Gifts And Fruits For Pentecost!

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='laetitia crucis' date='25 May 2010 - 07:21 PM' timestamp='1274833282' post='2117719']
Oh man... I laugh even more remembering my "status" that I've had the past few days (and continue to have). [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/paperbag.gif[/img]

[/quote]

What "status" have you received in the past few days? Have you reached a new Phatmass level and I didn't even notice? Heck, it's probably something even more important that I haven't noticed. [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/duh.gif[/img]

Edited May 26, 2010 by IgnatiusofLoyola

[laetitia crucis]

[quote name='IgnatiusofLoyola' date='25 May 2010 - 08:30 PM' timestamp='1274833844' post='2117737']
What "status" have you received in the past few days? Have you reached a new Phatmass level and I didn't even notice? Heck, it's probably something even more important that I haven't noticed.
[/quote]

It's the little "What's on your mind" thingy...

I quote Benjamin Linus: "Come on, come on, come on. Let's move it. Let's move it. Hippity hop. Hippity hop. Hipity hop."

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' date='25 May 2010 - 07:16 PM' timestamp='1274832982' post='2117710']
... maybe it was Joy? [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/upsidedown.gif[/img]
[/quote]

Yeah, you just want the "fun fruits" (that sounds like a new flavor of life savers). Come join me in "Self-Control." It's going to be a barrel of laughs![img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif[/img]

[Rebecca2009]

vee8, thanks for posting these writings! What a help it is to read these.

[vee]

[quote name='Rebecca2009' date='25 May 2010 - 08:10 PM' timestamp='1274836235' post='2117806']
vee8, thanks for posting these writings! What a help it is to read these.
[/quote]

It's been my pleasure actually as typing them up helps me to remember them. Plus like you said they really help so that makes it worth it right there.

[vee]

The sixth gift of the Holy Spirit.

Understanding

Lets look at the gift of understandi9ng. How many times in your life can you say that your will was totally united with God's? Has there ever been a time when you could perfectly understand God's plan? If you have, then you have really made progress. Youve begun to think as God thinks and plan as God does. Every time you have read Scripture and gotten something new from it, every time you looked at something and saw the spiritual meaning behind it, every time you have been intuitive and suddenly realized an invisible reality you have exercised the gift of understanding.

Scripture is the place where the gift of understanding is very important. Remember when Christ explained the Eucharist to the crowds. The Lord said, "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting" (John 6:56-57). and Scripture reports that they walked away, they did not understand. Jesus looked at His apostles and said, " do you also wish to go away?" Peter said, " Lord, to whom shall we go?" (John6:68). Peter understood what the crowds did not. Why was that? Because the minds, the hearts of these apostles sought the Lord. If you are seeking the Lord, you already have understanding. If you know what you need, you already have understanding.

This gift gives you intuitive vision: knowledge that you have not acquired by any visible means, not by a book or someone telling you. It is intuitive, directly from God-like a beam from God to your soul. when things are hard in your life, the Spirit will bring the word of Jesus to your mind- thats the gift of understanding. The Spirit of the Lord is so quiet, so elusive. He comes in the midst of such turmoil and chaos, if you are not listening you are liable to miss it. Thats why you need at least frive minutes of absolute silence, dead silence, so you can open up the valve of your mind and the door to your heart and say, "Lord, flood me with Thy grace and Thy words." Then along comes an idea of how to apply a particular piece of Scripture to your unique situation. Thats understanding in operation. It means I see how God is working in my soul. I(n this beautiful gift of understanding, faith is increased.

Understanding is the root of contemplative prayer. It is at the root of the ability to see Jesus everywhere. So a Christian looks at a tree and he sees the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He sees the hand of God in everything. He sees into the mystery of God's ways and will. He understands as God understands. St Peter says, to attain a participation in the divine nature, "you have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have" (2 Peter 1:5-6). You need to understand God's ways to be good.

This beautiful gift of understanding, the gift that makes you pray and gives you an intuition into the very Spirit of God, will make you productive and help you bear much fruit for God.

[vee]

Last but not least the seventh gift of the Holy Spirit as explained by Mother Angelica in her book Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality. Buy it.

She doesnt cover the fruits of the Holy Spirit in that book but Im trying to find if she explains them elsewhere.

Wisdom

The kind of wisdom that the Lord gives you is not discernment. The wisdom that God gives us is God Himself. St John says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...All things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing" (John 2:2,3). In the book of Wisdom, God is personified- the incarnate Word is personified by the word "Wisdom." So God is wisdom. You cant say He possesses wisdom or has wisdom. God is wisdom.

So when we speak of the gift of wisdom we are speaking of God giving us Himself. When we receive from the Holy Spirit the gift of wisdom, we receive in a very special way the Divine Indwelling. Thats what the gift of wisdom is all about: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living in me.

Thats why the mystics and the saints had such a horror of sin. Because it is sin that snatches away the Spirit of the Lord and makes a man devoid of God, and thats a lonely way to be.

Wisdom gave the apostles at Pentecost something they never had before, and that was a deep awareness of the presence of the invisible God within them. They knew in the very depths of their souls that they possessed God. People could see it in their eyes, in the joy on their faces, in their courage and suffering. There was something so real, so above anything they had seen before. It was love. It was a tangible drive, an awareness, an experience of God.

You have been given the same gift. It provides you with a deep assurance that you are constantly in the arms of God. He is so close.

Wisdom is that gift by which and through which you some how go into God and become one with Him. Its a mysterious gift, which ties together and encompasses all the other gifts of the Spirit. Wisdom reaches into counsel, that discerning self knowledge, and raises me up to be a son of God. Wisdom reaches into fortitude and gives me strength of soul to suffer, to die, to live, to laugh, to cry with love. Wisdom sees knowledge as that total detachment from every created thing, ever reaching up and out to God. Wisdom reaches into Scripture and sees things there no one sees; it discerns God's hidden meaning in every verse. Wisdom helps me see God as my God, Jesus and my Jesus, my Savior. Its very personal. St Paul says he "lived and died for me." It gives me such a personal relationship with Jesus as Redeemer and Sanctifier, as if I were the only person in the world. There is between myself and God, thanks to this gift, a total aloneness, and it reaches into the very depths of the heart and the soul.

Wow.

[laetitia crucis]

Thank you so much for these, vee8!

+1!!!

[let_go_let_God]

Vee that's amazing. Thanks for posting all of these.

God bless-
LGLG