The New Era and The Holy Spirit

 

Marie-Michel Philipon, O.P. (a great spiritual theologian who wrote many books on some of the greatest saints such as St. Therese of Lisieux and St Elizabeth of the Trinity) and Editor of Conchita, A Mothers Spiritual Diary, wrote: “To depart from the spirit of the Gospel and from the teachings of the Cross would be to deny Christ. We are speaking in the same sense Therese of Lisieux spoke of a "wholly new way." We are incontestably in a new era of spirituality.

What constitutes its newness is:
1)  A calling of all, even of the laity, even of married people, to the greatest holiness.
2)  Through transfiguration of daily life, the sanctification of the profane, divinization by faith, by love and by the spirit of sacrifice in ordinary life.
3)  The greatest holiness. Transcendence of the message of the Cross. Even the most banal (smallest) actions are made of value to the infinite by the offering of love in union with Christ, in imitation of the last years on earth of the Mother of God, in the service of the nascent (early) Church.  (Excerpts taken from Conchita’s Diary “A New Type of Holiness”, pgs. 244-245

 Pope Benedict XVI: 

“The love story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God’s will increasingly coincide:  God’s will is no longer for me an alien will, but is now my own will, based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply present to me than I am to myself.  (Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est)

Pope Benedict XVI: 

"Thus," the Pope said, "Jesus tells us that it is only in conforming one's own will to the divine will that the human being attains his true greatness, that he becomes 'divine'; it is only by going out of himself -- only in his 'yes' to God -- that the desire of Adam and of us all is fulfilled -- that of being completely free. This is what Jesus accomplishes in Gethsemane: by placing the human will within the divine will the true man is born, and we are redeemed."  (General Audience 2012)

 Pope John Paul II speaks of a “New and Divine Holiness:

In 1997 on the centenary of the founding of the Rogationist Fathers, in a letter to the Rogationists the Pope spoke about their founder, Saint Hannibal di Francia, saying, “The modern means that human sciences and contemporary technology make available and that you rightly try to use in your apostolic work will only be effective if they are sustained and guided by the original charismatic inspiration of the blessed founder (now Saint), who saw in the Rogate (in English – pray) the man God Himself had provided to bring about that “new and divine” holiness with which the Holy Spirit wishes to enrich Christians at the dawn of the third millennium, in order to “make Christ the heart of the world.”

…turning our eyes to the future, we confidently await the dawn of a new Day… “Watchmen, what of the night?” (Is. 21:11), and we hear the answer: “Hark, your watchmen lift up their voice, together they sing for joy: for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion”…. “As the third millennium of the Redemption draws near, God is preparing a great springtime for Christianity and we can already see its first signs.” May Mary, the Morning Star, help us to say with ever new ardor our “yes” to the Father’s plan for salvation that all nations and tongues may see his glory. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Message for World Mission Sunday, n.9, October 24th, 1999;

 “The world is exactly at the same point as when I was about to come upon earth. All were awaiting a great event, a new era, as indeed occurred. The same now; since the great event, the new era in which the Will of God be done on earth as It is in Heaven, is coming – everyone is awaiting this new era, tired of the present one, without knowing what this new thing, this change, is about, just as they did not know it when I came upon earth. This expectation is a sure sign that the hour is near.”  Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, Book of Heaven, July 14, 1923

To Conchita Our Lord said (Conchita, A Mothers Diary):

 "'It is time that the Holy Spirit reign.' Very moved, the Lord told me this. He went on, 'and not a remote reign as something very sublime, even though it be so and there is nothing greater than He since He is God united and consubstantial with the Father and the Word. But it is necessary that He reigns, here, right close, in each soul and in each heart, in all the structures of My Church. The day on which there will flow in each pastor, in each priest, like an inner blood, the Holy Spirit, then will be renewed the theological virtues, now languishing, even in the ministers of My Church, due to the absence of the Holy Spirit. Then the world will change, for all the evils deplored today have their cause in the remoteness of the Holy Spirit, the sole remedy. Let the ministers of My Church react, through the medium of the Holy Spirit, and the whole world of souls will be divinized. He is the axis around which revolve the virtues. There is no virtue without the Holy Spirit. The decisive impulse for raising up My Church from the state of prostration in which she lies, consists in reviving the cult of the Holy Spirit. Let His place be given Him, that is, the first in intellects and wills! No one will be lacking anything with this heavenly wealth. The Father and I, the Word, We desire an ardent and vitalizing renewal of His reign in the Church.'"

Conchita:  "Lord, yet the Holy Spirit reigns in the Church, why do You complain?"
Jesus: "Woe to Her were it not so!  Certainly the Holy Spirit is the soul of this so dearly loved Church! But that about which I am complaining is that there is such little consideration for this gift of heaven, and to Him there is not accorded the importance due. His devotion in hearts is routine and languishing, indifferent, secondary. This brings about countless evils not only in the Church but in all souls.”

 Jesus to Conchita: "May the whole world have recourse to this Holy Spirit since the day of His reign has arrived. This last stage of the world belongs very specially to Him that He be honored and exalted.”

From the Diary of St. Faustina:

Jesus: “You will cancel out your will completely during this retreat and, instead, my complete Will shall be accomplished in you.”  Write these words on a clean sheet of paper: “From today on, my own will does not exist”, then cross out the page.  And on the other side, write these words, “From today on, I do the Will of God everywhere, always, and in everything.”

For the rest of her life, St. Faustina prayed continually to be consecrated into a “living host” in whom the Will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit would reign as in the Blessed Sacrament.

 …at the “end time” the Lord’s Spirit will renew the hearts of men, engraving a new law in them. He will gather and reconcile the scattered and divided peoples; he will transform the first creation, and God will dwell there with men in peace. —Catechism of the Catholic Church

 According to the Cathechism of the Catholic Church (CCC #1352) the works of God are three:  Creation (God the Father), Redemption (Jesus) and Sanctification (The Holy Spirit)

 “I said that this will happen especially towards the end of the world, and indeed soon, because Almighty God and his holy Mother are to raise up great saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs.”  “These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides.  They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin.  Illumined by her light, strengthened by her food, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other.”  “…she is the dawn which precedes and discloses the sun of Justice, Jesus Christ...”   “As she was the way by which Jesus first came to us, she will again be the way by which he will come to us the second time, though not in the same manner.”  God Alone, True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis Marie de Montfort

  

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Your well beloved Spouse.

 

Lynne Bauer, JMJ