‘Come O Holy Spirit…Help us in our Trouble’
First Reading: Acts 15 1-2, 22-29
Gospel: John 14: 23-29
In the first reading today, we hear about the first big meeting of the church. We see that a vital decision was reached through the guidance and inspiration of The Holy Spirit. It reveals to us something amazing about the power of God’s spirit.
In the Gospel reading Christ promises his followers, the night before his violent and torturous death, that when he returns to the Father, the Holy Spirit would be sent to them. What an amazing promise!
And not only this, they are promised that the same spirit would teach them all things and remind them all that Christ had taught them. This completely gratuitous outpouring of the very life of God leads us to a place of perfect love and peace.
I have always experienced that The Holy Spirit ” breathes where it wills”; a source of enlightenment and inspiration in our time of great need.
This was the reality I experienced first hand as a child and young adult growing up in a very troubled and divided City, when my Mother would often pray, “Come Holy Spirit and enkindle within us the fire of your healing love and help us in our trouble”
The example of my late Mother Catherine’s faith, even when her own innocent first born son was murdered in a violent death, is proof to me that the power of God’s Holy Spirit
empowers us to lead lives of dignity, and the utmost integrity, in the midst of great trouble and fear.
PRAYER
God our loving Father,
through your Holy Spirit you lead us to the place of perfect love and peace.
In our time of great need, you are the source where we find true enlightenment and inspiration in our trouble.
Come Holy Spirit, the very life of Christ our saviour, and enkindle within us the fire of your healing love.
Amen
Reflection: Courtesy of Fr Joe McCollough
Picture by Keem Ibarra from Unsplash.com