By Sister Susan Marie on May 18th, 2012
St. Francis de Sales had a deep devotion to the Holy Spirit.
Over the next nine days, as a”creative” novena, we will share excerpts of his profound understandings of the Holy Spirit.
May 18: “When the soul is completely restored to health by the charity of the Holy Spirit that is placed upon its heart, then it can go forward and stand by itself upon its own feet. Although it can walk by itself, it must still render all the credit to God who has given it such vigorous and study health.
Whether the Holy Spirit strengthens us by movements that He impresses on our hearts or supports us by the charity He infuses into them, whether He saves us by way of His help in lifting us up and carrying us forward, or whether He strengthens our hearts by turning upon them his invigorating and enlivening love, it is always in Him and by Him that we live, walk and work.”
Source: Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 3
By Sister Susan Marie on May 16th, 2012
Read this beautiful tribute from a postulant upon witnessing the Solemn Profession of a Visitandine Sister:
http://brooklynvisitationmonastery.org/mirroring-the-trinity-a-gift-of-self/
By Sister Susan Marie on May 16th, 2012
St Francis de Sales, in his Treatise on the Love of God, references the Ascension of Our Lord in this way:
“If we live a spiritual life, we forsake our merely human life in order to live a loftier life above ourselves. We hide all this new life ” in God with Jesus Christ”, who alone sees it, knows it and gives it. Our new life is heavenly love, which vivifies and animtes our soul, and this love is wholly hidden in God and the things of God with Jesus Christ.
As the sacred words of the Gospel say, after Jesus Christ had shown Himself for a little while to his disciples, he ascended up to heaven, and at length a cloud surrounded him,took him and hid him from their eyes. Jesus Christ then is hidden in heaven in God. Jesus Christ is our love, and our love is the life of our soul. Therefore “our life is hidden in God with Jesus Christ and when Christ who is ” our love and therefore our spiritual life,”shall appear” in the day of judgement, we shall also appear ” with him in glory”. That is, Jesus Christ, our love, will glorify us by communicating to us his own joy and splendor.
Source: Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7
