Chapter 32: For Low Sunday. How we should dispose ourselves to receive the Holy Ghost

ON the Sunday after Easter, as the Gospel was read * which says that our Lord breathed on His disciples, and gave them the Holy Ghost, St. Gertrude besought Him very earnestly that He would give her this grace also. " If you desire to receive the Holy Ghost," He replied, "you must touch My Side and My Hands, like My disciples." By this she understood that he who desires to receive the Holy Spirit must first touch the Side of our Lord — that is, he must acknowledge how much the Divine Heart has loved us in having predestinated us from eternity to be His children and heirs of His kingdom, and in pouring forth such benefits upon us daily, notwithstanding our ingratitude; that he must also touch the Hands of our Lord — that is, reflect with gratitude on all His labours for us during the three -and-thirty years of His mortal life, and on His Passion and Death, offering His Heart to God, in union with the love with which He said, " As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you " (St. John xx. 21), to fulfil His good pleasure in all things ; for although men should desire and wish nothing but the good pleasure of God, they should seek even more ardently to do and to suffer what He wills — for he who acts thus cannot fail to receive the Holy Spirit, even as the disciples on whom the Son of God breathed. Our Lord then breathed on St. Gertrude, and said to her: "Receive the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sing

St. John xx. 19-31.

you remit, shall be remitted." "How can this be, O Lord," inquired the Saint, "since the power of binding and loosing has only been conferred on Thy priests 1 " He replied : " Those whom you consider guilty, are so before Me ; and those whom you consider innocent, I also acquit, for I speak by your mouth." " O God, full of goodness ! " replied the Saint, "since you have so often assured me of this gift, what advantage do I gain from receiving it again?" Our Lord replied : " When a deacon is made a priest, he does not cease to be a deacon, but rather he acquires a higher sacerdotal dignity ; and so when I give the same gift to your soul several times, I establish it more firmly therein, and thereby increase your beatitude."