Psalm 116: “How can I repay
the Lord for His goodness to me?” (v.13)
Some people decide to give all their lives to God and serve Him alone,
as a priest, sister or missionary.
8. Self Control. Another fruit of the Spirit that comes with
Conversion is Self Control. Many
people experience urges or passions that they are ashamed of, but do not know
how to control. This fruit of the Spirit
means a victorious life and liberation from the cravings and temptations of the
flesh – part of the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Rom. 8:21) We are in control of the body and its endless
desires, not the body in control of us!
St Francis, early in his life when he was tempted violently by lust,
threw himself naked into a ditch full of snow!
9. Enlightenment: The New Testament promises that the followers
of Jesus would be enlightened. In
the early Church, Baptism was called ‘enlightenment’ because very often people
experience an interior light in their souls which comes from God. ‘The Word was the true light that enlightens
all men’. (Jn. 1:9)
The
New Testament says that God is light (1 Jn. 1:5). Jesus is the light of the world (Jn. 3:19)
and enlightens every man (Jn. 1:9).
Sons of God are called sons and daughters of light. (Lk. 16:8). Light is identified with the life which
Christ communicates (Jn. 1:4)(cf. J.L. McKenzie, Dictionary on Light)
The
following prayer was said by St Francis before his Conversion as he prayed for
enlightenment: “Most High and Glorious Lord, bring light to the darkness of my
heart. Give me right faith, certain hope
and perfect charity. Lord give me
insight and wisdom, so I might always discern your holy and true will”.
10. For many at Conversion the full reality of Christ’s
beloved Church comes alive and the Church no longer seems just an
institution, but a divine institution set up by Jesus. It is His Body and the ‘Church of the living
God, which upholds the truth and keeps it safe’. (1 Tim. 3:15) One cannot love Jesus and ignore his Body the
Church. “Let us be concerned for each
other, to stir a response in love and good works. Do not stay away from the meetings of the
Church, as some do, but encourage each other to go”. (Heb. 10:24)
After
his Conversion, the Mass became the centre of his life for St Francis of
Assisi. The real Presence of Christ in
the Eucharistic Bread was so real for him that St Francis, in the famous
re-enactment of the first Christmas at Bethlehem in a little Italian town of
Greccio, had the Mass celebrated over the manger where the model of the baby
Jesus lay, because St Francis believed that Jesus of Bethlehem and the
consecrated host were one and the same.
When
Francis could not receive Jesus at Mass because Mass was not available, St
Francis had Spiritual Communion with Jesus.
He once said: “when I cannot hear Mass, I adore the Body of Christ with
the eyes of the mind in prayer, just as I adore it when I see it at Mass”. The Rule of St Francis begins and ends with
loyalty to the Pope and his legitimate successors. He would not preach in any Diocese without
the Bishop’s permission first.
St
Francis was called a VIR APOSTOLICUS ET CATHOLICUS as he was both an
Apostolic and Evangelical preacher AND also very loyal to the Catholic
Church. Not one or the other, but BOTH,
and this was the source of his remarkable work for God. There were many renewal movements in his day,
but all wandered into heresy and have now disappeared, whereas his movement has
not.
Will
Herberg, the American Jewish sociologist, once remarked that ‘no reform movement
in the Catholic Church through 2000 years has had any lasting success if
it was opposed to, or unsupported by the Pope in Rome’. St Francis succeeded because he was very
loyal to the Catholic Church and its teaching and after his conversion found in
Her a spiritual home which enabled him to grow to the heights of holiness and
perfection.
11. Testing:
Trials and Tribulations: With
Conversion comes the period of pruning (Jn. 15:2; See Heb. 12:12)
and testing (Mk. 14:38) when the world, the flesh and the devil (Mk.
4:13f) will sift us like wheat to test the purity of our intentions and the
sincerity of our Conversion. See Mk.
4:17 re ‘some trial coming’.
Jesus
requested his disciples to pray the Lord’s Prayer frequently with the
last verse “Do not put us to the test but save us from the evil one”. (Mt.
6:13, Jerusalem Bible Version).
