Appendix: Revelation to the Venerable Serafina di Dio

In 1699, on the evening preceding the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the special feast of the Oratory at Naples, the servant of God had a revelation which she gave in writing to her director: it is as follows:

"I should wish to write, not with a pen, but with the tongue of a Seraph, not with ink, but with my own blood, that this letter might be a flame of fire, to consume the whole Congregation, or I should wish to send the very interior of my heart to explain and make you understand what I heard on the eve of the Nativity from the Blessed Virgin herself, and from our and your holy Father St. Philip regarding his Congregation.

" I saw the Saint with the great Mother of God in a flame of fire, and surrounded with light; I prayed earnestly to him for his Congregation and for each individual of it in particular; and with a sweet countenance, he said to me many beautiful things, of which I will tell you some briefly.

" The Saint showed me what his sons ought to be and also the dignity of the Congregation, made as it were after the likeness of God and of the Three Divine Persons, especially of the Person of the Holy Ghost: and he told me, that those \vho belong to the Congregation on glit not to be called by any other name than sons of the Holy Ghost, and that the Congregation ought to be called the Temple of the Holy Ghost; he said, it was not my spirit that founded it, but the Holy Spirit, and as such they ought to work and to be all love for God and their neighbour; I desire nothing of them, but that they burn with that fire, of which they are the sons; and he made me perceive clearly that this is suitable to this Congregation: and I saw the care he has for it, and the many caresses that he bestowed on some of the Fathers and the encouragements he gave them.

" I also saw that the Blessed Virgin is the Patroness and Protectress of the Congregation, and this consoled me much; Oh why have I not words to express the nobility of the Congregation and its state and high condition, because its members have no other obligation than to love God, who is the summit and perfection of everything; they are children chosen for great heights of spirituality. Oh how noble did it appear to me! and how great did the least imperfection seem in them, on, account of the dignity of their condition and the delights of then 1 state, which I saw to be like a meadow, rejoicing in the sweet breezes of the Holy Ghost, who excites Hia sons to work nobly and of their own free will.

"I knew in general, that in proportion to the nobility of this state, a greater and more immaculate cor respondence to it is required: and I saw how frightful is the least stain and dust of imperfection in him who professes it. The Saint told me that with great affection he recommended them all to God. All this was in. general. May the Lord be ever praised and blessed! I knew then in the mind of the Holy Father what he wished to say to me and what he meant by showing me so many beautiful things. For without speaking he had explained to me the perfection we must have, in order to be children of light.

" It would be monstrous, if fire were to produce snow, light darkness, and crystal mud. I do not know how to explain myself better, but I understood the meaning that the Saint wished to convey. It would be wonderful if a sweet tree produced gall; how much greater a prodigy would it be, if in any sons of St. Philip, who are called sons of the Holy Ghost, any defect were to exist! I saw the sanctity that the state requires and that which he who professes it can easily attain to and ought to possess, I saw the Saint caress many of the Fathers and encourage many others. I write briefly, for I had a night and a day of such delights as our Lord only knows."

n.

PENTECOST.

I. What can they want who have Jesus? e. g. Dis ciples in Judea*

1. Fascination of personal influence: His was beyond compare.

2. Marvellous beauty, variety, novelty, and yet familiarity of His kindness and gentleness.

3. The secret, nameless, supernatural spell which breathed out from Him.

4. The sheathing of His Godhead in His human tenderness.

5. Yet the ever new delight of the knowledge of His Godhead.

,11. Yet our Lord Himself said they did want something: their want was the Holy Grhost.

• 1. A Divine Person who is specially love, and so especially to be worshipped by love.

2. Overshadowing Mary John said Jesus would baptize with the Holy Ghost last day of feast, (John vii. 37-9.)

3. What Jesus said Himself It is expedient that I go away and that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not to be forgiven.

4. His coming made apostles: it was Mary s second Pentecost.

5. So our Lord taught as if the one grand thing He had to teach was devotion to the Holy

Ghost. He came to kindle that fire, and He yearned to have it kindled.

IH. We too are with Jesus not in spirit only, but in literal presence; yet we too need the Holy Ghost we need

1. More love of Jesus Himself.

2. More putting in mind of what He said.

3. A more yearning spirit of prayer.

4. More power against self and worldliness.

5. More, oh, a thousand times more love of each other. This is the grand want of the world just now the want that cries aloud and clamours to be satisfied, lest the glory of God and the spirit of Jesus should altogether cease from off the earth. Here, then, is the way in which devotion to the Holy Ghost is so acceptable to our Blessed Lady. She sees the earth perishing, not so much because men do not love God, as because they do not love one another. The heathen sai d of primitive Christians, not, see how these men love God but, see how they love one another.

I seem always to see our dear and blessed God bending over us, yearning to fill our hearts with, oh such graces and such a much more exceeding love and He cannot, because we will not make our hearts large with love of each other!

