47 — THE SPIRIT OF JESUS

Presence of God. — Grant me, O Jesus, to contemplate Your Soul full of the Holy Spirit, so that I too may be a temple worthy of Him.

Meditation

1 — Although grace is equally created by the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, without any difference or distinction, nevertheless its diffusion in souls is particularly attributed to the third Person, that is, to the Holy Spirit, to whom, by appropriation, everything regarding the work of sanctification is referred. In this sense, even that immense gift of grace that inundates Jesus’ Soul must be attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ Soul is adorned with every supernatural gift, precisely because “the Holy Spirit dwells in Christ with such a fullness of grace that a greater cannot be conceived” (Myst. Corp.). The fullness of grace, a created gift, corresponds to the fullness of the Holy Spirit, an uncreated gift. Jesus, who alone among all has “received this Spirit without measure” (ibid.), received from Him that immense capital of grace that enables Him to merit grace for all of us.

Jesus’ Soul is so beautiful, so holy, so intimately joined to Divinity, that the Holy Spirit “finds His delight in dwelling in it as in His preferred temple” (ibid.). And He dwells there with such fullness and dominion that He inspires, directs, and guides all Jesus’ actions, and therefore the Holy Spirit “is properly called the Spirit of Christ, that is, the Spirit of the Son” (ibid.). More than once the Gospel says that Jesus acted “led by the Spirit” (Lk. 4, 1); this happened not only in some circumstance, but always: Christ’s most holy Soul was moved by no other impulse, by no other spirit than the Holy Spirit.

2 — By His Passion and Death Jesus merited for us not only grace, but also the Author of grace, the Holy Spirit, whom He had already promised to the Apostles and then, having ascended into heaven, sent to them on the day of Pentecost. Even now we receive the Holy Spirit in dependence on Jesus: it is always He who from heaven, together with the Father, sends Him to us, so that this divine Spirit “is distributed to us from the fullness of Christ Himself according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Myst. Corp.). We receive the Holy Spirit only insofar as we are united to Christ, and in turn the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ. In fact, as St. Paul says, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in us... the spirit lives because of justification” (Rom. 8, 9 and 10).

To live in Christ is to live in the Holy Spirit; to be a member of His Mystical Body is to be a temple of the Holy Spirit; and that grace which Christ merited for us and dispenses to our souls is at the same time diffused in us by the Holy Spirit; every increase of grace in us derives both from the creative action of the Holy Spirit and from the mediating action of Christ. “Christ is in us by His Spirit whom He communicates to us and by means of whom He acts in us so that whatever divine thing is worked by the Holy Spirit in us is also worked by Christ” (Myst. Corp.).

Colloquy

O Jesus, You are so rich, so divine and omnipotent that Your gifts are not limited to created things, however sublime they may be, but culminate in the uncreated Gift, in the gift of the Holy Spirit.

O Jesus, that the Spirit of love, the substantial Love proceeding from the Father and the Son, is Your Spirit, this I understand well: so it befits Your dignity as God-Man. But that this divine Spirit You have willed to give to me, a most poor creature, is so sublime a mystery that I lose myself before it. What I can understand is that I owe even this gift to You, my sweetest Redeemer!

What shall I do, O Jesus, to repay Your infinite Gift? Oh, if at least I could make it so that Your Spirit, the Holy Spirit, may find in my poor soul a temple not too unworthy of Him!

Your Spirit is in me, yes, because You have given Him to me, but He cannot invade me fully, cannot lead me rapidly to holiness, cannot launch me into God, because often instead of docility He finds resistance in me. O my Jesus, do not permit me to resist Your Spirit; do not permit me to grieve Him by my blindness and hardness!

“O power of the Eternal Father, help me; wisdom of the Son, enlighten the eye of my intellect; sweet clemency of the Holy Spirit, inflame and unite my heart in You... I confess, sweet eternal goodness of God, that the clemency of the Holy Spirit and Your burning charity wish to unite and inflame my heart in You, and the hearts of all rational creatures... You burn with the fire of Your spirit and consume and uproot from the foundation every love and affection of the flesh from the hearts of the young plants which You have deigned to graft into the Mystical Body of Holy Church... Deign, O God, to transfer us from worldly affections into the garden of Your affection, and give us a new heart with true knowledge of Your will, so that, made despisers of the world, of ourselves, and of self-love, and filled with true fervor of Your love... we may follow only You for You, with most pure purity and fervent charity!...

“O Holy Spirit, come into my heart; by Your power draw it to You, true God; grant me charity with fear... warm me and inflame me with Your sweetest love” (St. Catherine of Siena).