By Most Rev. Dr. Yvon Ambroise,
Bishop of Tuticorin –
A flower is meant to blossom in its own time and to spread a particular fragrance in nature. The sun and its rays are the favouring elements for a flower to blossom. Nature plays the role of revealing to the world all the potentialities of the flower while blossoming and thereafter.
As for God, who created this nature and the flowers in it, He also created each person out of his infinite love and wisdom. Hence He expects each person to blossom in one’s life and contribute in whatever way possible to the meaningfulness of life and of the world. In other words, God loves each person and would like that each one reaches a life of full potential like the blossoming of a flower. But there is no stereotyped way of achieving it but each one may do it in different ways that fit every person like various flowers in nature. There could be several roads to perfection and God is the energizing force to lead every person according to His plan.
There is no need for a person to entertain any doubt on it but it is required of the person to discern and to cooperate with God. “Lead kindly light, amidst the encircling gloom, lead Thou me on,” should be the sincere prayer of every honest person, just as Cardinal Newman prayed. Because of this sure belief, every person must be filled with a feeling of gratitude for what God wants to achieve in each one and through each one.
But unfortunately there are a few who are indifferent to God or even reject God or lead a life of mediocrity in day to day life. Why does this happen in one’s life? Is there a way out of it? What could be the ways and means that a blossoming of the Spirit of God could take place in one’s life. Some such questions would like to be addressed by me in my own personal way. It is not a sure spiritual recipe but a person’s sharing of what one feels, experiences and is aware of the spiritual lessons after reading several spiritual authors.
How do we cooperate with the Holy Spirit to bring about this Blossoming of the Spirit in us?
It would be useful to reflect on the words of wisdom coming from St. Francis of Sales: (Treatise on Divine Love, book 8, chapter 6) “Oh! Blessed are those who hold it something close to their heart and be open to the holy inspirations! For they would never lack what is necessary for the total devotedness, needed in their day to day lives and to exercise the responsibility of their profession. For just as God gives to every animal through nature what is needed for its survival through its instinct as well as for the exercise of all its natural activities, for us also, if we do not resist God‟s grace, He gives to each one the necessary inspirations to live, to work for and persevere in spiritual life”. As St. Paul says in Rom 8:14, “For all, who are led by the Spirit of God, are children of God”. Further St. Paul says in Gal 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit let us also be guided by the Spirit”.
Through our baptism we received the adoption as children of God and the inheritors of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Normally the fruit of this sacrament is to bring into our lives the blossoming of the Spirit. This is what we call “the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit”. It is to orient our souls to subject itself promptly to the impulses from God as well as to His divine inspirations. Thus says St. Thomas Aquinas that the gifts of the Holy Spirit bestow on all the faculties of the soul a certain capacity to submit oneself to the inspirations of God. Hence every Christian, particularly the Priests and the Religious, should desire and ask for such graces. God gives it in several measures and as Lk.12: 48 says “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted even more will be demanded”. What are the causes that allow the manifestations of the inspirations of grace? What should each person do in order that the Lord would make each one benefit by His grace? Let me give some hints towards these questions raised.
Practice Praise and Thanksgiving to God
That which serves as an obstacle to receive the abundant graces of God could be that the person does not sufficiently acknowledge all the good things of one’s life, coming from God and did not thank God wholeheartedly for all those benefits. There is no doubt that when we thank God for each grace received from Him from the bottom of our hearts it draws more graces for us. It needs a certain awareness in each one about it.
Let us listen to the words of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, talking to her elder Sister Celine, who was also a Carmelite nun. “What attracts the graces from the benevolent God is our sense of total gratitude for all that He has done. When we do so, His heart is touched and becomes willing to give ten times in abundance His grace. When we offer thanksgiving to Him more and more He gives us again a multiplication of an incalculable grace of God. I have experienced it and if you do the same you can see how much more you receive. Thus you can multiply a thousand times the experience of God bestowing His grace abundantly” (Jacques Philippe; À l„École de l‟Esprit Saint, Editions des Béatitudes, 1995,p.30).
Let us not take it as a mathematical calculation but understand it in the measure of the love and generosity of God. It will make us understand that our ingratitude to God falls back on us by not helping us to receive the graces of God. Let us remember the words of Ps 103:1-5: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all His benefits – who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, which satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagles”.
Praise and thanksgiving serve the purpose of purification of the heart which is reminded of its past about the negative things (sin), forgiven and forgotten by God. And this helps the heart to dispose itself in a proper way to receive the grace of God and the movements of the Holy Spirit in us.