GOD A GOD OF FIRE.¹

I. I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled? St. Luke, xii. 49. How strange this sounds from Jesus, meek and humble of heart!

1. Compare the spirit of it with the night of the Incarnation and the night of Bethlehem.

2. Or the quiet fires in the hearts of Mary and Joseph in the holy House of Nazareth.

3. Or with the abysses of the abjection of the Passion.

4. Or with the secret apparitions of the beautiful Forty Days after the Resurrection.

5. Or with the passive, patient stillness of the Blessed Sacrament.

II. Yet the scene at Pentecost.

1. They wait, Mary in the midst, and the chosen few, for Him Who is to be so much to them that it was well that Jesus should go away.

2. They wait for Him, Who is eminently the Spirit of Jesus, and will bring to mind all He said.

3. For Him with Whom Jesus in His Human Nature has now been ten days in heaven! 0, the marvellous occupations of those ten days!

4. He comes to them in the vehement majesty of a mighty wind, and scatters Himself in showers of fire like cloven tongues. 5. So that Mary and the apostles seemed to the multitudes to he drunk with new wine.

III. God always a God of fire.

1. He calls Himself so; The Lord thy God is a consuming fire. Deut. iv. 24.

2. He appeared as such to Isaias; as a whirl wind and infolding fire to EzekieL St. John says, (Apoc. i. 14.) His eyes were as a flame of fire.

3. Burning Bush: in the inner folds of the desert, and ravines of Horeh, to Moses.

4. (Daniel vii. 9, 10.) His throne like flames; the wheels of it like hurning fire, and a swift stream of fire issued forth from before Him: vision seen in the first year of Baltassar, King of Babylon.

5. In these sweet fires we are to dwell eternally. Isaias (xxxiii. 14.) asks, which of you can dwell with devouring fire? which of you shall dwell with everlasting burnings? and the answer is, he that walketh in justices.

IV. So our religion is a religion of fire.

1. It was the one will of Jesus to kindle this fire on earth.

2. The Holy Ghost is never otherwise in the heart than as fire.

3. The fires of the Eternal Father are to be our everlasting home. 4. What manner of fire should we have then?

Fiery love, fiery faith, fire consuming self, fire burning the world out of our hearts, fire likely to make men think us drunk or mad. 5. What is the case in reality? Do we burn? Are we vehement? Do our hearts throb and beat tumultuously with love of God? Do wo understand that lifelong broken heart of our great father St. Philip, burst with the ball of fire, which was the Holy Ghost? Oh if our religion be a moral indifference, a cairn bar gaining with God, a prudential speculation, a discreet fear of hell, a frigid propriety, a servile keeping of the letter of God s law, it may be a religion but is it the religion written in the Bible? Is it the fire which it was our dearest Lord s one will to kindle? Oh that that Divine Person would come down upon us with His fire today, would break our hearts with the magnificent excesses of the love of God, would burn us with the pain of the great pleasure of His fire! Sweet, gentle, plaintive, vehement, fiery, enthusiast Spirit! Oh that He would so light His flames in our hearts that from this hour our whole life should be nothing but an unbroken Pentecost!

IV. DOCILITY TO THE HOLY GHOST.

In speaking of the Holy Ghost we can either rise up into the ineffable splendours of the Most Holy Trinity, or go down into the most secret and noiseless centre of our own souls: this last to day,

I. Our union with the Holy Ghost.

1. He Himself actually dwells in us.

2. We are more under His care than the disci ples were under that of Jesus in the Thirty-three Years.

3. He dwells in us in a new way with every augmentation of sanctifying grace.

4. No words can describe the intimate familiarity in which we live with this Third Per son of the Most Holy Trinity.

5. His ceaseless action upon our souls, through His love of Jesus and of ourselves.

6. His gifts, and His fruits as well as His graces.

7. His inspirations, multitudinous and incessant.

II. Inspirations.

1. We are with Him as Adam was with God in Eden.

2. To all good persons He is speaking continually.

3. Perfection may be defined as consisting sim ply of docility to His inspirations.

4. He speaks low, and His operations are very delicate.

5. He loves and expects to be consulted.

6. And furthermore, even when not consulted, a habit of listening to Him is an essential part of the spiritual life; without it, prayer can never be supernatural, or more than a pious habit; not a real familiarity, or union of the soul with God.

7. This life of perpetual secret colloquy with the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity is what is meant by an interior life.

III. Consequences of not listening to inspira tions.

1. Our own spiritual life, and God s designs upon us are nothing but mist, confusion, and unmeaning generalities.

2. So we come in outward things to work on impulse, or from natural activity, without consulting, or listening for the Holy Ghost.

3. Hence neither our works nor ourselves have the secret of success, or the root of perseverance.

the sweetness of an interior life its firmness, its repose, its clear atmosphere, how beautiful it is, ever at the feet of that Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity learning the secrets of heaven, in whispers of a sweet music, which no ear but ours can hear!

PART SECOND.

Footnotes

1. Whitsunday, 1858. ↩