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The Fire of the Holy Spirit

IN WHAT WAYS HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVEN YOU INSIGHT ABOUT JESUS AND THE TRUTH? He is encouraging the disciples to be glad that he is going to the Father. The place they should we all should aspire to reach. Looking up to keep our path straight ascending to Heaven in our life climbing up the hill guided by the Holy Spirit as the Counselor like Moses was guided through the desert. Marking the path pointing at the signs that remind us of God`s words and the ones spoken by Christ. My father will love him and we will come to him - the man who loves us and calls us. It`s a two way avenue - God ----->man and man-----> God. You cherish the Word and in prayer fuelled by the Words heard you call for more help and counselling. Rising your eyes up to God. It`s joy travelling both ways whether it`s us leaving this bodily frame to reach God or Him sending us down the Dove with the olive branch. We are encouraged to always look up and search the sky: however dark and however troubled the waters, we must trust that when God wills we will see the white bird flying toward us. White like the robe that Christ wore at the Resurrection. WHAT THINGS CAN WE DO ''THE BRANCHES'' TO REMAIN IN JESUS ''THE VINE''? Love Love Love one another. Keep united and let the sap run around trusting the hand of the Farmer.WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HATE JESUS? There are certainly those who mistook him for a rebellious political leader. But the Kingdom is not an earthly one.The disciples do not belong to this world like maybe the prophets and all those who follow Jesus. If the other sin, they hate being reprimanded by Jesus although he came to lovingly cure the sick. They don`t want to accept the helping hand because they are blind to their own state. It`s the awareness of this that urges you to cry out for help.They plant pridefully and blindly their roots in the dry land of the flesh and oppose resistance. Some. Others is there some envy because they cannot let go? and yet they feel the pull? torn between God and the devil? they would like to be where they feel the disciples are but they become more rigid in their sin out of fear and insecurity? all the more in the ones who are closer to him: he is one of us and he has all this appeal power. Jelousy sets in rooted in envy. The ground had not been made productive by the OT words that had fallen on a ground that was hard and not fertile receptive. Some others reacted like that out of shock. Caught in the pit by panic. How many skills does a shepard need...a firm hand and a sensitive soul to feel the sheep pulse and instill trust. Most of all so many people expected a powerful king and not a humble servant. Erathly power blinds them to Christ real saving power and so he is seen as an impostor a liar. They think that by killing the body they kill the spirit and so their is not lasting joy. The reverse for the sorrow of the disciples. The Fire of Truth and Love the Holy Spirit is most powerful and overpowering. It can burn down any barrier - with time. It is this fire that is in Jesus words as he addresses the disciples.Think of the confused shaky disciples listening to these words..how often did he repeat them to them? i cannot myself but think of this fire now that without even them knowing he kept feeding through their souls and the still embers now it came alive again when they recognised him when he broke the bread and took the cup. Even the soldiers are struck to immobility when he declares I AM Jesus of Nazareth. Not only he doesn`t stop them he even encourages them to obey the orders and arrest him and proceed. The Fire of Love for humanity and the armour of Faith in Father. JESUS PRAYS FOR THOSE ENTRUSTED TO THE DISCIPLES Jesus prays for the souls he is entrusting the disciples...the ones they have already brought to him so that they be protected from the evil one and KEPT SAFE once cleansed of their sins with Jesus sacrifice dying for all of us friends of the disciples who are friends and not servants. Servants at the service of their friends mutual serving. Its the joining of human forces in the Fire of the Love /the Holy Spirit: Righteous Father, the world hasn`t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me. I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them. How do you interpret these words? For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. How can Jesus sanctify himself: isn`t he God? God made men but all men are called to bring God here on earth again by uniting themselves in the Eucharist. Burning of one Love.

By: Alessandra Parrini
Category: My Blog

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Jesus eternal presence through Truth and the Holy Spirit

