Barb Spies, OFS, Director of Mission Services and Pastoral Care

We celebrated Pentecost Sunday this week. The name comes from the arrival of the Holy Spirit fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus at Easter. The disciples experienced the coming of the Holy Spirit much like the way we experience the wind. We cannot see the wind, but we can observe its effects. They also saw tongues of fire that seemed to land on the believers. Jesus’ followers were able to speak in other languages so that all might know the saving truth of Easter.    

We call on the Holy Spirit to fill our lives. We desire  the presence of the Spirit to guide us in our days and to make our hearts complete. We ask the Spirit to come again as fire from above to melt all hardness of heart and enable us to forgive those who have hurt us. We plead with the Holy Spirit: make your home within us, fill us with your love that we might share with others.

Throughout the year, we remember the lives of saints who have been filled with the Holy Spirit. The great works they have done, the miracles they have performed, the guidance they offer us on how to live holy lives comes from their experience with the Holy Spirit.

In this year when we remember the Felician Sisters arriving in North America 150 years ago, we are reminded of the gifts of the Spirit that filled these women and that guided Blessed Mary Angela Truskowska to start her ministry in the first place. May we also be filled with the gifts of the Spirit.

Come Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit
and they shall be created.
And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit,
did instruct the hearts of the faithful,
grant that by the same Holy Spirit
we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations,
Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Blessed Angela: “Desire more and more to grow in the love of God.”