Fr. C. G. Vaillancourt
We are invited to live a life in the Spirit of God, this calls for renunciation of the earthly life, detachment from our material world, possessions and the ego.
We must die to the old self to experience the new self which is empowered by the Holy Spirit to live according to the Will of God.
This new life creates new commitments to God, which involve more time for God than before, we are encouraged to participate in different types of prayer meetings, we may practice different devotions, we may be called to receive the Lord daily in the Holy Eucharist, we may decide to pray the Rosary daily and many other activities which did not make sense before.
We are the new apostles of the Lord, and we must pray for the unity of the Church and the hope that all who have left her may return to Holy Mother Church, we must proclaim the Good News to everyone and be living witnesses of the truth.
Pray that the gifts the Lord is giving you will be given to everyone, pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit continually.
Those experiencing the action of the Holy Spirit may receive visions, locutions, dreams, knowledge, wisdom, shakes, moans or sighs when they pray, etc. They are little consolations but we must not seek them, they can become weapons of the adversary to make us believe that we are doing very well spiritually. Beware friends in Christ, pray continually to the Holy Spirit for discernment and to Our Lady to protect you from the enemy. Pray the Holy Rosary.
Those who are receiving the gifts of grace from the Lord will also experience the attacks of the enemy who comes in our dreams or during events of our lives tempting us, humiliating us and trying to discourage us.
Whatever we do in the new spiritual life, let us us always do in the name of Jesus, thanking our Heavenly Father for His gifts and living our lives consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The Blessed Virgin Mary is the most perfect of all creatures, She is the Immaculate Conception, in other words She reflects perfectly the image of God that Adam and Eve reflected before they committed sin. She was conceived without sin by a very special Grace of God Who made Her full of Grace, She grew in that Grace and later was requested to become the Mother of the Word of God Who took flesh and blood from Her and became man. The Conception of Our Lord happened by the action of the Holy Spirit in the virginal womb of Mary [Luke 1:35].
This spousal between the Holy Spirit and Mary is the most intimate encounter between God and man. Out of this fruitful union came Our Blessed Lord Who being God humbled Himself to clothe Himself with our humanity, remaining a prisoner in the womb of the Blessed Virgin for nine months and accompanying Her during thirty years of His life.
By the spousal with the Holy Spirit, Our Lady was anointed and sanctified, She cooperated with the Holy Spirit in so far as becoming His most perfect instrument. No one can claim that they could be as useful to God as Mary is. This is why Our Lady says humbly, The Lord has done great things in me and holy is His name. All generations shall call me blessed. [ The Magnificat - Luke 1:46-55 ]
By the action of the Holy Spirit, Mary became the tree of Life. The fruit of this tree is first of all Our Lord Who is the bread of life. As we accept Christ into our lives and live a Christian life fulfilling the promises made in our Baptism, we become the children of God who by precedence have the same spiritual mother as His Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord. So we are the children of the new Eve, we have been conceived in the spiritual womb of Mary which is Her Immaculate Heart.
No wonder Our Lord said, you must be born again: " You must become a child of Mary".
The Holy Spirit begets the children of God in Mary, He did that first with Our Lord, we are also children of God, children of Mary.
In revelation 12:17 we are told that the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil was very angry with the woman who conceived the child who rules all the nations [Revelation 12:5] whose enmity was stated in [Genesis 3:15]. He, the devil went out to make war to the woman and the rest of her children [ who accept Mary as Mother ] , those who keep the commandments [Revelation 12:17] and accept the teachings of Jesus Christ.
So this great privilege of being the spouse of the Holy Spirit is unique to Our Blessed Mother, and yet God has made us all temples of His Holy Spirit so that we can be united to Him and love Him as Mary does.
We must become like Mary in order to receive these great gifts of God, we must learn to love God the way She loves Him: as a perfect daughter of God the Father, as a perfect mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ and as the perfect spouse of the Holy Spirit. Amen