Testing
is defined as putting someone in a situation which involves the possibility of
failure. We pray fervently that we may
have the faith to come through all the trials that lie ahead. ‘We must enter the Kingdom through many
tribulations’. (Acts 14:22). Christianity is definitely not for cowards: (Lk.
12:8; Rev. 21:8)
St
Francis talked of “the trials permitted to test the elect, because only those
who stand approved will receive the crown of life”. (2C. 157)
It
grieved St Francis to see learning pursued where virtue was neglected and he
warned that “tribulation is going to come, such that, useless for any purpose,
their books will be flung out of windows and into cubby-holes”. (2C. 195)
St
Augustine once remarked that “whenever we suffer some distress or tribulations,
there we find warning and correction for ourselves”. (D.O. III, p.441) and: “Our pilgrimage here
on earth cannot be without trial for it is through trial that we make progress
and it is only by being tempted that we come to know ourselves. We cannot win our Crown unless we overcome,
and we cannot overcome unless we enter the contest and there is no contest
unless we have an enemy (i.e. Satan) and the trial he brings”. (D.O. II, p.94)
Someone
once said that “adversity is only sand on your track to prevent you from
skidding” and St Bonaventure believed that “adversity is one of the best means
of sharpening a person’s spiritual perception”.
The Psalmist would agree as he admitted that “it was good for me to be
afflicted for it has taught me your Word”. (119:67)
NEW LIFE IN THE SPIRIT :
MARIA ORSOLA BUSSONE
Maria
Orsola Bussone was just an ordinary Italian schoolgirl who lived with her
parents and younger brother George. Her
family were devout Catholics, and comfortably off, and so Maria could pursue
her craze for sports like skiing and swimming at seaside resorts like Venice. She took sport very seriously and she played
to win! As a determined character with a
sharp temper, she did not suffer fools gladly, especially at sport, and woe
betide anyone who cheated!
She
was regarded by her peers as a vivaciously beautiful teenager who had lots of
boy admirers at school. Not only was she
very pretty, but also pretty smart, as she won a bursary at school to visit
other countries. She had a beautiful
voice and was much in demand by youth groups.
She was mad about pop music and one of her heroes was Martin Luther
King, who was killed for his deeply held convictions.
On
July 10th 1970, Maria was electrocuted by her hair dryer after an
afternoon’s youth camp at the seaside.
She was only 16. But news of her
death caught the public imagination and began to spread abroad as far away as
Germany, England and Brazil. Two
thousand people came to her funeral, mostly youth. Soon her life which seemed to be no different
from that of most teenagers, was the subject of a TV programme and has been
published in three languages. Overnight
she had become the friend and inspiration of many young people in different
parts of the world.
They
come today from all over the world to her simple grave with the following words
inscribed on her tombstone: “Be brave, I have overcome the world”. (John
16:33) In fact, some of these young
admirers volunteered at her death to help build the Maria Orsola Community
Centre erected in her honour. A young
man, who was greatly inspired by Maria, was ordained a priest 6 years after
Maria’s death, in the presence of a huge crowd of young people from all over
the world. After the ordination was
over, three more young men requested the Cardinal to also go on for the
priesthood. So what was Maria’s
attraction? How could a young Italian
from a remote mountain village in north-west Italy come to exert such a wide
influence in so short a time? In fact,
there is even a Maria Orsola website on the Internet.
Maria
was just an ordinary Italian teenager until 1967, a few years before her
death. She attended a big international
youth rally in Rome organised by the Chiara Lubich Focolare organisation – one
of the ‘new movements’ in the church.
The whole purpose of the event was to allow large numbers from 5
continents to experience the power of the Gospel to make one family out of very
different people, normally divided by culture, language and creed.
Some
of the members of this ‘new movement’ decided to model their lives on the Acts
of the Apostles where “the faithful all lived together and owned everything in
common” (Acts 2:44) and “remained faithful to the apostolic teaching, to the
fellowship, to the Eucharist and to the prayers”. (Acts 2:42)
Maria
and her friends were overwhelmed by this large and fervent gathering in
Rome. They had discovered the ‘pearl of
great price’ and the ‘great treasure’ (Mt. 13:44) and now they wanted to share
it with everyone. This was the beginning
of her conversion process and this we know from the secret diary that she kept
and from her letters. This conversion
did not happen overnight, but slowly like live yeast rising in lifeless dough.
