Fidelity,

Docility to the

Holy Spirit

so that all things may be

renewed

by Father Mathurin of the Mother of God The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things, and bring to your mind all that I have said to you. Holy Gospel, St. John 14:26 Dear brothers and sisters, we would like to make this year a year consecrated to the Holy Spirit, in order to become renewed, totally transformed by Him. We often pray this beautiful invocation: “Send forth, O Lord, Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.” This year let us all be faithful, docile, attentive to the Holy Spirit, to allow Him to work freely in our souls so that our lives may become a reproduction of the life of Jesus. It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me, 1 says Saint Paul. To resemble Jesus, imitate His virtues, become another Christ is the goal of the true Christian, the true disciple of Christ. But who forms the Christian, the true disciple of Jesus? The Holy Spirit. Monsignor Gaume says, “We must acknowledge it: the Holy Spirit is neither well enough known nor well enough loved, and that is why there are no more saints in the Church. 2 We know the Father partially by His almighty creative power; we know the Son partially by His Incarnation, His Gospel, His Passion, His Eucharist. It is otherwise for the Holy Spirit. Holy Scripture speaks far less about Him. “The Holy Spirit loves to wrap Himself in a kind of shroud even in this realm, which is His own. He illuminated the sacred writers, He guided their pens, but He does not allow them to pay virtually any attention to His person: He wants to remain a hidden God.” 3 Even so, what Sacred Scripture does clearly teach is that these three Persons form one and the same God, the Holy Trinity, and that the Holy Spirit is the mutual and consubstantial 4 Love of the Father and the Son. However, the Holy Spirit, often called the Sanctifier, needs our collaboration. To sanctify a soul, He needs that soul’s fidelity, docility and attention to His inspirations. And if the Holy Spirit encounters this fidelity, this docility in a poor human being, as spiritually infirm as he may be, He makes him a totally divine man, another Jesus. In a word, dear brothers and sisters, if I were to tell you that this year I give as the watchword to be faithful in the little things, 5 it would come down to pretty much the same thing. To be ever faithful, to correspond to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit — that is what it means to be faithful in the little things. Here God is asking for this Work, rightly called the Renewed Church. But who will renew the Church? You? Me? No! It is the Holy Spirit through you and me, if we are docile, faithful, attentive to Him; if we listen to His Voice, His inspirations. God wants to renew His Church, He wants to renew the face of the earth. He will do it with instruments that are docile in His hands. We human beings separate things, but in the Holy Trinity there is no division. The three Persons, all the while being ONE and the same God, each has His own mission, so to speak. In the Creed we say, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth...” And further on: “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son... who was crucified...” It is not God the Father who came to work out the Redemption of the human race. It is Jesus, God the Son, the Word of God, who by the operation of the Holy Spirit incarnated in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He is the One who worked out the Redemption. To the Holy Spirit we attribute sanctification. It is a kind of perfecting of the work of Jesus, the God- Man, who atoned for the sins of the human race and showed us the narrow road to heaven. He taught us and is still teaching us by His word and His example. I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. 6 After having done all that, Jesus said to His Apostles on the eve of His Passion, I am going... It is expedient for you that I depart. For if I do not go, the Comforter (the Holy Spirit) will not come to you, whereas if I go, I will send Him to you. 7 What a mystery! And yet, while there is no division in the Trinity, each Person of this unique God has His mission. It is a mystery... After Jesus has ascended to heaven, the One who will come is the Sanctifier, the Comforter. He comes to perfect and in a way make the great work of the Redemption applicable in the detail of each human life. Several works are attributed to the Holy Spirit, but the greatest of these works, the one that we probably know best and that always holds our attention, is having produced the miraculous Incarnation of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh in the womb of Mary. That is the greatest work attributed to the Holy Spirit. But even before the birth of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was already at work. He, the Sanctifier, had prepared the Virgin Mary, the faithful Virgin, to be His worthy Spouse, the Mother of God, His masterpiece, who was to miraculously conceive and give birth to Jesus, the Son of God made flesh. The action of the Holy Spirit has continued throughout the ages. It is He who makes the Saints. As Jesus is the Head of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Spirit is its soul. Saint Augustine says, “The Holy Spirit is to the body of the Church what the soul is to the human body.” — “The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Mystical Body whose Head is Christ.” 