Presence of God

O Holy Spirit, make my heart merciful in imitation of the heart ofJesus.

Meditation

I. By the gift of counsel, the Holy Spirit wishes to take over the practical direction of our life that He may lead us to sanctity, because all Christian perfection, which was the object of the teaching ofJesus, is likewise the object of the gift of counsel, of the inspirations of the Holy Spirit : "He will teach you all things.. .whatsoever I shall have said to you" (Jo. 14, 29), the Master declared. Just as in the teaching of Jesus there is a dominant note, love, which He calls His commandment, so among the inspirations of the gift of counsel there is one which is generally recognized as the proper effect ofthis gift, and it is mercy.

When Jesus gave His commandment, He said : "Love one another, as I have loved you" (Jo. 15, 12); now the fundamental characteristic of His love, of the love of God for men, is precisely mercy. All creatures are misery in the eyes of God, misery incapable of subsisting without the continual intervention of His action. And we men, what are we? Not only misery incapable of subsisting, but misery capable of sinning : of ourselves "we are nothing, we can do nothing, we are worth nothing, we possess nothing except sin" (St. John Eudes). We are misery in the fullest sense of the word. Therefore, when God loves us, His love is essentially and necessarily an act of mercy; that is, it is love which stoops to our misery to elevate, sustain, and enrich it with His infinite riches. This is what the Holy Spirit proposes especially to accomplish in us by means of the gift of counsel : to teach us to imitate that mercy which is the chief characteristic of God’s love for us. The Holy Spirit w'ishes to bring us to the perfect observance of the commandment of Jesus, to the imitation of the merciful love of His divine heart : "Love one another as I have loved you"; and to bring us to reproduce the infinite mercy of the heavenly Father : "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful" (Lc. 6, 36).

II. God is infinitely merciful, because He knows the depths of our misery; we are far from being merciful because we know too little about it. By the gift of counsel, the Holy Spirit enlightens us on this point, particularly in regard to our own personal wretchedness. In our failures and in our falls, He repeats in the depths of our heart the warnings ofJesus : "Without Me you can do nothing. ... You are unprofitable servants" (Jo. 15, 5 - Lc. 17, 10). This lesson gradually becomes more and more vivid and effective through experience, and it penetrates our souls more deeply; we do not need long reasonings to persuade us of our insufficiency, our nothingness : we see it and touch it. The gift of counsel has opened our eyes to it.

This comprehension of our own personal misery makes us equally understanding of the misery of others. Flow can one who is really convinced of his own frailty, weakness, and inconstancy, dare to condemn others? "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone" (Jn 8,7), the Holy Spirit whispers to us interiorly when, annoyed by the faults of others, we may perhaps be tempted to imitate the cruel conduct of the Pharisees toward the woman taken in adultery. The Holy Spirit wishes to chisel the features ofJesus in us, transforming us into living images ofthe Savior; therefore, He gently and unceasingly urges us to be merciful. He puts into our hearts a love for the miserable : for those who are wretched both in the material and in the moral sense, so that, like Jesus, we may go in search of them, ready to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of their souls. Above all, He spurs us on to seek those who, because they have made us suffer, have a special claim to our mercy. We can no longer be satisfied with forgiving them and treating them with kindness, but we must experience the need of doing good to them if we are to fully carry out the teaching of Jesus : "Do good to them that hate you" (Mt. 5, 44).

This is the goal toward which the Holy Spirit wants to lead us by the gift of counsel, and in this way He will establish us in that perfect mercy ofwhich our divine Master has said : "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy" (Mt. 6, 7). Consider this most prudent advice of the Holy Spirit : be merciful, because "With what judgment you judge you shall be judged" (Mt. 7, 2).

Colloquy

"O Lord, I run to You because You are so good and merciful and because I know that You did not despise the poor nor hate the sinner. You did not reject the thief who confessed his sins, nor the weeping Magdalen, nor the supplicant Canaanite woman, nor the woman taken in adultery, nor the tax collector sitting at his counter, nor the publican who implored Your mercy, nor the Apostle who denied You, nor even those who crucified You. I am drawn by the perfume of Your graces.

"I have inhaled the fragrance ofYour mercy and I come to You to be strengthened by it. Blessed is the man who, following Your example, has a heart filled with compassion for the unfortunate. Blessed is he who is merciful and quick to help those who are in need, he who remembers that it is more blessed to give than to receive, who is quick to forgive and slow to anger, who never takes revenge, but in all circumstances considers the needs of others as though they were his own. O Lord, pour into my soul the dew of Your mercy, fill my heart with charity, that I may know how to be all things to all men and be so dead to myself that I live only for the good of others. Teach me to distil the sweet perfume of mercy, which is composed of the needs of the poor, the anguish ofthe oppressed, the anxieties ofthe afflicted, the failures of sinners, and finally, all the pains of those who suffer, even if they be my enemies. All these things are repugnant to my nature, but the fragrance one draws from them surpasses all other odors, because, as You have said, it has the power to give eternal life : ‘ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy. ’ O Lord, grant that I may pour out this perfume, not only on Your head and on Your feet, but on Your whole body, which is the Church, so that it will lessen the sorrows of all Your suffering members" (cf. St. Bernard).