The Divine Longing for Abundance
May 6, 2024
Now you might ask, but how do we go about being contemplatives in ordinary life? That is what the Holy Spirit will work on in each one of us. But for the Holy Spirit to be able to do this, you and I will need to learn how to open our hearts to Him and then to keep quiet and listen. We will need to do a lot of listening in our hearts and minds; because He will tell us what to do throughout the day while we are about living our ordinary life, doing our work and other duties and activities.
He will be a friend, companion, confidant, adviser, consoler, and more if you and I will nurture such a relationship with Him. Life with the Holy Spirit is a beautiful adventure of love.
I am recalling words ‘When somebody Loves You’ of a song. I searched for it and found two variations (one sang by Frank Sinatra and the other one by Alan Jackson) of the song entitled ‘When Somebody Loves You’. It is not the song I am remembering. I tried singing it and what came out were the words ‘all the way’. So I searched ‘All the Way’ and that’s the one by Frank Sinatra. Oh! That is dating me back, right? Who cares! Would you care for the lyrics of the song? You might want to listen to it. Take a break and do so.
It’s no good unless he loves you all the way
Happy to be near
you
When you need
someone to cheer you all the way
Taller than the
tallest tree is
That’s how it’s
got to feel
Deeper than the
deep blue sea is
That’s how deep
it goes if it’s real
When somebody
needs you
It’s no good
unless he needs you all the way
Through the good
or lean years
And for all the
in-between years come what may
Who knows where
the road will lead us
Only a fool
would say
But if you’ll
let me love you
It’s for sure
I’m gonna love you all the way all the way
So, if you’ll
let me love you
It’s for sure
I’m gonna love you all the way all the way
Oftentimes you do not need to speak, things happen but with you corresponding every step of the way. It is truly amazing! It is such a wonderful experience to have a loving relationship with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love.
We will have ten days to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Holy Spirit. In the Church’s tradition there is such a custom called 10-Day Devotion to the Holy Spirit or the Decenary to the Holy Spirit. It starts 10 days before Pentecost Sunday, that is, May 9, Thursday, Ascension Day, as observed in some countries.
10-Day Devotion to the Holy Spirit (from Opus Dei.org)
Some practical ways to grow in devotion to the Holy Spirit during the ten days from the Ascension to Pentecost, led by the piety of Saint Josemaria and Pope Francis.
The 10-Day Devotion to the Holy
Spirit is a long-standing custom in the Church to prepare for the descent of
the Holy Spirit in the best possible way.
Blessed Alvaro del Portillo tells us that "precisely because the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is the one who is invoked the least, the Founder [Saint Josemaria] had a special devotion to him. I can say unhesitatingly that, in his preaching, he was a great herald of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. He often told me that ever since 1926 or 1927 he had practiced the devotion to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity very intensely. Every year he followed the Novena to the Holy Spirit using the book by Francisca Javiera del Valle." (05/27/2023) You can find this novena in the Handbook of Prayers by Charles Belmonte or the Daily Roman Missal.
And then on May
12, Ascension Sunday, is also Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to each and
every one!!! What joyful celebrations come our way!!!
Happy Mother’s Day, My Lady, Mother of God and our mother!!! It is the month of pilgrimages to her. Let us schedule one with our family, our friends, and with many others (cf. A Love that Never Gives Up, post of last week, April 30, 2024)
I came that they might
have life and have it more abundantly!—John 10:10
When I ask my clients
what they hope to get out of counseling, the number one answer is “I just want
to be happy.”
On our quest to be
happy, we all tend to stumble around in the dark chasing after so many things,
few of which give us real joy. But there
is good news. As much as you desire
happiness, God longs even more to fill your heart with a soul-satisfying joy
designed to exceed your greatest expectations.
In this chapter, you
will discover the source of authentic happiness, how happiness relates to the
divine longing for abundance, and how to avoid the most common errors people
make as they strive to fulfill this longing.
Finally, I will lead you through an exercise that will help you overcome
the obstacles standing between you and the joy you seek.
God
Cares About Your Happiness
At the heart of the
many promises God makes to humankind is the fact that God cares deeply about
your happiness. St. John Paul the Great
proclaimed, “People are made for happiness.
Rightly, then, you thirst for
happiness. Christ has the answer to this
desire of yours. But he asks you to
trust him” (2002).
Pope Benedict XVI
agreed with his predecessor, asserting, “God wants us to be happy always. He knows us and he loves us. If we allow the love of Christ to change our
heart, then we can change the world.
This is the secret of authentic happiness” (Zenit, 2012).
Likewise, in 2014 Pope
Francis gave an interview in which he outlined a ten-point plan for building
happiness involving, among other items, recommendations such as acceptance
(defined largely as we discussed earlier with COAL), sharing oneself with
others, and making time for both family and quiet reflection (Pentin,
2014). Of course, most important of all,
Jesus proclaimed his desire to teach us the path to abundance in the Scripture
passage that begins this chapter.
1.
Acceptance
2.
Give oneself to others
3.
Take time for quiet
reflection/mindfulness
4.
Enjoy leisure time with family
5.
Make Sunday a family day
6.
Meaningful and rewarding work
7.
Take time in nature and care for it
8.
Respect differences between people
9.
Let go of offenses and renounce
negativity
10.
Seek to make peace with others
The truth is, God has
an incredible plan in store for your happiness in this life and the next. You cannot begin to imagine the joy God
desires for you. As St. Paul writes,
“Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard…what God has prepared for those who
love him” (1 Cor 2:9).
Jesus,
I trust in You. You have words of eternal life.
Matthew 6:33: “But
seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be
yours as well.” Navarre Bible comments: Righteousness
of the Kingdom means the life of grace in man—which involves a whole series of
spiritual and moral values and can be summed up in the notion of “holiness”. The search for holiness should be our primary
purpose in life. Jesus is again
insisting on the primacy of spiritual demands.
Commenting on this passage, Pope Paul VI says: “Why poverty? It is to give God, the Kingdom
of God, the first place in the scale of values which are the object of human
aspirations. Jesus says: ‘Seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness.’ And he says this with regard to all the other temporal goods,
even necessary and legitimate ones, with which human desires are usually
concerned. Christ’s poverty makes
possible that detachment from earthly things which allows us to place the
relationship with God at the peak of human aspirations” (General Audience, 5 January
1977).
Talking of abundance, there is an
abundance of material for you and me to reflect on this week, to bring into our
dialogue with the Holy Spirit in our quiet times of prayer during the day. Exciting,
isn’t it? So let us do so and see what
an abundance of joy, love and peace the Holy Spirit will fill our hearts and
minds now and onwards. Nurture a long and lasting love with the Holy
Spirit. You will never regret it.
See
you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and
laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us
together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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