Month: June 2019

What Do You Seek…or Whom?

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“Your Face, LORD, do I seek!” Photo: Patricia Enk

What is the soul’s deepest longing? The answer to that question is another question: what do you seek? Do you seek truth, love, or joy? Peace? Endless fulfillment? Beauty? The desire for all these things are good, but our weak human nature usually seeks them in all the wrong places, when there is only one place where all may be found, that is, in God. The real search begins when we begin to seek God’s Face.

In his Confessions, St. Augustine told of his search in his youth for love, joy, beauty, et cetera…  but “looking in all the wrong places” he turned to sexual immorality, living with a woman for thirteen years — which only left his restless heart deeply unsatisfied. He then sought to quench his desires intellectually, which led to strange religions and philosophies. But when he heard St. Ambrose speak in Milan, and thanks also to the persevering prayers of his mother, St. Monica, God’s grace moved his heart to recognize what was true and beautiful.  But he still found it difficult to give up his sinful life.

One day in a garden, still struggling with his passions, St. Augustine heard the voice of a child repeating, “take and read, take and read.” He looked around but no one was there, but there was a Bible laying open beside him. Picking it up, he read the words from Romans 13:13-14  “…not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”  

St. Augustine was at a turning point. “What” he sought became “Whom” — Jesus Christ. By seeking the Face of God in His Word, he began his transformation in Christ, eventually becoming a Bishop and Doctor of the Church. His life of prayer, praise, and contemplation of the Blessed Trinity led to the fulfillment of the longing of his heart, which is the longing of every heart — to see the Face of God and find there all truth, beauty, goodness, love, joy, peace, and endless fulfillment in HIM.

Prayer of St. Augustine

“My Lord and my God, my only hope, hear my prayer so that I may not give in to discouragement and cease to seek you. May I desire always to see your face.  Give me strength for the search. You who caused me to find you and gave the hope of a more perfect knowledge of you. I place before you my steadfastness, that you may preserve it, and my weakness, that you may heal it. I place before you my knowledge, and my ignorance. If you open the door to me, welcome the one who enters. If you have closed the gate, open it to the one who calls. Make me always remember you, understand you, and love you. Increase those gifts in me until I am completely changed.

When we come up into your presence, these many things we talk about now without understanding them will cease, and you alone will remain everything in everyone, and then we will sing as one an eternal hymn of praise and we too will become one with you.” 

 

Pentecost with Mary, the Mother of the Church

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Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit

The Apostles “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary, the Mother of Jesus.” (Acts 1:14)

As an infant is inseparable from its mother, so the infant Church was inseparable from Mary, the loving Mother of the Church. An infant must be loved and nurtured in order to learn, grow, and mature, taking its first steps while holding tightly to the hands of its mother.

Mary, conceived without sin, was already filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and therefore she is a perfect reflection of the Face of God. So, the Apostles looked to Mary, “Full of Grace,” as their model perfectly formed in the image of God, as they prayed for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

(photo: Patricia Enk)

This is the work of the Holy Spirit of Love– to sanctify our souls, shining upon us the radiance of His light, transforming us into the image of God, as we gaze on God’s Face in prayer.

“All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.”  (2 Cor. 3:18)

In Mary, the Holy Spirit manifests the Son of the Father…filled with the Holy Spirit she makes the Word of God, Jesus Christ, visible in order to make Him known to us. Like all good mothers, our Mother Mary will obtain all the good gifts that her children will need from her Spouse, the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. The Holy Spirit then perfects the soul with the first fruits of eternal glory: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity — so we may more closely resemble Jesus Christ.

Let us remain “with one accord in prayer” with Mary, as the Apostles did, for it is “through Mary the Holy Spirit begins to bring men, the objects of God’s merciful love, into communion with Christ.” (CCC 725)

Holy Spirit Window in Loreto, Italy.           Photo:Patricia Enk

 

To Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit

Daughter of the Most High, Mother of God, faithful Spouse of the Holy Spirit — yet also Mary of Nazareth, Joseph’s wife, my mother– hear my prayer for grace, O Full of Grace. Pray your Spouse the Holy Spirit to come upon me — to shelter from all ill, to strengthen me to do what is right, to teach me all truth. Pray him come to me, and abide with me, and be within me a fountain springing up unto eternal life. May he sustain me in sorrow, sanctify me in life, and receive me at the hour of my death. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Church, pray for us.