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Day 7 Novena to the Holy Spirit – Discerning Hearts

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Novena to the Holy Spirit

Begin be reciting the following prayer…

O Holy Spirit, Divine Consoler!
I adore you as my True God.
I offer You my whole heart,
and I render You heartfelt thanks for all the benefits You have bestowed upon the world.
You are the author of all supernatural gifts
and enriched the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God,
with all favors,
I ask you to visit me by Your grace and Your love,
and grant me the favor
I so earnestly seek…

State your request here…

O Holy Spirit,
spirit of truth, come into our hearts:

DAY SEVEN

Come, Holy Spirit,
creator of all things:
come visit our hearts with Your power.
Fill with grace, friendly guest,
the hearts which You have created.
You are called the Consoler,
gift from the hand of God,
source of life, light, love, and flame, highest good.
You are the pledge of sevenfold grace,
finger of the Father’s hand,
promised us by Him,
and You make our tongues speak the truth.
Cast light on our senses,
pour love into our hearts.
Grant our weak bodies strength
that they may never grow weary of doing good
and grant me the favor I so earnestly seek in this novena…

State your request here…

Keep the enemy far from us,
give us peace always,
let us willingly follow in Your footsteps
that we may be far removed from sin.
Grant that through You
we may grow in knowledge of the Father and of the Son,
and that we may ever strongly believe in You,
the Spirit of both.
Praise and honor be forever to the Father on the highest throne,
in the risen Son of God,
in the Consoler.

Come, O Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of Your faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of Your love.

Amen.

IP#297 Fr. George Rutler – He Spoke To Us part 1 on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

The master storyteller, Fr. George Rutler, brings to us an incredible teachings with his book “He Spoke to Us: Discerning God in People and Events”. In the essays contained within this engaging work, Fr. Rutler provides for us a facet of discernment which involves recognizing the movements God in the lives of others, which in turn helps to see similar activity that might occur in our own life experience. Always a joy to talk with Fr. Rutler.

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You can find the book here

“Father Rutler’s book is not just charming and informative, but a delight. He knows and remembers so many things that each chapter is a new experience of something in history, theology, literature, or just common sense.”

–Fr. James Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

“Father Rutler is a man of parts: graduate of Dartmouth, Oxford, and Rome’s Angelicum; linguist, painter, violinist, and boxer; preacher extraordinaire. One of Catholicism’s most successful pastors, he has been a magnet attracting converts and vocations for decades. Fr. Rutler is also that contemporary clerical rarity–an accomplished man of letters who writes as gracefully as he speaks.” –George Weigel, Author, Evangelical Catholicism

Day 8 Novena to the Holy Spirit – Discerning Hearts

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Novena to the Holy Spirit

Begin be reciting the following prayer…

State your request here…

O Holy Spirit,
spirit of truth, come into our hearts:

DAY EIGHT

O Holy Spirit,
life and light of the Church,
give us thoughts higher than our own thoughts,
and prayers better than our own prayers,
and powers beyond our own powers,
that we may love and live,
imitating Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Savior.
Come to us, Holy Spirit,
come with the Father
and the Son
and grant me the favor I so earnestly request in this novena…

State your request here…

Vouchsafe to dwell within our souls
and quickly make our hearts Your own.
Quench in us the fires of hate and strife,
the wasting fever of the heart.
From perils guard our feeble life
and to our souls Your peace impart.
Let voice and mind and heart
and strength confess
and glorify Your name
and let the fire of charity burn bright
and other hearts inflame.

Come, O Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of Your faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of Your love.

Amen.

MM5 – A Marian Moment – Reflections on the Blessed Virgin Mary

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From the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Blessed Lady, you found grace;
you brought forth Life;
you became the mother of salvation.
Gain for us the grace to turn to your Son through you.
And let your humility, so pleasing to God,
gain forgiveness for our vanity.
Let your abundant charity cover the multitude of our sins,
and let your glorious fruitfulness conceive in us a fruitfulness of merits.
Reconcile us to your Son, entrust us to him, and present us to him.
Blessed Virgin, by the grace you found with God,
by the favor you merited, by the mercy he has granted you, gain for us this favor:
Let the One who, through you, came down to share our weakness and affliction,
make us share, through you,
his glory and blessedness—
Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who is above all,
God forever blessed!

ROHC-V3 What is Redemptive Suffering– The Heart of Hope w/ Deacon James Keating Ph.D. – Video podcast

ROHC-V3 What is Redemptive Suffering– The Heart of Hope w/ Deacon James Keating Ph.D. – Video podcast from Discerning Hearts on Vimeo.

Heart of Hope Part 3 — What is Redemptive Suffering…using love and the energy of love to redirect pain as an intercessory prayer for another…how it makes sense and is no longer meaningless

Deacon James Keating, PhD, the director of Theological Formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation, located at Creighton University, in Omaha, is making available to ”Discerning Hearts” and all who listen, his series of programs entitled “The Heart of Hope”.

This series explores the work of suffering in the Christian life and how God can use it to transform the heart of the individual and the world.

You can obtain just the audio podcast, if you would prefer

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IP#20 Anthony Burke Smith – The Look of Catholics on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

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“The Look of Catholics: Portrayals in Popular Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War” is a fascinating work by Anthony Burke Smith. In film, radio, print Catholics contributed significantly to the American Imagination during some of the truly toughest years our nation has faced. It is really interesting how the country turned to the virtuous communal nature of the Catholic identity to lift itself during this time. From Leo McCarey’s Oscar-winning “Go My Way” to Archbishop Fulton Sheen to Henry Luce (publisher of Life magazine), Anthony covers a vast array of areas in this study. I loved it, and I bet so will you!