Since
the teenage years are usually a time of raging hormones and rebellion, Maria
had no easy task in following Christ.
She constantly referred to St Paul’s image of the ‘old man’ of the flesh
rebelling against the new spiritual man.
Her spiritual life was rather like a corkscrew – as one thread of the
spiral ascended, the other went down; the good spirit and the bad warred within
her constantly. At one moment she was
longing to make love and the next protesting against her selfish animal
instincts: ‘we foul the most beautiful things God has given us’. (69)
In
the short life of Maria Orsola we can see nearly all the typical
characteristics of conversion. For
example:
1. THE PERSON OF JESUS CAME ALIVE FOR HER so
that she could write: “There amongst us was Jesus... and Jesus is Light and Strength and
Life. God is truly the only thing worth
possessing in our life; it doesn’t matter if we lose everything; what counts is
having him”. (33) “If Jesus was asking me to do something” she once said, “I’d
run at top speed”, (40) and “I wanted to love God and desired to do so with all
my heart”. (159) Her constant prayer was
“Jesus I long to want to love you”. (100)
2. Since all things “were created through Him
and for Him (Col. 1:16) that is Jesus, she learnt to see him also in all
creation and glorify him in it. On
one occasion she was travelling and the varied beauty of the landscape as the
train she was on sped through the Alps and the Ardennes made her think them ‘more
perfect, more beautiful, more immense, more everything than all the things God
has made”. (83) Her constant refrain was ‘how beautiful life is! Long live life’. (61)
3. THE WORD OF GOD CAME ALIVE FOR HER: Maria once wrote: “I believe in the Gospel
and in God. So I only have to pick up a
New Testament, read a bit every day and live; true and beautiful!” (81) She
recorded in her writings that Words of Life from the Bible kept on rescuing her
from her bad habits. (39) She was
convicted and challenged by the Word of God.
4. PRAYER BECAME A PASSION FOR HER and so
she wrote of ‘the power and joy of continuous prayer’. (108) Even when her prayer was dry and arid and
required a great effort to make, she just kept on praying. (104) Her prayer was full of thanksgiving and a
thankful heart is a happy heart: “Once more, only and always thanks! Help me to say ‘yes’ to you! It’s been marvellous; there was suffering...
but so much joy. Suffering, and sorrow
are nothing compared with the joy, the light, the peace you have given me”.
(95)
5. THE FEAR OF DEATH RECEDED: Maria could honestly say with St Paul “For me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain”. (Phil. 1:21) She once explained that to her way of
thinking death was a feast because dying meant going to meet Jesus and
therefore a funeral should be a joyful affair with all the external things
expressing that joy. (128)
6. WHEN GOD’S LOVE IS POURED INTO A PERSON’S
HEART (Rom. 5:5) THEIR LOVE FOR OTHER PEOPLE INCREASES ESPECIALLY FOR
THE POOR AND THE NEEDY. Maria
confesses in her Diary that one day at lunch while she was waiting at table “I
tried to put myself continually in God and see Jesus in all”. (46) Once when she found some unmade beds at home
she made them unobtrusively for her overworked mother, remembering Jesus’ words
‘Be merciful as your Father is merciful’. (Luke 6:36) Maria and her friends fasted and collected
money regularly for a poor, neglected Bangwa tribe in Cameroon that was facing
extinction. Once, Maria was discussing
with some non-Christian girls overseas the meaning of true love and its
counterfeits: “If they only knew what love really means, that it is not a
sentiment but means being able to lose, to love Jesus etc., then going to bed
with a boy ... would vanish from their heads”. (84)
7. JOY IS ONE OF THE SIGNS OF TRUE CONVERSION
and Maria wrote in her diary: “Jesus among us is really powerful. He helps you overcome every difficulty and
gives you joy, light, peace and serenity”. (61)
8. SELF-CONTROL AND THE OTHER FRUITS OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT LIKE LOVE, JOY AND PEACE (Gal. 5:22). BEGIN TO OPERATE IN
THE NEWLY CONVERTED: after Maria was
converted she was still very attracted to the boys in her class. In fact, she worried if it’s ‘normal to have
so many crushes’. In one instance she
wrote in her diary: “Our eyes met often.
