"A New Season"
"Mission" (Relational Purpose: Part
9)
Our goal, our vision, is to form
the hearts of God's people through a deep, personal relationship with God so
that they may become within themselves a house of prayer for all peoples.
We help people to develop and foster a deep interior life. Because we need the
love power of the holy Spirit to be at work for this transformation to take
place, the "baptism in the holy Spirit" is essential for our charism and
ministry. This "baptism" often initiates an essential spiritual renewal and
helps us to be renewed from within.
The Acts of the Apostles
presents us with the life and ministry of the original Pentecost community.
Before Pentecost the risen Jesus had promised the Apostles, "You will receive
power when the holy Spirit comes upon you" (Acts. 1:8). In Acts 12:5 we are
told that after Peter had been arrested and imprisoned under Herod's orders
that, "Prayer by the church was fervently being made to God on his behalf."
This is the first passage in the Acts where we witness contemplative, communal
intercession at work in the Spirit-filled community of believers. Through
the outpouring of the holy Spirit at Pentecost they had become individually and
collectively a "spiritual" house of prayer.
Intercessors are formed by the holy
Spirit in the "Heart of Mary".Together Mary and her
"Spouse" work to build each of us into a "spiritual" house where the love of
God and the love of humanity unite in a single embrace. As we read in 1 Pet.
2:5, "Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy
priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ." The holy Spirit and Mary form us to be spiritual, holy and
priestly for effective intercessory offering and reconciling.
The heart of an intercessor is key for
it is where the One Intercessor with the Father, Jesus, dwells within us. Jesus
wants to live within us in the power of his holy Spirit. Our hearts need the
love power of the holy Spirit in order to intercede:
"The love which his Holy Spirit has
poured out. The grace of this spiritual love is always available to us,
enabling us continually to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice
holy and pleasing to him" ("From a Book addressed to Monimus
by Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe,
bishop". LH II, p. 653).
As the
Spirit fills us he leads us to lay down our lives so that others can also
experience the life, union and intimacy that we have experienced with God. The
Spirit will begin to intercede through us for he is the One who knows the deep
things of God. As we learn to yield more easily to the Spirit within us, we
give him the freedom to be the "covenant of God's love" at work within us. He
will change us into people who live Jesus and his cross (our charism).
Questions:
1) How
has the "baptism in the holy Spirit" changed my life?
2) Is
my relationship with Mary as intimate as I would like it to be?
Scriptures:
Any scripture from the text; 1 Mc. 7:37; Luke 2:49; Luke 19:5
