1831 The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fullness to Christ, Son of David.109 They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them. They make the faithful docile in readily obeying divine inspirations.
Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.110
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God . . . If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.111
(Catechism of the Catholic Church)
Counsel is a gift of the Holy Spirit, one given to us to be able to discern the voice of the Lord and to follow as He leads us. But like all of God’s gifts, they are never for our own benefit alone. Those that are able to discern the times, are often able to be used by God to speak to His other children. We know these people as the Prophets and we set them in a separate category of holiness. What if this special gift was never intended to be separated out, but to be abundantly lavished on all of His children.
Do you feel a little separated from the Holy Spirit at the moment? Here’s a special prayer .
V. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. R. And you shall renew the face of the earth.
Let us pray. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, “the obedience of faith”.3 (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
We were created to live a life of faith, with the help of God’s abundant grace through the Sacraments. We were never meant to go at it alone, living depressed, lonely lives filled with anxiety and despair. That isn’t part of the plan. And even though we continually fall short, we can choose this path over and over. It is up to us. That’s the Good News that Jesus died to bring us.
Pray and obey! We are to submit our entire being into doing what we discern as being His will. That’s what it means to pray always. Our actions get turned into prayer because it is a loving response to Him who loves us dearly and wants to guide us along this journey of ours. An in faith, once we have done our best, we know that we can leave the results to Him, that in His hands all will always be for the best.
2716 Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God. Far from being passive, such attentiveness is the obedience of faith, the unconditional acceptance of a servant, and the loving commitment of a child. It participates in the “Yes” of the Son become servant and the Fiat of God’s lowly handmaid.
(Catechism of the Catholic Church)
We need to train our selves to react compassionately and mercifully to all ailments…whether within ourselves, others, or society at large. We need to see what we now try to avert our eyes from as merely a symptom, a calling for further healing. The world shows us of its need for God (and for us) in the most undesirable ways. This way of attentiveness that we are encouraged to participate with the world in, needs to begin with ourselves.
How do you view the various symptoms that you experience within your own body? Society and much of the medical industry tries to tell us each of our symptoms are a separate ‘disease’ and needs to be treated as such, with a separate medical specialist, and drug.
But what if I were to propose to you that much of what we suffer from are merely symptoms, a calling to attentiveness, to bring us back to how we were created to function. Yes, I know that many suffer with debilitating illnesses that go beyond the scope of what I’m covering here. This is not what I’m referring to. My aim here is to bring the average person back to trusting their own body and their Creator and then actively participating in their own healing via obedience.
So today’s challenge is.
Be attentive to what your body is trying to tell you. Keeping a journal is a great way to start on this path. Make a list of your symptoms, what are some things that you would change if you could. Then ask the Lord to show you what needs to be done.
2500: The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
Sometimes it’s hard to control our feelings and emotions, especially when faced with someone who we know doesn’t like or respect us. This is so relevant for us today who live in such a divided world. Even within our own families we are now facing the reality that our world view is not only rejected, but spurned. But through all of the craziness we’ve been shown over and over examples of Christians who reflected nothing but calmness and goodness, even in the face of evil being spat at them.
So although we can’t often change our interior disposition (although God can and we should pray for it), the one thing we can do is be open to emitting Jesus’ own goodness and love through us. One very simple way of doing this is through our smile. As one who struggles with RBF (if you don’t know what this is, you can look it up. 😉 ), I have to intentionally make an effort to do this.
By this simple task, we are not only conveying Jesus’ goodness to others, but it can actually alter our frame of mind and lead us to better health. Our body picks up on these subtle messages…oh, she’s smiling…we must be feeling good…let’s pump out some feel good hormones. 😀 Feel good hormones are great alkalizing agents, and the whole body benefits from it.
2045 Because they are members of the Body whose Head is Christ,89 Christians contribute to building up the Church by the constancy of their convictions and their moral lives. The Church increases, grows, and develops through the holiness of her faithful, until “we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”90 (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
It’s not the things that you do once in a while that make the biggest impact, but those that you do continuously and even sacrificially at times. If God puts something in Your heart, just put your blinders on and work at it with determination. Don’t look to the world for support, it’s more than likely that you won’t get it. It’s ok. God has given you everything you need to accomplish anything that He asks of you. Work at it, leave the results to Him.
1808Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to
overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer
fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to
renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause. "The Lord is my strength
and my song."70 "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world."71 (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
This special virtue is given to us to combat ‘vice’. In Portuguese the word ‘viceo’, means a habit or an addiction, while the English word has taken a more dire twist. But let’s aim to combat all ‘vices’. Even the little things that we hardly ever give a second thought to, can eventually trap us. Luckily we have Fortitude which is a gift of the Holy Spirit to see us through all of it.
Since we are starting our steps with the SELF, begin by listening to your body. What things do you know are causing you harm but you just can’t seem to quit. Ask the Holy Spirit for an extra portion of fortitude.