8 It is Jesus who founded the Church, but “the Holy Spirit may also be called the architect of the Church. He continues and finishes the structure of the Church founded by Christ 9 . He preserves the Church from ruin 10 and error 11 .” Before returning to heaven after His Resurrection, Jesus said to His Apostles, Receive the Holy Spirit! Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. 12 He did not say it to them in the future tense. He said, Receive the Holy Spirit. And when Jesus spoke these words to them, the Apostles certainly received the Holy Spirit, because the Word of God is operative, efficacious. Nevertheless, they obviously did not receive Him as abundantly as on Pentecost Day. This gives us to understand that the Holy Spirit, or the grace of God if you wish, acts as though by degrees, provided the soul is docile to His inspirations, and also to the extent of that docility. Father John Gregory has said that one of the chief failings of Churchmen was that they put the Holy Spirit aside and acted according to their own lights, their human projects, without being preoccupied with God’s project. When this attitude is really intentional, it amounts to a systematic rejection of the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The person who acts this way does not want Him; he relies on his own little lights, his totally human and natural know-how. He wants to proceed according to his way of seeing things. My brothers and sisters, you can understand that there is also a gradation in this rejection. We do not systematically and totally reject the action of the Holy Spirit in our life all at once. First there is this slight disregard, this conduct of partly turning a deaf ear to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. We stifle His Voice, we grieve Him in little things, and then more and more. Thus we can arrive at rejecting Him totally as certain humans do. Jesus even goes so far as to say concerning the sin against the Holy Spirit — when it has reached its extremity: There is no forgiveness for it, either in this world or in the world to come. 13 The sin against the Holy Spirit is the total rejection of what we know very well to be an explicit will of God. We do not want it, we want to act as we like. Let the Holy Spirit stay in His heaven; we are here, and we are going about our business. This rejection can become very serious. But before it becomes that serious, it is prepared by all sorts of infidelities. After the departure of Jesus, the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles in a very ostensible, striking manner. Recently one of our preachers was speaking about the manifestation of God to Elias, an Old Testament prophet. There were all kinds of manifestations — a violent wind, an earthquake — and the Voice of God was not in them. Eventually, a barely perceptible little breeze came up, a zephyr, 14 and the Voice of God was in it. On the other hand, when the Apostles received the Holy Spirit, there was a violent wind, and tongues of fire appeared above their heads in the Cenacle Room where they were gathered with the Virgin Mary. The Holy Spirit acts in various ways, but it is always the same Spirit. The soul must be faithful to Him. When the Apostles came out of the Cenacle Room, their conduct manifested that the action of the Holy Spirit had taken them over with great power. They were full of zeal for the glory of God which transported them. They were no longer the ones who spoke; the Holy Spirit, in the form of tongues of fire, had set them on fire. At that time the Church was in its beginnings, and it was to spread as rapidly as possible throughout the world. The Apostles did not have the leisure to start studying every language. Most of them were already at a rather advanced age: forty, fifty, sixty years old. Once a man reaches that age, it is not very easy for him to learn new languages. It is not always easy even for younger men. The gift of tongues they received consisted in being understood by all the listeners, each one in his own language, so that the Truth would be known by everyone. The Church is the continuation of the Work of Christ. It is carried on by each Christian who walks in the footsteps of Jesus, it is carried on by the Saints, souls who were so docile to the Holy Spirit that they became, in a way, other Christs. It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. Each Christian is called to this transformation by fidelity to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Consider the Apostles: they had been very fearful, but by the action of the Holy Spirit they were filled with zeal and courage. They had understood the teachings of Jesus only in part, but they became totally imbued with them, to the point of thinking as God Himself thinks. They had the Spirit of God. How can we arrive at thinking like God? By docility to the Holy Spirit. He is there, and He acts according to our fidelity, so that all things may be renewed, all things may be recreated, remade, according to the project of God.