1. IN WHAT WAYS HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVEN YOU INSIGHT ABOUT JESUS AND THE TRUTH? It`s a wind and a holy Flame that pervades and ignites each of us if we let it do so. If we are open to it. If we are open to accept the Truth that was given to us since creation. The Holy Spirit is the flame of Life breathed on us that makes us truly alive and is the Light that shows us the path: Christ the living lamp that illumines our steps and that makes us see the turnings choosing with our free will the good path from the evil one with the Commandments being the Compass held by the hand the rudder of Love. Every single action that Jesus did especially his obedience to the Father and dealing with the enemies shows that: not attacking and yet powerfully standing up for the Father. To the cost of his own physical life and all the sufferings endured to spread the Truth. Sustained by that Flame that he brought to us all. 2. WHAT THINGS CAN WE DO ''THE BRANCHES'' TO REMAIN IN JESUS ''TEH VINE''? WHY DO SOME PEOPLE HATE JESUS? They are too attached to the alluring shine of this world and cannot accept the call to detach themselves to it. Too proud of their humanity, they fail to see that the corn - the body - has to die so that the seed - the soul - can bear Fruit. They send out their roots in the earthly world and not in Jesus. In choosing the turning, they stir away from the Commandments God gifted humanity with the Alliance. 3. IN WHAT WAYS IS IT BETTER TO HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT RATHER THAN JESUS WITH US HERE ON EARTH? HOW CAN WE EXPERIENCE THE JOY JESUS PROMISES US WHEN IN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES? We must remember that God is a life giving force that trascends us all and that yet is immanent in all of us because He planted the seed of Likehood in everyone. We are called to cultivate it and make the Life of the Spirit Bloom. Nobody apart from Mary was present when God descended on her and filled her with the Holy Spirit generating the bodily Jesus. She was present with the disciples before Pentecost and although she probably tried to explain them the descent of the Holy Spirit, they could not understand fully. They did not recognise the stranger on the road to Emmaus and were depressed and discouraged because they had been trusting too much in Jesus physical presence - muscles, flesh and blood. They were probably relying on that themselves too much and although he repeated to them the Nourishing Words of the OT the promises, they seemed to be deaf. Until He broke the bread and took the Cup understanding did not shine in them. The Transfiguration and all the other words and gestures that had gradually prepared the understanding bloomed to life. Only God like with Nathaniel could have known. It was a thunderstruck experience I imagine. Like when we feel we are collapsing under our crosses - there is a Lightning that shakes us back to life. When God wills. Like a spiritual electroschock that makes our heart beats again. And we hear and see... 4. WHAT POINT IS JESUS MAKING WHEN SAYING THAT `ETERNAL LIFE` IS SEEING THE FATHER AND JESUS THE SON? WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF SENDING HIS DISCIPLES AROUND THE WORLD? WHAT CHARACTERISTICS SHOW THAT WE ARE ONE WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON? That the Son is in us and so as the Son is the Father that He is in us too through His Commandments, their total interiorisation. Being rooted in them. Listening to His voice and following His will: whatever He sets on our path, however stony the path under our feet, the more to our good. John Paul II`s words in the Salvific Doloris come to mind. Suffering through our crosses. God out of Love sent his Son and sacrificed him for our salvation: we should respond with a loving acceptance of the Son within us confirming the OT promises and glorifying our loving Father with our actions, abiding by his Commandments and building here on earth that Kingdom having those as the sustaining pillars. Christ his exemplary sacrifice being the cornerstone of it all. Becoming really one Body the Body of Christ. But Christ is God and as the Holy Spirit is the powerful wind of Love that unites us all and ignites us all through the ministering of the disciples ''of all millennia'' so we are called to be God so to say. We shall be one forever in Spirit - if here on earth we open ourselves to receiving the gracing flames of the Holy Spirit through Faith, the Sacraments, the life we live. Denying ourselves for the others. We are one here for a limited span of time and One for the rest of time. The Light Christ came through a dark human womb - like in a tunnel in the dark of our sinful nature salvation was sent to shine and guide us out. In that way the disciples are called to do: bringing that Fire that descended on them at Pentecost - and that shone again when the Holy Spirit was liberated from the limited physical frame of the physical Jesus that so can be everywhere an in everyone through the Eucharist. 5. WHY DO JESUS GO WILLINGLY WITH THOSE HE KNOWS WILL HARM HIM? Because that is the Father`s will. That is the Cup of suffering he was asked by the Father to drink for our redemption. because had he refused, what example of great disobedience he would have given to us that God the Father wants to become his inheritors? He would have nullified all the promises of the OT, denying all that the Father had gifted men with. He is giving us a living example of uttermost obedience and meekness - turning the other cheek and loving your enemy. That physical death is not what we should be concerened about but the death of the Soul that comes when we turn away from God the Father. That the greatest strenght lies in being rooted in the Father. God is love and love is what generated Jesus - love for humanity is what sustaineined Mary and Joseph who knew had to scarifice their only son for the salvation of humanity Abraham having preceded them and he was spared the final pain, but they had to go to the end. Jesus victory is not a rebellion against the Roman oppressors that reverts the political situation. He gives us the Strenght to face any phyisical and emotional pain: true rest is in the Father`s arms. It is this certainty this Faith that we can learn from him and that the disciples are called to spread - facing themselves all sort of trial to the point of martyrdom - and so so many Saints that constallated the centuries and so many anonymous non cannonised ones that are shining examples constellating even our darkest nights.

By: Alessandra Parrini
Category: My Blog

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Washing of the feet

Peter said to him, You will never wash my feet! What feelings do you think Peter feel then? surprise, schock, proud refusal. What?he seems to almost give an order to Jesus - I will not allow you to do that. They don`t understand and yet they had already seen Mary Magdalene washing Jesus feet and drying them with her hair.Maybe they hadn`t accepted the idea of his death and that was an act of loving toward somebody who soon will not have been with them any longer. They then think it`s a question of cleansiness of the heart and say why not washing my head too - head and hands committing sins. But the purity resides in the heart so they are talking like the Pharisees. They show humbleness though in saying this. Comes to mind Sunday 3d Feb Gospel on how we are called to spread the Word with our impure lips and fragile hands. Peter denied Christ three times and Paul had badly sinned against the Church but they were both graced by God`s redeeming love that always gives another chance to the truly repentant sinner. I suppose they were both men of great very powerful felings. Great fears and in the case of Peter great hatred, but properly cultivated and unleashed those were potentially very productive branches that needed proper tending. They had to be fully rooted in Christ the vine: and who is the most grateful? the one who feels most indebted for the weight of the debt condoned.

By: Alessandra Parrini
Category: My Blog

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