Come Holy Spirit
We all love passion –young love, a grandparent’s delight, winners at the Olympics, medical professionals finding a cure – the story of these people light up our hearts and give us joy. We all love passion – but if we are sensible, we also fear it – marital affairs, money lost through gambling, children neglected because of parents’ other interests – we know the grief and heartache that comes from passion gone awry. We all love passion – because the alternative is a dreary life, bogged down by boredom, and crippled by sadness.
The secret to having good passion is to look to the source. When our passions are based on our own selfish desires, even though they may feel ‘good’ at the beginning, they will end in grief. But if they are based on love of God and care of others and of our own selves, we will grow into the fullness of love and life and, even though our circumstances may be difficult, we will have joy.
The source of good, even great, passion is the Holy Spirit, the gift of God’s love to us. This coming Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, the feast of this Holy Spirit. Now is a good time for stocktaking the passions in your life. How do you do that? By actually noting what you do and asking yourself what are your habits. Not the ‘gunna dos’ by which we often make our self image, but what we really do. As we see who we are, we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us the wisdom and courage to embrace passions that will actually make us the work of art God wants each of us to be.
Loving God, send into our hearts and lives your fire of love, the Holy Spirit. In the wisdom of the Spirit may we love our family, friends and community, as Jesus would love them. We ask this in his name confident that you will hear us.
Sr Kym Harris osb