The answer is in Mary

And what is the best disposition for attracting the Holy Spirit in us, for allowing Him to act in us as He intends, for allowing Him to produce Jesus in us? The answer is in the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the Annunciation, when the Angel manifested himself to Her in order to tell Her in God’s name that She was to become the Mother of God, what was Mary’s reaction? Fiat! Be it done unto Me according to thy word. Do you want the Holy Spirit to act in you? May your soul be a fiat in advance, a fiat every time, everywhere, in all the details of your life, in all the little things! May your soul always say “yes” to the Holy Spirit! That fiat was not lacking in our good Mother, and the designs of God were perfectly accomplished. Her fiat produced Jesus, the Word incarnate, something we have been contemplating for over two thousand years. The Virgin Mary was fiat and humility. She says in Her Magnificat, He regarded the lowliness of His handmaid. We must imitate Her if we want to attract the Holy Spirit in us. Let us not think that the Virgin Mary’s fiat was spoken only at the Annunciation; it had been prepared by Her life of submission to God and was pursued right to the end. That is why She is the Coredemptrix, because She is so intimately associated with Her Son in all the stages of His life. But what great things did the Blessed Virgin do? What did She do? She was not an apostle like the Apostles; She did not preach, She did not travel the world. She remained hidden. How, then, can we define Mary, this supreme creature who greatly surpasses every other creature and all the Apostles together? She is far superior to all of them. She did not perform any missionary works, any striking works. But by Her fiat to the Will of God, She worked this supreme wonder: Jesus incarnate in Her. She was faithful to Him right to the end. When the Apostles received this abundance of the Holy Spirit in the Cenacle Room, the Blessed Virgin was there with them. She had already received the Holy Spirit, but when they received Him fully on Pentecost Day, the Virgin Mary was there. And during the preceding days, She had certainly prepared and disposed the hearts of the Apostles. I think that the One who preached was the Blessed Virgin. I told you earlier that She had done no striking work. It is not noted, but I am under the impression that She spoke to Her Apostles, that She gave them to understand what they had to do to attract the Holy Spirit in themselves, and what had worked so well with Her: Humility. The Apostles had still not gone beyond wondering, Who among us is the greatest? Who is the best? The Blessed Virgin gave them to understand that the Holy Spirit lowers Himself to the humble, the littlest ones; He raises up those who lower themselves. The last shall be first, and the first last. 15 Last or first not in the post they occupy, but in the disposition of humility in their heart. If you really want to attract the Holy Spirit, lower yourself and be available. Fiat to all that God wants. In advance, say “yes” to everything He will ask of you. Even after Pentecost, Mary, the Queen of the Apostles, counseled and consoled the Apostles. According to Blessed Melanie, the confidante of the Virgin at La Salette, the Order of the Mother of God is to “walk in the footsteps of the Apostles of the primitive Church.” Because of this, she liked to often refer to the example of these first Apostles. She writes: The first Apostles had no Mother and Mistress other than Mary. It is to Her that they turned in their every doubt and difficulty, their every pain and sorrow, their every bitterness. Mary welcomed them all and sent them away consoled. She dispelled their doubts and difficulties and comforted them in their sorrows. And they all left happy, with a new strength for exerting themselves in Her Son’s Church, ready to shed their blood for the souls entrusted to their care. We, the new Apostles, must have no other guide and counselor in all the actions of our private and public life but this Mother of Jesus and our Mother. And it is with the same confidence that we must turn to Her. 16 As Christians living in 2013, if we truly want to be the successors of the first Apostles, we must follow their example and have unceasing recourse to Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, as the Apostles did. The Holy Spirit wants to renew all things. How will He do it? I will say it again: by our generous fiat! By our fidelity to our duty and to all that God asks of us. We might be tempted to say, “Oh, that is impossible. It is asking too much.” Do you think God would ask us for too much? My grace is sufficient for you, 17 He said to Saint Paul. When God sent the Angel Gabriel to propose to little Mary that She become the Mother of God, did He show Her what it would mean to be the “Mother of God”? Did He explain to Her that it was by this little Child who was God that the Redemption of the human race would be worked out? Certainly She knew that. By becoming the Mother of Jesus, the Redeemer, She Herself was to enter into the work of coredemption. It was no party that was beginning, it was an exploit of love. She made Her fiat, She said “yes,” profoundly humbling Herself, relying entirely on the grace of God. According to the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostles were not the only ones in the Cenacle Room. The gathering consisted of about one hundred twenty people: the Apostles and some of the disciples and holy women. It was an entire congregation that received the Holy Spirit in abundance, because they were in the right dispositions to receive Him. Let us ask that it be likewise for each and every one of us, because God would like to utilize us to renew the Church and society. He could do everything by Himself, but He wants to employ instruments that are docile in His hands.

Come, Holy Ghost!