I look at him and he at me. But I don’t want to fall for him because I
know where it will end up”. (65) ‘To
break up a relationship with a boy is a difficult step, but it must be
taken. If we don’t do it we’re putting
the boy in the first place in our lives and not God’. (78) Yes, indeed, it’s
true that the only thing that makes you happy is God and brings about the true
revolution, while we poor deluded students want to go on strike, hold
demonstrations and have love affairs.” (80)
True love waits.
We
can see the power of self-control in these passages, and strangely enough, it
made her more attractive to the boys, not less so. One of the boys could write about her after
her death: “What fascinated me in her
and her friends was their purity, something I have not found in many
girls. I often feel grateful for this,
for their being a sign of contradiction, a light in all this confusion that has
hit me and my generation”. (73)
The
admirable process of sublimation seems to have been operating in Maria’s
life. Sublimation is defined as the
“unconscious process by which a sexual impulse or its energy is deflected so as
to express itself in some non-sexual and socially acceptable activity”. For a while Maria was infatuated with a boy
called Sandro, who belonged to a pop group and taught her to play the drums,
and liked to buy her presents. The
preoccupation with Sandro led to her school homework suffering. But she learnt to release him from her mind
by praying for his true happiness. Her
message to him was: “Sandro, if you knew how wonderful it is to live for God,
I’m sure you’d commit yourself too ...
Maybe I’m still a little in love with you. Anyway, from now on I’ll love you truly, not
sentimentally, but ready to give my life for you, in short as Jesus does, even
if perhaps we’ll never see each other again”.
(71) If so, she concluded to herself, “I only hope he falls a thousand
percent in love with a girl who is a true Christian. Then you’d see him surrender to God too”.
(71)
As
the old saying goes: “If you love something set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours and if
it doesn’t, it never was”.
9. FOR MANY AT CONVERSION THE CHURCH AND THE
SACRAMENTS BECOME AN IMPORTANT REALITY – after all, the Church is the Body of Christ: Maria caught a glimpse of what the Church can
really be at the big Focalare youth rally she attended in Rome in 1967. She wrote of it in her Diary: “It was a marvellous week”. (33) She attended the sacraments of Confession and
Mass regularly. The Mass became very
important to her and she could write of it in a letter to a friend: “We
finished off with Holy Mass which was the culmination and the most beautiful
moment of the day”. (170)
10. WHEN
THE HOLY SPIRIT BEGINS TO WORK IN
THE NEWLY CONVERTED, HE CONVICTS THEM OF SIN. People feel led to confess their sins (even
the sin of their past life) and attempt to make restitution for anything bad
they have done. On one occasion Maria
had offended her mother, her brother and a friend, and so resolved to set
things right: ‘I’ll go and ask
forgiveness right away’. (62)
11. ALONG WITH THE JOYS OF NEW LIFE, ALSO
COMES TRIALS AND DIFFICULTIES – A PERIOD OF TESTING: Maria is aware of this when she writes to her
friend Enrica “God wants to test you in earnest. Now that you’ve begun again, He doesn’t give
you sweets to make you advance only with enthusiasm, but He wants to see if you
choose Him really and truly and he lets you have disappointments and
sufferings”. (166)
12. TRUE CONVERSION LEADS TO A DESIRE TO
WITNESS TO CHRIST: Pope John Paul II
has said: “Only those who deeply know
the Lord and are converted to His love can become His courageous heralds and
witness; those who experience Him personally feel an irresistible desire to
proclaim Him to everyone”. This was
outstandingly so in the case of Maria as her writings show again and again,
even if others do nothing: ‘we can’t draw back and say the others do nothing,
so we’ll do the same’. (103) And again:
“Like the Virgin Mary I want to be patient, persevering, poor, detached from
everything even from spiritual riches; silent, pure, meek and above all
impatient to witness to him and bring him to others because Jesus died on
the Cross, not just for me, but for everyone without distinction”. (114)
On
the way to witnessing at a meeting for Jesus, she and her friends would pray
the Rosary so as “to ensure that we only gave God and not ourselves”, (72) Maria
insisted. During the meeting, while one
was witnessing, another was praying for God’s blessings. Not even love affairs could be allowed to get
in the way because a loss of control would be a countersign to the youth, Maria
maintained.
