DAY NINE: YOUR GIFT IS CONSTANTLY GROWING!
Fifty years after my ordination, I can say in the words Mysterium Fidei we find ever more each day the meaning of our priesthood. Here is the measure of the gift which is the priesthood, and here is also the measure of the response which the gift demands. The gift is constantly growing! And this is something wonderful. It is wonderful that a man can never say that he has fully responded to the gift. It remains both a gift and a task: always! To be conscious of this is essential if we are to live our own priesthood to the full (Pope John Paul II – Gift and Mystery, page 79).
Hail Mary….
Today I attended both an ordination to the transitional deaconate and a wedding. Parties for both sacraments had truly prepared with discernment, prayer, pausing….Will the deacon and the newly married couple be prepared to live the gift and task of their respective vocations? Without a doubt! But even so, it will be difficult without the gift of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of our Lady and the saints. The gift is constantly growing, as Pope John Paul II said, and they will certainly grow from strength to strength seeing that they truly understood the nature of their commitments from the beginning, but still they will need much help. Human nature can turn on a dime as we know so well, however the Lord labors to keep us on the straight and narrow; we must know that He wants us to live our vocations to the full, and be happy in this life and in the life to come. God is on our side!
Come Holy Spirit, into our lives again and fill us with the deep awareness that with you, in the spirit of our Lady, all things are possible; only one thing is necessary, trust! May we trust that the words proclaimed over us at our consecrations and ordinations, will be fulfilled because you are with us and promised to be with us always, until the end of time. Amen. (
"The experience of the Holy Spirit can happen in a 'pentecostal' way (as in Acts) or through an interior Pentecost where the Holy Spirit is met personally and quietly..."
G. Giaquinta
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