I wish that we may all be transformed by the Holy Spirit this year, that we may be divinized. Be faithful and you will be divinized. This year, let us multiply invocations to the Holy Spirit in private, in public, in every way. In public it is a prayer of the Church, and it is very, very powerful. You do not make this prayer only for yourselves but for humanity, that all things may be renewed. But at the same time you say it for yourselves, because humanity will not be renewed unless each one of us is renewed. I would also like us to pay some attention to Saint Joseph this year. The Holy Spirit is the divine Spouse of the Virgin Mary; He is the One who formed Jesus. But the earthly spouse of the Virgin Mary, the one that everybody sees, is Saint Joseph. They are both spouses of the Virgin Mary, although in different ways. So this year I would like us to especially invoke Saint Joseph. He is the Patron of the Holy Church but also the Patron of the interior life; we could ask him to help us understand the Holy Spirit. Saint Joseph was so hidden! Imagine, living with these two great personages — Jesus, the Word of God made man, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God — there was only one other person for thirty years, and that was Saint Joseph. He is there but we do not talk about him, for the Gospel says very little about him. He was a just man. 18 That is not much, but it says everything at the same time, since it means: He was holy. Saint Joseph is an eminent personage who was totally discreet, totally hidden. Imagine what Saint Joseph’s fidelity to the Holy Spirit must have been! This year I invite you to discover him, comment on him in recreations, in gatherings, in prayers, invoke him to help us also be faithful to the Holy Spirit. Saint Joseph is the Patron of the universal Church. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church; Saint Joseph is the patron of the Church. There is a bond between the two of them. I would like us to invoke him especially this year and contemplate his eminent virtues, especially his extreme docility to the Holy Spirit. God wants to renew all things. We see this road, my brothers and sisters. Let us take it! Let us take it without dreaming. No dreaming! No fantasy! Fidelity, docility, attention to the Holy Spirit, supplication to the Holy Spirit. We are such frivolous, fickle, earthbound creatures, so easily distracted by everything around us; let us implore Him to help us. We are so easily occupied and preoccupied with all sorts of things that are of such lesser importance, oftentimes even things that are harmful. Yes, let us entreat the Holy Spirit to spark off something in our heart that will make us attentive, that will make us a little more docile. May He be pleased to plant this seed of love in us! Where does fidelity come from? Love. Where will the fiat we were talking about come from? From our love for God. Father John Gregory said: God is almighty. He is the One who makes the Saints. A Saint is someone who gives himself to God without condition. Let us give ourselves to God in word and ask Him that it may become true. O Lord, I give myself to You without condition, behold, here I am! I am a little nothing, a poor sinner, but even so, I am at Your disposal. Do what You will with me, I belong to you without any reserve. That is what I want, and I ask You that it may become a reality. May my words not be just words but a reality. I ask You to take the means so that Your designs upon me may be accomplished. You are almighty, and I entrust my cause especially to my most Holy Mother Mary. Mary, the faithful Virgin par excellence... Fortunately, this Creature was perfectly faithful; that is how we had Jesus. We can congratulate Her. Thanks to Her fidelity, this most beautiful of the projects of God was able to materialize. But God has other beautiful projects that He wants to see materialize. He has a lot of beautiful projects in store. Some of them are more beautiful than others, and more important. It takes faithful humans; it takes faithful creatures. Father John Gregory added: “If we renew this total gift of ourselves, without any conditions, with the desire that it may be not just words but truly a reality, I think this prayer will have an enormous repercussion on the life of each one of us. “We must suffer over our faults. It takes an intensity of desire, we must truly desire to please God... God can make us feel our powerlessness, but the tears of those who want to serve Him touch God, and He works the miracle of their transformation. ‘Ask, and you shall receive’, 19 says Jesus. The Word of God does not lie.” 20 We must weep, be sad and sorrowful over seeking and doing our own will so often, by all sorts of infidelities to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. These infidelities slow down His work. The least we can do is acknowledge our faults and truly desire to improve, and fervently ask God for this. And by a miracle of His almighty divine power, the Holy Spirit will renew all things. Each time you are aware of a failing, an infidelity, make this prayer again: “Send forth, O Lord, Thy Spirit and they shall be created. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.” When this prayer comes from the depths of your heart, along with the desire to make amends for whatever may have grieved God, the Holy Spirit renews your heart. He is almighty. Believe it! Father John Gregory says, “Let us give ourselves to God in word and ask Him that it may become true.” I repeat: to be faithful to God means to say your fiat and lower yourself. That is what succeeded for the Virgin Mary, who says this in Her Magnificat: He has regarded the humility, the lowliness of His handmaid. 