Then they returned to Jerusalem…all these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary, the Mother of Jesus… (Acts 1:12,14)
From True Devotion to the Holy Spirit by Archbishop Luis Martinez :
Christian life is the reproduction of Jesus in souls… Now, how will this mystical reproduction be brought about in souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the world…In His miraculous birth, Jesus was the fruit of Heaven and earth. The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of the Father to Mary, and this virginal soil brought forth in an ineffable manner our most loving Savior, the divine Seed, as the prophets called Him.
This is what we are taught regarding Jesus, with the conciseness and the precision of an article of Faith: "He was conceived by the Holy Spirit … of the Virgin Mary." That is the way Jesus is always conceived. That is the way He is reproduced in souls. He is always the fruit of Heaven and earth. Two artisans—the Holy Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary—must concur in the work that is at once God's masterpiece and humanity's supreme product. Both the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary are necessary to souls, for they are the only ones who can reproduce Christ.
Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The first is the Sanctifier by essence, because He is God, who is infinite sanctity, and because He is the personal Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating His life and His unity and it belongs to Him to communicate to souls the mystery of that sanctity.
The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the cooperator, the indispensable instrument in and by God's design. From Mary's maternal relation to the human body of Christ is derived her relation to His Mystical Body, which is being formed through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete, and glorious.
These two then, the Holy Spirit and Mary, are the indispensable sanctifiers of souls… For the Holy Spirit pours charity into our heart, makes a habitation of our soul, and directs our spiritual life by means of His gifts. The Virgin Mary has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate operations of grace in our souls.
And, finally, the action of the Holy Spirit and the cooperation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them, not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no grace would increase, no bond of union with God would be strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life. Such is the place that the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant.
Pope Benedict XVI: MARY'S FAITH
Just as Abraham's faith was the beginning of the Old Covenant, Mary's faith, enacted in the scene of the Annunciation, is the inauguration of the New. For Mary, as for Abraham, faith is trust in, and obedience to God, even when he leads her through darkness. It is a letting go, a releasing, a handing over of oneself to the truth, to God. Faith, in the luminous darkness of God's inscrutable ways, is thus a conformation to him …
Mary, saying Yes to the birth of the Son of God from her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, places her body, her entire self, at God's disposal as a place for his presence. In her Yes, then, Mary's will coincides with her Son's. The unison of these yeses – "a body you have prepared for me" – makes the Incarnation possible, for, as Augustine says, Mary conceived in Spirit before she conceived in her body.
SPOUSE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT:
0 Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, make me docile to His divine motions.
MEDITATION from Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene OCD:
"The Blessed, Virgin Mary," says St. Augustine, "was the only one who merited to be called the Mother and Spouse" of God. She became the Mother of God because she was the Spouse of the Holy Spirit: "the Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee" (Lk 1:35), said the Angel, explaining the mysterious, divine manner in which she would become a mother, the Mother of the Son of God. At that moment the Holy Spirit, who had already possessed Mary's soul from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception, came upon her with such exceptional plenitude that He formed within her the sacred Body of Jesus.
Justly, therefore, does Mary deserve the name of Spouse of the Holy Spirit: she is His possession, His sanctuary, His temple. The divine Paraclete may well say to her in the words of the Canticle: "My sister, my spouse, is a garden end a fountain sealed up" (4:12). Mary is a garden enclosed:" because she was never defiled-even for an instant by the shadow of sin, was never subject to the winds of unruly passions, never taken up with any affection for creatures.
Filled with grace from her conception, Mary is always the faithful Spouse of the Holy Spirit, attentive docile to all His impulses and inspirations. If Mary's sublime privileges are reserved for her at we can, nevertheless, imitate her interior dispositions: keeping our heart, in imitation of hers, always attentive and docile to the action of the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Francis Fernandez writes about the seven gifts
and their influence in the Christian life:
"But when the Counsellor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me." Our Lord announces this news in the Gospel of today's Mass, and the liturgy of the Church invites us, in various ways, to get our souls ready for the action of the Holy Spirit.
A resolute battle against every deliberate venial sin prepares us to receive the light and the protection of the Parac1ete, by means of his gifts. The light which is bestowed on our intellect makes us know and understand the things of God; the assistance to our will permits us to use successfully the opportunities for doing good which we encounter every day, and to reject the temptations of everything that would separate us from God.
The gift of understanding shows us the riches of the Faith with greater clarity. The gift of knowledge enables us to judge created things in an upright manner, and to keep our heart fixed on God, and on things insofar as they lead us to him. The gift wisdom enables us to comprehend the unfathomable wonder of God, and it urges us to seek him in preference to all other things, amid our ordinary work and obligations. The gift of counsel points out the paths of holiness to us.- God’s will Will in our ordinary daily life– and encourages us to choose the option which most closely coincides with the glory of God, and the good of our fellow man.
The gift of piety inclines us to treat God with the intimacy with which a child treats his father. The gift of fortitude uplifts us continually, helping us to overcome the difficulties which we inevitably meet on our journey to God. The gift of fear induces us to flee the occasions of sin, resist temptation and avoid every evil which could sadden the Holy Spirit, and to fear above all the loss of the One whom we love, and who is the reason of being of our life.
These are days to prepare for the celebration of the solemn sending out of the Holy Spirit on the Church, represented by the Apostles foregathered in the Cenacle, along with Mary the Mother of God. We pray constantly that we may be docile to the work of the Holy Spirit in our soul, and that he may not cease to move and inspire the people of these times in which we live, who are particularly hungry for theSpirit, and so much need his protection and his help.
We tell him:
Come, 0 Holy Spirit, come,
And from thy celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, thou Father of the poor,
Come, thou source of all our store,
Come, within our bosoms shine!
Thou on those who ever more
Thee confess and thee adore I
n thy sevenfold gifts descend;
Give them virtue’s sure reward,
Give them thy salvation , Lord,
Give them joy that never ends.
Recourse to Our Lady, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, is the surest way for us to disponse our soul for whatever new gifts the Paraclete wishes to give us.
