Come, Father of the poor
We are not very familiar with the term “Father” when referring to the Holy Spirit. But this becomes clear when we think of the word “beget”, which is connected with fatherhood. The Holy Spirit witnesses and begets. When we think about the term Father of the poor, a word from the Beatitude comes to mind!
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them (Mt 5,3)”
These are those people who expect everything from God, who expect the true light in relation to the Holy Spirit and do not first rely on their own knowledge. They are those who do not take part in the building of the tower of Babel, who do not want to lead their own thoughts to the heights and then fall.
With them the Holy Spirit can exercise his fatherhood, now he can spread his light, generate it in the soul. It is a very fine light, but to be able to spread it, it needs a receptivity on the part of the person and that is humility!
If the Holy Spirit wants to exercise his spiritual fatherhood, then his adequate counterpart is a filial openness of the soul – just as Our Lady Mary met her divine Bridegroom according to the will of God. “You see before you the Lord’s servant, let it happen to me as you have said.” (Lk 1,38) This is where the Holy Spirit wants to lead us: to a complete readiness to give ourselves willingly to God’s will. Poverty, then, means that we are receptive to the action of the Holy Spirit, that he can generate his light and thus divine life in us and exercise his fatherhood over the soul.
Come, giver of gifts
Here the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are addressed, which spread their light in us and shape us in the image of God. Unfortunately, this teaching is given too little attention, because conscious participation in the development of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is important for the path of sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord.
Today I will be content with a brief reflection on these gifts, since I speak of them frequently and one can listen to these mediations on elijamission my webside. But they belong to the Pentecost sequence and to our spiritual life and therefore I will describe them briefly:
Gift of the fear of God:
It is the unfolding of God’s love in us, which teaches us not to do anything that might displease God. It makes us very sensitive to the presence of God and gives us deep reverence. This reverence will also grow to oher people because they are created according to God`s image.
Gift of piety:
It is a further development of our love for God. Not only we do avoid everything that might displease God, we are directed towards pleasing God, towards bringing joy to the heavenly Father through our life and all acts. It awakens the spiritual life and makes it happy and easier, because the motivation is already the grown love for God!
Gift of strength:
It is the gift that enables us to endure suffering and persecution, to take important steps in the spiritual life. It is the gift that enables martyrs and confessors to remain faithful in the face of death.
Gift of the Council:
This gift serves us to discern the will of God for the given situation.
The Holy Spirit is our counselor, who can be consulted in any situation that we do not understand especially those situation we can not see clearly.
Gift of (divine) science:
It teaches us that we do not attach our heart to creatures and gives us a profound insight that all creatures are nothing in themselves and only through God do they receive their beauty and value.
Gift of knowledge:
This gift allows us to know God more fully in the light of the Holy Spirit. We recognize him not only through the mediation of the senses, but directly in the supernatural light of the Holy Spirit, that is, a supernatural knowledge of God.
Gift of wisdom:
This gift gives us a spiritual taste of God’s love. “Taste and see that Yahweh is good” (Ps 34,8) we hear sometimes before receiving the Holy Communion. This is a spiritual taste of the Lord.
Links to deepen the teaching about the gifts of the spirit:
Gift of understanding and wisdom
Harpa Dei accompanies the daily scriptural interpretation or spiritual teaching of Br. Elija, their spiritual father. These meditations can be heard on the following website www.en.elijamission.net