21 To the Angel, She said Fiat, and the Word was miraculously incarnate in Her. To Her cousin Elizabeth, who congratulated Her over this wonder, Mary proclaimed that God had cast His eyes upon Her because of Her abasement, Her humility, Her fiat. That is what gave us this masterpiece of sanctity which is the Mother of God and our Mother. Saint Louis Mary de Montfort says that the Apostles of the Latter Times will be the greatest saints who have ever passed on earth. “It is a miracle!” says Father John Gregory. Indeed, how can it be possible? — Jesus becoming incarnate in Mary, is that not a miracle? Saint Joseph had nothing to do with it. It is more than a miracle, it is a mystery. It is the mystery of the Incarnation. And we, so poor in virtue, our becoming saints is a miracle and perhaps a mystery. Nothing is impossible with God. 22 But we must desire this miracle ardently, not for a little vainglory but for God’s good pleasure, for the Church. And in order for this miracle to take place, we must take the means. FIAT, my brothers and sisters. I repeat it to all the young people who come; you haven’t finished hearing me say it. Fiat, we must say “yes.” That is the secret. Each time you take back your “yes” by all sorts of infidelities, say, “Lord, forgive me, I took back my ‘yes.’ I will correct myself, I always want to say ‘yes’ to You, Lord.” Let us do that: this year, all year long, inasmuch as it is possible, let us say “yes” to God. Let us renew our gift, our total availability, in His hands. If a failing escapes us, let us correct ourselves quickly: “Lord, I want to say ‘yes’ to You. Forgive me. Do not take note of my infidelity, Lord. I don’t want to say ‘no,’ I say ‘yes’ to You, Lord. I beg of You, come to my help, come to my assistance.” We are going to celebrate Holy Mass now. Father John Gregory established the custom that on the first day of every month, each priest should celebrate a Mass in honor of the Holy Spirit. This is a request from Heaven that was made to Blessed Mary of Jesus Crucified. And when our Father learned of this heavenly request to that Saint, he asked that every priest here conform to this request. On this first day of the year, we will offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in honor of the Holy Spirit. We will ask Him for the grace to be faithful, docile to the Will of God. Let each one of us be fiat and abasement before Him, acknowledging our incapacity without the help of God. With these humble dispositions, the Holy Spirit will truly be able to act in us. Let us offer this Mass so that all things may be renewed in the Church and on the earth, but first of all that each one of us be renewed throughout this year. We ask for these graces also for our Brothers and Sisters who are far away in the missions. Here, we have the encouragement of being next to one another. Sometimes there are little thorns in that, but there are more encouragements than thorns. Many of our brothers and sisters are alone. They are not really alone because they are with God, but you understand what I mean: they are far away. They do not always have the comfort of having a group of people around them who want to serve God. We will therefore pray especially for all our brothers and sisters who are in faraway or less faraway missions, that the Holy Spirit may comfort them and increase fidelity in each one of them. Let us ask for this same favor for all our Cenacle Homes, for all those who have the great privilege of having Jesus Host in their home. It is an immense grace which requires a lot of fidelity. Normally, when God is present beneath the sacred sacramental Species in a home, the action of the Holy Spirit is stronger, more intense; this requires more from the residents of that home. We will ask that each one of our friends who have Cenacle Homes may be faithful to the action of the Holy Spirit. On their level, they form part of this Community, this Work, in a very important way. The Work of God depends upon them also. We will offer this Mass to ask for their fidelity. We will pray for all our friends who, to different degrees, according to the lights they have, recognize this Work which God has asked of us here. For them also, we will ask for fidelity to the Holy Spirit. And for all the members of the Church, all those who have the faith and even those who do not have the faith. For all of them, we will ask specifically for the Holy Spirit to recreate and renew all things, renew these persons as we ourselves want to be renewed. May the Holy Spirit draw them out of their ignorance, their lukewarmness, their indifference, the immense coldness they are in, their spiritual coldness and emptiness. If a few little sufferings are necessary to detach us from the earth, for us and for them, let us say “yes” to the Holy Spirit to do it; but let us ask Him to “go gently,” to spare our fragility. “You know, Lord, humans blaspheme You so easily. When our body and soul are suffering, it is easy for us to revolt, and sometimes it reaches the point of blasphemy.” And then the good that God wanted to give us is spoiled. Let us ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to take every trial the right way. For those who love God, all things work together unto good. 23 Jesus said to His Apostles, You have received nothing, because you have not asked for anything. 24 He wants to give, He wants to renew the earth, but we must ask Him for it. We are going to say this Mass at the start of this year especially for this intention: that by the Holy Spirit, all things may be renewed. May the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, descend upon you through Mary, Mother of God, throughout this year! Amen.