FOOTNOTE:
Numbers in brackets refer to the pages of Maria’s biography entitled SHE
DIES SHE LIVES by George Francis, D.L.T. London, 1977.
PRAYER
FOR CONVERSION
Lord
Jesus, I come before you, just as I am.
I am sorry for my sins, I repent of my sins, please forgive me. In Your name, I forgive all others for what
they have done against me. I renounce
Satan, the evil spirits and all their works.
I give you my entire self, Lord Jesus, now and forever. I invite you into my life Jesus, I accept you
as my Lord, God and Saviour. Heal me,
change me, strengthen me in body, soul and spirit. Come Lord Jesus, cover me with your precious
blood, and fill me with your Holy
Spirit. I love you Lord Jesus, I praise
you Jesus. I thank you Jesus.
I
shall follow you every day of my life. Amen’
(Say this prayer
faithfully, no matter how you feel, when you come to the point where you
sincerely mean each word, with all your heart, something good spiritually will
happen to you. You will experience Jesus, and HE will change your whole life in
a very special way).
NEW LIFE IN THE SPIRIT :
JOHN DALRYMPLE
About
30 years ago I underwent what spiritual writers would describe as a fairly
typical religious experience. I was
21 years old, and had had a conventional Catholic schooling followed by two
years’ national service in the army, and twelve months’ hard slogging as a
first-year student in the seminary, which I found tough, especially prayer. One day during prayer I all of a sudden
underwent the prolonged experience of being unified, simple, collected, at ease
before God. The experience, which took
place in church – I can name the precise place and time to this day – brought
me to birth spiritually.
From
then on I learnt to pray easily, simply, contemplatively and found that where
before it had been hard labour, it was now extremely relaxed..... Not only my prayer but the whole of my life
began to be changed. The presence of
God became “real” to me in a way that had not happened before. I started to read the Bible and found that
passages glowed on the pages as if addressed personally to me by
God. I realised, as if for the first
time, that He loved me.
In
the communal life I was leading, I found myself undertaking hard tasks which
previously I had slid away from or thought myself incapable of. I felt the power of God within me,
again as if for the first time. It is
not exaggerating to say that my life was filled with an inward ardour from
waking in the morning to going to bed at night, an ardour which lasted at
least a year. I can remember that the
most important discovery was to know that my mediocrity and sins were no
obstacle, but even an advantage, to receiving the gracious mercy of God, that
pursuing perfection and pleasing God were two quite different aims and that I
could do the latter without achieving the former. This so thrilled me that I became somewhat of
a prig and a bore explaining this, unsolicited, to my friends.....
I
am grateful for that first experience of exuberant joy which set me
alight. I am more grateful for the
subsequent modifications of that first joy which have made me dip beneath mere
“experience” to reality itself. These
modifications have taken different forms.
Some have been deeper versions of the initial experience of oneness with
God in prayer. Others have been experiences in life of public failure or
painful humiliations, which have helped me to be less sentimental and more real
in my dealings with God. They have all helped me to learn the lesson that the
gifts given by our divine Lover are as nothing compared to the Giver
himself.
John
Dalrymple
Longest
Journey: notes on Christian maturity
(Darton,
Longman and Todd, 1979)
NEW LIFE IN THE SPIRIT -
PAULINE JARICOT
Pauline
Jaricot, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy French businessman, had a profound
conversion at the age of 16.
She
had lived a frivolous life of vanity, dressing in expensive clothes as a
dedicated follower of the latest fashion.
