The Fire of God’s Love

 

May 6, 2025

Aleteia 

Hello!  How is each and every one? The whole world is in anticipation of the start of the Conclave tomorrow in which the cardinal electors will be electing the next pope.  May I invite each one of you to pray as often during these days the following prayer for the Conclave:

Prayer for the Conclave:

O God, eternal shepherd, who govern your flock with unfailing care, grant in your boundless fatherly love a pastor for your Church who will please you by his holiness and to us show watchful care, through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever, Amen.

Episcopal Conference of the Pacific

And now let us continue with the chapter we started last week on the final end of which you and I have been longing for and aspiring for ever since and that is the Love of God (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 11).

Stepping into the Divine Fire

Reaching the top of the ladder and climbing through the window, we find ourselves in a room that is completely dominated by an immense hearth with a roaring fire.

Pinterest

Suddenly, we have a sense that a voice is calling to us through the flame, telling us to draw closer, to step into the fire.  With clarity beyond all doubt, we know that this is no ordinary fire, but still we’re afraid.  Do we trust this voice calling us forward?  Do we dare attempt the impossible?  As warm as we are standing outside the hearth, we know that there is so much more warmth within the fire.  No matter how much light fills the room from the fire, it can’t compare to the brightness contained within the fire itself.  And now the fire itself is calling us to step into the flames.  It is no longer enough to be warmed by the fire.  We ache to be filled with it. 

Indian Catholic Matters

And so we step into the flames, and the fire of God’s life begins to fill us up and set us ablaze.  It is a fascinating, and joyful, and overwhelming experience all at once.  Fearful of being consumed by the flames, we’re terrified that we won’t be consumed.  Up to now, we’ve been afraid we would lose ourselves if we got too close to the fire.  Now we’re finding that the more we are consumed by the fire, the more “ourselves,” the more authentic, we become.  We enter completely into the numinous experience Rudolf Otto proclaimed to be mysteriumtremendum, etfascinans—mysterious, terrifying yet irresistibly fascinating.

Rudolf Otto

Grace is a participation in Divine Life

As more of us are consumed, we become more and more anxious to be totally united with the fire.  We see the work God is doing in us, and we yearn for that work to be completed.  We feel the joyful agony of a million small children on a thousand Christmas Eves filled with desperate anticipation of the amazing gifts the morning will bring.  The greatest pleasures this earth can give fail to compare to the joy we know is coming, and it can’t come quickly enough.  We are traveling through the agony and the ecstasy that attends the dark night of the soul, that time when one can do nothing but ache for that last moment of total surrender, where every dream of this world is merely a distraction, a pale shadow of the bright dawn that is soon to come, and in which we have been granted the privilege of participating. 

Indian Catholic Matters

Finally, we are a flame in the fire.  Eternal, bright, and perfect, we are consumed by the flames, but rather than being destroyed by them, we are glorified in them.  We remain uniquely and unrepeatedly ourselves, but evermore so. We become one more bright way the fire reveals itself to the world and calls others to itself in an ever expanding cycle of light and warmth and beauty.

Opus Dei

The flames I am describing, of course, are grace, God’s very own divine life, which at first warms us, then sets us ablaze, and then consumes us, drawing us into his very own self.  The farther we progress down the path of theosis, the more we become partakers in God’s divine nature.  The fire of his love no longer simply warms us or burns within us.  It becomes us, or, perhaps more accurately, we become it, as we enter into the very heart of God’s burning passion for us.

I also thought it good and fitting to share with each one of you the following prayer, Adsumus, Sancte Spiritus that was introduced for the Synod 1921-23 the Church carried as convoked by Pope Francis.  Since then I have made it part of my daily prayers after Holy Communion as I find it very appropriate as my personal devotion to the Holy Spirit given that He is our sanctifier and spiritual director.  I must say He took to task seriously and has been very active; my interior life has become ever more dynamic. 

Adsumus, Sanctae Spiritus

Prayer of invocation to the Holy Spirit for an ecclesial assembly of governance or discernment (thus synodal)

Every session of the Second Vatican Council began with the prayer Adsumus Sancte Spiritus, the first word of the Latin original meaning, “We stand before You, Holy Spirit,” which has been historically used at Councils, Synods and other Church gatherings for hundreds of years, being attributed to Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560 - 4 April 636).  As we are called to embrace this synodal path of the Synod 2021-2023, this prayer invites the Holy Spirit to operate within us so that we may be a community and a people of grace. For the Synod 2021-2023, we propose to use this simplified version, so that any group or liturgical assembly can pray more easily.

We stand before You, Holy Spirit,

    as we gather together in Your name.

With You alone to guide us,

     make Yourself at home in our hearts; 

Teach us the way we must go

     and how we are to pursue it.

We are weak and sinful;

     do not let us promote disorder.

Do not let ignorance lead us down the wrong path

     nor partiality influence our actions.

Let us find in You our unity

     so that we may journey together to eternal life

     and not stray from the way of truth 

     and what is right.

All this we ask of You,

     who are at work in every place and time, 

     in the communion of the Father and the Son,

     forever and ever. Amen.

Title revised from Latin, to have a proper incipit, different from the Adsumus Dominus Sancte Spiritus. The Caeremoniale Episcoporum 1984ss., n. 1173, only proposes the use of the Adsumus but does not give the text. The German version Das Zeremoniale für die Bischöfe, n. 1188, gives a German translation based on the Latin text of the Acta Synodalia of the Council, vol. I/1, p. 159.

Likewise on the national level, the country is preparing for the elections on May 12.  We are praying to the same Holy Spirit for enlightenment, discernment and intervention for a clean, peaceful and lawful election proceedings and results.

As always I will never tire of challenging each one of us to bring the above topic and concerns into our quiet moments of prayer and conversation with the good Lord who loves each one of us like no other in the whole universe and together with His spouse and mother, our mother as well let us allow ourselves to be guided and led along the way of truth, life, love and hope.

Let each one of us pay intent heed to whatever He and she may tell us at every m moment of the day.

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