You can find Anthony’s book at Amazon.com

“Smith’s ambitious and exemplary work demonstrates decisively for all time that Catholics were not only integral players in the formation of modern American popular culture but that the role of Catholicism itself in the national popular culture was a major issue in the production of that same culture. . . . A wonderfully exciting book that will be widely hailed as a landmark achievement confirm the author’s stature as the leading scholar of Catholic popular culture, and be consulted by scholars and their students for decades to come.” –James T. Fisher

Day 9 Novena to the Holy Spirit – Discerning Hearts

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Novena to the Holy Spirit

Begin be reciting the following prayer…

State your request here…

O Holy Spirit,
spirit of truth, come into our hearts:

DAY NINE

O Lord, Holy Spirit,
grant me sight to see the wondrous promise of divine love;
insight to see my own weakness;
delight in Your divine presence in my soul
which You have made Your temple through sanctifying grace.
I pray, O Holy Spirit,
that I may be not doubting;
that I be spared the pain of being alone
without trust or hope in Christ;
that my prayer may always be “My Lord and my God!”
I pray that I may acquire a sense of retreat
to prayer and recollection at various times in my daily life;
for prayer is the bond that joins us to Christ.
I pray that I may be aware of the physical needs of the poor
and that I may share what I can with them
in the charitable works of the Church.
I pray, O Holy Spirit,
that You will in Your mercy
grant me the favor I have sought in this novena…

State your request here…

Come, O Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of Your faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of Your love.

Amen

MM4 – A Marian Moment – Reflections on the Blessed Virgin Mary

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From the writings of St. John of Damascus

She opened to us the unspeakable abyss of God’s love for us. Through her the old enmity against the Creator is destroyed. Through her our reconciliation with him is strengthened, peace and grace are given to us, men are made the companions of angels, and we, who lived in dishonor, are made the children of God. From her we’ve plucked the fruit of life. From her we’ve received the seed of immortality. She’s the channel of all our goods. In her, God was Man, and Man was God. What could be more marvelous or more blessed than that?

Prayer of St. Athanasius:

O Virgin, Ark of the Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the Flesh in which God resides.

The Gift of the Holy Spirit – A reflection by Dr. Anthony Lilles

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From Beginning to Pray authored by Dr. Anthony Lilles

Pentecost is a Feast of Love. It is the feast of the Canticle of Canticles where the Bridegroom comes to kiss his Bride. Today the Church cries out to her Bridegroom for a divine kiss, a kiss from the mouth of God. It is this kiss entrusted to frail humanity that makes all the difference in the world and in our lives. It is by this kiss that God discloses the depths of his love, that He surrenders His Holy Spirit to each of us in the most unique and particular way. It is the kiss God entrusts to humanity from the Cross.

The Holy Spirit is the life of the soul. He is the great gift that the Risen Lord breaths into the world. When lovers kiss, it is as if they are trying to breath their spirits into each other. Each wants the other to completely possess the gift of who they are. It is by way of a holy kiss that Christ breaths his Holy Spirit into the Church.

The whole Church and each of us as members of this mystical Body, through this same Gift, want to give everything we have to Christ and find in ourselves the power to do so and the inner conviction that we do not want to have it any other way. This is because with the Gift of the Holy Spirit we realize this is exactly the way God has loved us in Christ Jesus.

Wherever the Spirit blows, the most beautiful affections are ignited in our humanity. The Spirit of the Father and the Son moves us with a passion so sacred that it raises us up above ourselves. Such holy desires caused by the Fire of God in us allow us to participate in the very life of God.

The more humble we are, the more the kiss of Christ permeates the deep places of our hearts. He won the right to enter into these deep places, to breath his Holy Spirit into these depths, by emptying Himself until he became like us. In solidarity with our humanity, having embraced this most frail work of his creation to his Uncreated Nature in his Divine Person, He allowed himself be completely vulnerable to us – like a lover who attempts to disclose his love to the beloved. Spurned and rejected from the beginning, He would not give up on the friendship He yearned to share with us. He offered his kiss to a distrustful humanity by humbling Himself in the face of our pride and overcame our hostility to Him by his death. When we gaze on Him who died for us, always we see His arms are wide open, ready to embrace us. He waits to kiss us with the Gift of His Spirit whenever we allow our hearts to be pierced by his love.

Will we surrender to his kiss? Will we allow ourselves to be caught up in his love? True, the more we offer ourselves in love, we find ourselves dying to our old way of life. It is the pathway of surrender and trust. We are afraid of this — abandoning our old way of life leads somewhere with which we are not familiar. But the kiss of Christ is so beautiful, so life giving, it is worth this death a thousand times over. Let Him kiss you with the Kisses of his Mouth!

RC#1 – History, with Arms Upraised – The Resilient Church w/ Mike Aquilina

Episode 1 – History, with Arms Upraised

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The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina, offers a fascinating look at the trials and triumphs of the Catholic Church over the past two thousand years. Fast-paced sketches of critical periods in church history give readers perspective on the challenges faced by the church today. Mike Aquilina does not shrink from the realities of the past, including badly behaved leaders and those who betrayed the Lord. Yet he also leaves us all with well-founded hope for the future: God remains faithful in every circumstance and fulfills his promise to remain with his church always.

Pick up a copy of Mike’s book.

Also visit Mike’s “Discerning Hearts” page for more audio downloads and information!