May 25, 2012

Reflection on the Spirit of the Sacred Heart May 25, 2012

Pentecost I watched a hen the other day pursue a barn-owl twice her size across the yard. Her flaps and squawks seemed laughably inept yet kept that predator from eating more than half of her new chicks.    She made me think of dark-eyed children  throwing stones at tanks and Rosa Parks defiant on a bus and Gandhi bending low making salt.    Where does such fire come from  that can make a little one stand tall or turn to flesh a heart of stone? I saw it fall in tongues of flame  one day on ordinary folk and knew it would in time all things malevolent consume. Poem written by Beatrice Brennan rscj, province of the United States   (http://www.rscjinternational.org/en/spirituality/seasons-of-prayer-publicmenu-37/119-intros/1932-mayo-mai-may-2008.html?showall=1)

For Reflection...   "If only it were given to me, if only I were not so unworthy, that God might give me the grace to speak to you of the happiness of persons who give themselves over to the Holy Spirit, completely and without reserve!    If I could tell you all that takes place in them, if I could depict their happiness. It is no longer they who act; it is God. They go nowhere, they do nothing except by the Spirit's inspiration; everything becomes easy for them; they no longer experience difficulty; they meet no obstacles. The Holy Spirit pulls them along and sets up a communication between them and heaven.     These people have found the secret of touching hearts. It is as if they do not act of themselves; they do not know whether they are doing good; one might say they do not even desire to do good; rather they have only one desire to follow and obey the impulse of the Holy Spirit in everything." St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, Conferences I, 2 June 1827, p. 18   (http://www.rscjinternational.org/en/alerts-notshown-48/3161-june-12th-2011.html)    Artwork by Sophie Maille, rscj   http://www.rscjinternational.org/en/spirituality/seasons-of-prayer-publicmenu-37/119-intros/1287-mayo-mai-may-2007.html?showall=1