But one Sunday during a sermon in her parish church, she felt convicted
by the Spirit of God to give up her life of vanity. When she returned home, and “in order not to
be overcome by temptations, which can always come back” (1), she burned her
romantic books and her copies of love songs, laid aside her jewellery, and gave
up admiring herself in the mirror. She
decided that she would no longer wear expensive designer clothes, but would
dress in the simplest fashion possible, like the working class women of her
time. (2)
Her
family told her to exercise restraint and to be reasonable, but she said that
she had to take ‘extreme measures’ to protect her conversion. She visited all her close friends and made it
clear that she was “resolved to serve the Lord” and talked of “the real
happiness that comes from serving the Lord”, and how full of gratitude she was
for “the abundance of God’s gifts.” The
story of her life reveals her complete transformation by a total surrender from
the heart to the grace of Jesus Christ. (3)
When
Pauline turned her back on the past and changed her whole way of life, she
began by making a general confession – the first time she received that
sacrament since before her First Holy Communion. Months later she went to a popular shrine of
Mary and there she vowed to remain chaste in body and soul as a complete
sacrifice to God.
The
Holy Spirit continued to move on Pauline’s heart, and she decided to try to
make restitution for her ‘bad example’ and to visit all her young friends who
did not know about her conversion to tell them. (4) In her new life she felt liberated and
renewed as a newborn creature. (“So whoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” 2 Cor. 5:17;
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Cor. 3:17)
By
God’s grace, Pauline achieved an enormous amount of good in her life in spite
of many trials and difficulties. At 18
she started a movement for young working girls; at 20 she created the plan for
the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which became the greatest mission
aid society in the entire history of the Catholic Church; at 22 she was writing
spiritual books; at 27 she founded the prestigious ‘Living Rosary’ campaign and
the ‘Good Books Movement’. She became
famous all over Europe and even King Frederick William of Prussia supported her
work. Pauline Jaricot died in 1862
Characteristics of
Conversion
In
the conversion of Pauline, we can see nearly all the typical characteristics of
conversion. For example:
1. The
person of Jesus came alive for her.
Pauline said, “The whole of the earth seemed to me enriched by the
presence of the Divine Saviour”. “I
loved Jesus Christ more than anything else on earth, and for love of Him, I
loved – more than myself – all those in pain and distress. (5)
2. She
now began to see God in all creation. “I
looked for God everywhere, in the flowers and stars and moon. Sometimes I was
carried away and kissed the leaves of trees as though I had seen them come from
the hands of the Creator.” (6)
3. The
word of God came alive for her when the Preacher gave a Biblical sermon on
the dangers of vanity.
4. Prayer
became a passion for her: she found
the ‘living rosary’ scheme, and was later to spend a lot of time in prayer and
actually write books on prayer.
5. The
fear of death went away and she looked forward to be with the Lord. Pauline admitted that she would be
“sufficiently happy to be drawn back up above” to Heaven by God. (7)
6. When God’s love is poured into a
person’s heart at conversion, our love
and compassion for the poor increases.
Pauline started to visit the poor and ‘chose to dress as they did’.
(8) Moreover, she felt great compassion
for the young prostitutes, ‘girls of her own age driven onto the streets by
misery’. She did not rest until she had
found work for them in a factory. She
worked in the slums, in hospitals and in finding work for young beggars. (9)
7. Joy
is a sign of conversion. Pauline
said, “I can now look at the real happiness that comes from serving the Lord
... God has made me happy with the abundance of His gifts.” (10) In gratitude for her new life, Pauline wanted
to repay the Lord for His goodness to her by making some sort of reparation,
(11) and by making Jesus better known and served.
8. Self-control
is a fruit of the Holy Spirit that comes to the newly-converted. Pauline conquered her passionate anger
and pride by God’s grace, and also her passion for revealing clothes and
endless dances. She said that “my
passions decline as I resist them”, and she warned her friends about “relying
on your own strength”. (12) She also
received a gift of celibacy as she made a vow at a famous shrine of the Virgin
Mary to dedicate herself body and soul to God’s work and to remain chaste for
life, but not as a cloistered nun, as she did not feel called to this.
