O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul, I adore you. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I ought to do, and command me to do it. I promise to submit myself to all that You ask of me, and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Only let me know Your will. Amen.
“Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth!”
The Holy Spirit, in Our Labors Rest Most Sweet
Note: Meditations for Days 1 through 8 are based on the book Come Creator Spirit, by Rev. A. Biskupek, SVD, now out of print.
Labor is a synonym for work and activity, but it connotes a spending of our selves that can cost us a heavy price, besides bringing discomfort, pain and weariness. Apostolic labor can involve us in travail and suffering of body and soul, as we share in Christ’s redemptive sufferings. Rest implies that all this pain, discomfort, and weariness cease and our exhausted energy is restored and renewed even if the strenuous labor must continue on.
The Holy Spirit who can indeed give us rest after labor, can also give us rest in the midst of labor. He inspires in us the love of Christ that urges us on, making us capable of enduring tremendous efforts and hardships without counting the cost if only God can be known and loved and served as He deserves. The Holy Spirit accomplishes this in a soul through the inpouring of His light and love. He it is who leads us to rest like a beloved infant in the bosom of the Eternal Father, a practice so dear to St. Paul of the Cross.
This interior resting of our spirit in God is so necessary for our perseverance in serving Him and serving the Church in these difficult times. It is a key to a daily renewal of strength and courage. Let us listen to St. Paul the Apostle writing to the Corinthians: ( 2 Cor 6:4-10) “In all that we do, we strive to present ourselves as ministers of God, acting with patient endurance, amid trials, difficulties, distresses, beatings, imprisonments and riots; as men familiar with hard work, sleepless nights and fastings; conducting ourselves with innocence, knowledge and patience in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love, as men with the message of truth and the power of God...whether honored or dishonored...dead yet here we are alive; punished but not put to death; sorrowful though always rejoicing; poor yet we enrich many. We seem to have nothing, yet everything is ours!”
What the Holy Spirit accomplished in the Apostle Paul, He can accomplish in us and He will do it to the degree pleasing to His wisdom and in proportion to our generosity. “With innocence, knowledge and patience in the Holy Spirit,” our spirits are directed, consoled and strengthened, and brought to rest in the love and embrace of our Heavenly Father. He whose power is infinite, knows no obstacles, fatigue or exhaustion. All human strength and power are just small drops of His divine energy. The Holy Spirit can change our labor into rest by an abundant infusion of His power, light and love. We must admire the wisdom of God who imposes the law of labor but can turn it into rest for our hearts who are made one with the Will of our Father, as we rest with Jesus in His loving bosom, knowing ourselves to be His beloved children.