Meekness is about putting ego a side. We often can think of this as an instruction to ‘stay within our own lane’. But in some ways it’s actually the opposite. It’s about fully realizing that this grand plan of God goes way beyond us and that He’s fully in control, regardless of our limitations.
When we see people out there doing some pretty amazing things we can be tempted to think ‘what an ego maniac’, but how about the person who pulls back and doesn’t follow through on what God is putting in their heart because of not wanting to be seen as foolish? Isn’t the ego way more at work there?
716The People of the “poor”87 – those who, humble and meek, rely solely on their God’s mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but of the Messiah – are in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit’s hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Christ’s coming. It is this quality of heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, which is expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spirit is making ready “a people prepared for the Lord.”88
Here were are starting to take a look at the workings of our body and how to maintain it.
Being a prophet is merely being in touch with the heart of God, to be able to discern His voice. To be able to see what is there that so many others miss.
A priestly, prophetic, and royal people 783 Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. The whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for mission and service that flow from them.208 (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
We will now step into loving God with our whole strength, our bodies. He has created us intelligently and wonderfully to be able to serve Him to best of our ability and we owe it to Him to take good care of it. So working for the inside out, this week I’d like for us to take a closer look at our Lymphatic System and how we can support it. Everyone is very familiar with the circulatory system, how the blood nourishes the body and how the heart pumps it through. The Lymphatic system runs through our body in a similar network, extending all the way up and down our bodies and holds an immensely critical role…various actually. It has a part in building up our immune system for one, but what I want to focus on for now is its role in detoxifying the body.
Just like tiny blood vessels get blood into every cell of the body, the lymphatic systems has similar network to remove the waste that is created there by removing used up fluids. These waste products then get carried into the main lymphatic vessels to be cleaned up on route back to other main organs of the body, either to the circulatory system to be used again, or kidneys to be eliminated. The specific areas that ‘cleans things up’ are our lymph nodes. We have several throughout the body, you’ve probably felt the ones on your neck swell up when you had some sort of infection. That’s your body doing its job.
The thing with the lymphatic system is that it doesn’t get moved around with a pump like the blood does, so it can get sluggish and we need to be proactive in maintaining it. Many things can contribute to this sluggishness and we’ll be discussing ways we can support the lymphatic system as we progress with this program. Another thing to remember is how acidity in the body can effect it as well. Acids can be very corrosive, and this is no less true within our body (the stomach is the only place that requires acids to do its job). When this happens the body’s healing system kicks in. What you may know as ‘inflammation’, is actually part of the body’s defense team…you may experience this as excess phlegm after eating certain foods or coming into contact with a foreign substance as in an allergic reaction. This is normal and healthy, unless it becomes chronic. Our bodies were meant to deal with an occasional acid overload…not a constant way of life.
One small step that we can take to support our lymphatic system is to stay well hydrated. This is simple, just drink more. Lymph like blood consists mostly of water. The thing to keep in mind though is that we want to help it and not hurt it. So we need to stay away from highly acidic drinks… sugary drinks, caffeine, carbonated beverages, alcohol, are all very acidic. Animal products are also very acidic, so that makes milk not as good for your body as the the milk industry wants you to believe. Milk is great for baby cows, not so much for humans. So the most perfect drink is simply water.
What I’m trying to do here is not assign you a set of rules on what to do or even what products to buy. My goal is to get people to start thinking about their bodies as Divinely created with a purpose, to maintain a strong relationship with their Creator, and look to Him for answers. That our prayers should be more than simply asking God to get us out of a jam, but to look deeper at what keeps getting us in that jam, to pray and obey. To be aware that our small steps have consequences. We often are so eager to do great things for God, get out the sack cloth and ashes, but often a life of Holiness and wellness simply means doing the little things for love of Him. The beauty of it is how He honors that, our little ‘sacrifices’ mean so much…they open up such incredible graces for ourselves and for others.
The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all, how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
St. Vincent De Paul
What makes humility so powerful? Because it’s what it takes to give our lives completely over to the Lord and be able to live in complete obedience. Jesus said that we needed to become like little children. He didn’t mean childish and immature…lol…He meant humble and open to receiving His graces.
When we are prideful, it is almost impossible to live out a life of grace. We become like the rich young man in the Gospels, we posses too much and become unwilling to let any of it go, in order to follow the foot steps the Lord puts before us. We have our reputation, our friendships, our health, and our wealth to protect. The ‘what ifs’ run through our minds and paralyze us from doing the thing that we are being called to do.
So true humility, isn’t about thinking less of ourselves… we don’t have to become doormats… we just have to think of ourselves less. More of Him and less of us. We must be so confident and trusting in the Lord that we just know that whatever He allows will be for our ultimate good. Yes, we may lose some things in the interim… but that’s just to make room for the real gems that he wants to give us.
Read here about the Precious Jewels, and how letting go can bring greater graces than we can even imagine.