9. For many at conversion, the Church and the sacraments become an
important reality – after all, the Church is the Body of Christ. Pauline went to the Sacrament of Confession
for the first time since she made her first confession and made a good general
confession. Pauline stated that since
she was 17, she had not stopped thinking of the Church and its mission to
evangelise the world. (13) Loyalty to
the Vicar of the Christ was a passion for her. (14)
10. When
the Holy Spirit begins to work in the newly-converted, He convicts them of sin. People feel led to confess the sins of their
past life as Pauline did ... in her general confession. She also determined to make restitution for
any wrongs she committed and visited all the young people she knew to tell of
her new life in Christ. (15)
11. Along
with all the joys of her new life, also came trials and difficulties. Trouble came Pauline’s way from an
unexpected quarter: her spiritual advisor, Father Wurtz, insisted that she give
up her activism to spend all her time in prayer and meditation for a period of
two years! This she found “very
difficult” to understand. In her own
words, “I had to shut my eyes and obey”.
But ‘obedience is better than sacrifice’, the Bible says. Only much later did she realise how
beneficial this period of prayer and solitude was. She was to admit that had it not been for
those trials, “I would never have understood the strength or necessity of
prayer, I would never have written the Book
of Infinite Love, and I would probably never have served as God’s
instrument for the Propagation of the Faith and for the Living
Rosary.”(16) Truly, “in everything God works for good with those who love Him.” (Rom.
8:28)
Endnote:
1. Pauline Jaricot: Heroic Lay Missionary,
George Naidenoff, PMAS
LIFE
IN THE SPIRIT: ‘keep on being filled with the Spirit” (Eph.
5:18) like Maria Bussone, Pauline Jaricot and John Dalrymple – they were lay
people not consecrated religious or priests.
SIGNS
OF THIS NEW LIFE
of holiness and sanctification by the Sanctifier – the Holy Spirit.
1. THE PERSON OF JESUS BECOMES ALIVE
for us. Jesus promised: “if anyone loves
me I shall love him and show myself to him”’ (Jn. 14:21-23).
Has this happened to you? Is Jesus “the name above all names” or still
a swear word for us?
2. SEEING JESUS IN THE BEAUTY OF
CREATION: One begins to see all
creation as pointing to Jesus “for in Him were created all things in Heaven and
on earth” (Col. 1:15)
“Great are the works of the Lord, to
be pondered by all who love them – Majestic His work” (Ps. 111:2). Do you ponder God’s work – the sun, moon,
stars, trees or flowers, rainbow etc? Or
are you like those who “never give a thought for the works of God, never give a
glance for what His hands have made” (Isaiah 5:13)
In Psalm 148, all creation is called
to praise God, including men, women and children. Do you?
3. THE WORD OF GOD COMES ALIVE for
us: Jeremiah says: “When your words came I devoured them – your Word was my delight
and the joy of my heart for I was called by your name, Lord God of hosts”. (Jer. 15:16)
Is God’s word your delight?
Jesus said that “the Holy Spirit
will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you”
(John 14:26) Do you receive Rayma – the individual Scripture which the
Spirit brings to our remembrance for us in time of need?
e.g. You hear a word, or the word seems to jump
off the page or appear highlighted for you.
4. PRAYER BECOMES A PASSION AND DELIGHT:
not boring or tedious especially the prayer of praise to “sing the praises of
the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”. (1 Pet. 2:9)
5. THE FEAR OF DEATH RECEDES
because “the sting of death is sin” (1 Cor. 15:56) and “perfect love casts out
all fear” (1 Jn. 4:18). When sin is
repented of, the Spirit comes so we can say with St Paul “for me to live is
Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).
This is the work of the Holy Spirit: “If the Spirit of him who raised
Jesus from the dead is living in you, then God will give life to your mortal
bodies through his Spirit living in you”.
(Rom. 8:11)
6. GOD’S LOVE is poured into our hearts by the Holy
Spirit. This is such an overwhelming and
unforgettable experience that people feel driven to share this love with others
especially the poor and marginalised. It
also sets up a longing or desire for God that cannot be quenched and that longs
to see the source of this love that is God in Heaven.
The Spirit comes into our hearts
crying “Abba Father” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).
And now we trust God as a loving father and not a vindictive
policeman. We experience the Holy
Trinity at work within us – it is as if all three persons of the Trinity make
themselves known!
Love is one of the fruits of the
Holy Trinity – these fruits are what make Christianity so enjoyable: “Love,
Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness,
Self-control (Gal. 5) – The latter (self-control) is a fruit that means a
victorious life and liberation from cravings and evil passions of the
flesh. Peace is tranquillity even in the
midst of disorder – a peace that surpasses all understanding. (Phil. 4:7)
7. THE SACRAMENTS become alive
and so energising. For example, in the
sacraments of confession “one can almost feel a great weight being lifted off
one’s shoulders; the eucharist is anticipated with joy and the four Scripture
readings eagerly awaited as an appetiser!
Nothing boring anymore!
8. JESUS ‘THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD”
(Jn. 3:19) comes into our hearts scattering the darkness and giving us a sense
of interior radiance. For people who
have lived in darkness, enlightened by Jesus, the natural, earthly light
becomes a symbol for the interior light they now experience and rejoice in.
9. By the power of the Holy Spirit we
begin to abound in hope (Rom. 15:13), whereas before we may have been
despondent or pessimistic people because God is “the God of hope” (Rom. 15:13).
St Paul says that good works can’t
remain hidden forever (1 Tim. 56:25). So
also with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, who makes us holy and
perfect, “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17) – this grace can’t remain hidden
forever, and we will know it and so will others! Hence the importance of the checklist above
to help us progress because St Paul says (1 Thess. 4:1) “we must go on making
more and more progress in the kind of life we are meant to live”- the life of
holiness and sanctification without which ‘NO ONE CAN SEE GOD” (Heb. 12:14).
At the beginning of our spiritual
journey we experience the gifts and consolations of the Holy Spirit so that a
person can become more detached from the world and make a decision for
God. But afterwards, once a person is
detached from the world, the Spirit urges that person to go the “narrow way” of
the Gospel and be prepared for trouble, trials or tribulation, but remember
“GOD DOES NOT TEST US BEYOND OUR ABILITY TO ENDURE” (1 Cor. 10:13).
The Word says that we should
consider it pure joy when trials come and blessed is the one who stands firm
(James 1:2; 12) for “Satan only tempts those souls that wish to abandon sin
.... The others belong to him: he has no
need to tempt them” (St John Vianney)
If all the above sounds strange or
perplexing, then you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit! As the old hymn puts it: “none can understand
the grace, till it becomes the place where the Holy Spirit has its dwelling”.
PRAYERS YOU CAN SAY:
1. COME
HOLY SPIRIT, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the
fire of your love.
V. Send forth your Spirit and they shall
be created
R. And you shall renew the face of the
earth.
Let
us pray:
Oh
God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of your
faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit, we may be truly wise, and ever
rejoice in His consolation, through Christ our Lord,
Amen
2. The
Miracle Prayer By Fr Peter Rookey,
O.S.M.
Lord
Jesus, I come before you, just as I am, sorry for my sins, I repent of my sins,
please forgive me. In Your name, I
forgive all others for what they have done against me. I renounce Satan, the evil spirits and all
their works. I give you my entire self,
Lord Jesus, now and forever. I invite
you into my life Jesus, I accept you as my Lord, God and Saviour. Heal me, change me, strengthen me in body,
soul and spirit. Come Lord Jesus, cover me with your precious blood, and
fill me with your Holy Spirit. I
love you Lord Jesus. I praise you
Jesus. I shall follow you every day of
my life. Amen
Say
this prayer faithfully, no matter how you feel.
When you come to a point where you sincerely mean each word, with all
your heart, something good spiritually will happen to you. You will experience Jesus, and He will change
your whole life in a very special way.
3. Lord, I want more of your Holy
Spirit. Activate aspects of His work
that have been dormant in my life. Bring
me into a deeper relationship with you.
Give me greater zeal to be a witness for you and live a life of prayer,
love and service. Pour out
your Holy Spirit on the whole Church! We
need you Lord! Come! (Ralph Martin)
